www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall UK to block online porn

Halal Google Gives Muslims An Internet Free Of Vice

The Huffington Post | By Yasmine Hafiz Posted: 07/24/2013 6:43 am EDT | Updated: 07/24/2013 9:18 am EDT

Halalgoogling.com is dreaming big, as they aim to become, "the number one search engine in the Muslim community." Simply put, the site's strict filters prevent users from accessing haram, or forbidden, content through the search engine, although according to their blog, users can do much more.

Haram literally means "forbidden," and is applied to moral and dietary guidelines for Muslims, whereas halal means "permissible."

From their blog:

Halalgoogling has a special filtering system that excludes Haram (forbidden) sites or content from the search results such as pornography, nudity, gay, lesbian, bisexual, gambling, anti-Islamic content or anything else that is Haram according to the Islamic law.

The Haram filtering system is not the only creative technology that makes Halalgoogling unique. We also offer many other innovative features like Category assistant, Random topics, Quick look, Special Shopping and other.

Google beware!

This is what happens if you try to look for porn on HalalGoogle:
halal google

Pretty advanced stuff.

How does one develop a "haram filter," you ask? According to their press release, a team of international "internet experts" has been hard at work for years to determine what is halal or haram according to "the Law of Islam."

So why Halalgoogling? The makers of of the tool cite easy access to pornography as one of the internet's biggest dangers, particularly with regard to the large amount of children that use it. According to the blog, approximately 90% of children aged 8 to 16 have seen Internet porn.

Their Twitter announces that an app for iOS users is coming soon, so people can HalalGoogle on their iPads to their heart's content. The Android app is already up and running on Google Play.

It's worth playing around with to see which search pages have been altered the most, and Kim Kardashian is a case in point. The curvaceous reality star and new mother has apparently been deemed almost totally haram, and her search results are almost completely scrubbed of anything that actually relates to her.

Halalgoogling.com joins a host of other religiously-oriented search engines, such as Jewogle, a parody which "celebrates the Jewish contribution to civilization," and SeekFind.org, a Christian website with content filters that prevent users from accessing pages that attack or denigrate their faith.

The proposed law should be judged upon its merits alone, not whether the government officials proposing it are also proposing other, evil, laws. No one is claiming that by proposing this law that the British government has become the Immaculate Administration.



I worked in the technology field for 14 years, including eight years for internet hosting companies (one of which I owned), so I'm quite familiar with the "facts" in this area. And the fact is that internet filters can "work," it just depends on what you mean by "work."

Does it mean that it becomes impossible to view pornography? If that is your standard then it is true that filters don't "work."

Does it mean that it becomes more difficult to view pornography, and requires one to work harder to view it? Is so, then yes, they can "work."

If the standard of every law was whether it "works," then we would have no laws at all, for people still commit murder, steal and drive over the speed limit. Yet laws do point to the proper behavior expected in a society and help to make it easier to live in such a manner.

The standard for any law is whether the costs--economic, political and social--are commensurate with the benefits derived therefrom. Perfect example: Prohibition.

Well, Stuart, if it keeps just ONE small child from seeing those images, or being hurt by someone, then it is commensurate.

Perhaps you think that liberal rights of selfish people and groups that care nothing for anyone other than themselves, are more important than the collective rights of innocents, but I most certainly do NOT.

I suppose we'd better just have dome with electricity then.

On the contrary, I think you'd be making a mistake not to look at the history of a government before handing it new powers to control people, and even then, to give hard thought to who may end up inheriting those new powers once you've made them. And I think giving more power of censorship to the UK government and handing them a chance to practice censoring the internet is terrifying folly. But hey, if it saves one kid, who cares what it destroys, right? What's so great about freedom of expression anyway?

That ought to say "have done with".

Well, JDC, this phobia of laws that protect children is really strange!

I don't know how old you are, but guess what, censorship on television was the norm in this country for a very long time, and because of it, no one was the worst off--in fact, most of us Boomers had a wonderful, safe, and wholesome childhood--with television shows that did not promote the obscene, the crass, the rude and obnoxious, the overtly sexual, and the macabre to us kids...

