Livin' the life...

Firstly, for those of you that don't know, I'm a Christian. Ya sike? Good. Now onto the posT...

Lately, I've received about 4 invites with the subject "Join me on christianvibes.com". These invites have come from persons whom I consider are pretty legit and serious about their faith. So I browsed to the site to see this thing for myself.

When I got there, it honestly looked like a good site, no banners, no ads and it even gives pictures of its members, WITHOUT one logging in or anything. BUT, with pictures and emails and all this other documentation it holds on its members, surely there must be some Privacy Policy link... Hmm.. I don't see one. BUT, probably one can check the About Us link to find out more about this place/site/online community... Hmm.. I don't see one.

Ok Ok, enough with the fluff, now to the meat of this post.

ChristianVibes is one of the online networking sites, belonging to a Jamaican-based company called Vibesnetwork (Ref). This fact in itself is cool, a regional company doing their thing, great! BUT the interesting thing to me comes about when I find out that Vibesnetwork also own another networking site called SmutVibes. Upon browsing to this site (please don't do it at work), you'll see at the bottom some links for porn sites. Yes, that's correct, Porn Sites. Also, if you were to just skim through the slide show they have there on the main site, you'll see some rather, .. "questionable" photos (aka people in the nude - partially or entirely). Remember, I haven't even logged in, this stuff is viewable by the public at large.

Now I ask, Christians, is this cool with you? Are you willing to subscribe with a site that is run by people who support porn etc. etc.? It's surely NOT OK with me. I'll be giving that one a miss.

Also, one may want to research BigChurch.com, another Christian network site, before you take the plunge there as well. ;It has been reported that that's owned by the Friendfinder Network, an organisation which also owns Adult Friendfinder (don't view this site at work). It also has been reported that they own another site called Out Personals (a gay site; don't view this at work either).

Now you see why we as Christians need to keep our eyes open, and do the necessary research instead of just joining anything that crosses our paths. Come on people, we will know them by their fruit, remember?

PS.1. I refused to put a link to SmutVibes or Adult Friendfinder on my site, browse to them yourself if you so desire.

PS.2. If this link is 100% accurate, that is a sad.. story.

PS.3. I'm glad I don't have Google AdSense on here yet, if ever. I can't imagine how much and what type of ads that content above with the word "porn" in it would put on my site. Hmm, to think of it, I guess that's a limiting factor of Adsense, ie you can only put stuff on your site which you want ads relating to. Never thought of that... Interesting. I'm sure GLAD I'm NOT constrained! (I'm not 100% sure that Google AdSense would bring back links on porn based on what I have in my content above, but, I think it would and I'm not up for taking that chance.)

PS.4. I hope I didn't come across too strong and offend you... it was not my intention, I just have very strong views on this topic.