Contrary to what Stuart would like to believe, yes, we could roam for hours alone in forests and on city streets ALONE and not one of us was ever approached in a van or outright abducted. NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD ALLOW THAT TODAY!
Yes, we can be thankful to the demon of child porn for that...let's not take those liberties away from these men.

And yes, even in my neighborhood where we were quite the community, we got the inevitable letters home about men in vans trying to entice children walking (the two or three blocks) home from school.

Television shows in the days of censorship had values and taught us respect and morality, and as a cherry on the whipped cream, television shows that were safe enough for mom to cook dinner and let us be entertained with our siblings, cousins and friends in front of the television, without any worry. They were not any less entertaining because of censorship. No one, young or old ever complained or whined that they wanted bad language and sexuality because they weren't entertained without it. LOL.

Most YOUNG moms TODAY that I know, liberal ones in fact, speak of the unmentionable effort and stress in trying to limit and protect their children from the ugliness that assaults the senses on television and the internet.

Infact, Mrs. Obama allows only ONE HOUR of internet A WEEK to her daughters! Not every mother is able to do that, because not every mother has the conveniences that she has to be that controlling and strict.

In fact, that pion of all things virtuous and praiseworthy in music and entertainment (rolling eyes), Madonna Ciccone, kept her daughter Lourdes and son Rocco from ALL television and internet the years that she lived in the countryside of England. During their formative years, she boasted that she was extremely strict and that they were only allowed to read books for entertainment, and I am sure that those books weren't her infamous 'Book of Sex'.

Again, even those who have promoted the dangerous society we sadly find ourselves in, know its dangers once they have children!

Perhaps, JDC, you will change your mind about how precious the liberty of viewing pornography on the internet is once YOU have children. I would even bet that once you do, you would HOPE for such government censorship of it.

I am shocked, personally, that people who care enough about their faith to write on internet forums, would ever, ever, ever condone and advocate the 'freedom' of easily accessible hard porn on the internet! I would love to hear what the contemporary elders and saints of Mt. Athos would have to say about all this! They know, intimately, of the very real demons that use these 'freedoms' to enter the soul and to destroy people. There is a reason that the Fathers warn about purity of the senses and caution what the eyes see.

Unlike alcohol and marijuana that hurts, on the most part, only the person who partakes of it, pornography not only hurts the soul of the viewer, but in its easy access, also the souls of countless innocent and pure children!

Jesus said: “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he was drowned in the depth of the sea.” Those who don't care about children and their purity, Jesus implies, are damned.

So, I would never equate freely accessed pornography that children are coming across because of a lack of filters, with prohibition!

For all those who advocate so greatly for it, it did exist before the internet--in seedy neighborhoods. I am sure even with the filters, whoever is interested, can still find it, so one should not worry so much about their 'freedom' and being 'government controlled'.

(BTW, I really don't buy the 'government control' business, because there are many aspects of people's lives which government controls and no one seems to care, but voices only raise up in horror when it is about anything sexual, even if it means protecting children!!! So where does the "terrible folly" really lie?)

I have lots of children.

I still think you're dangerously wrong.

I'm in agreement with pretty much everything Alice said on this one. Growing up in the '50s and '60s with the censorship we had back then of TV and movies was a good and healthy thing, in my opinion. Yes, there was pornography then, and I'm sure those who wanted it could get it, but the rest of society didn't have to go to all kinds of lengths to keep it away from their children or themselves. Freedom doesn't mean anyone gets to do whatever they want, no matter how it impacts other people. There have to be some kind of objective moral and ethical standards against which we decide what is right and wrong, and what we, as a civilized society, will allow. Up until very recently, in Western society, Judeo-Christian morality was the accepted standard. Now, all that's changing, as we've discussed here numerous times, and our society and our laws are reflecting the rejection of these values. Everyone should have the "freedom" to live as they want, marry who they want. There's some group that advocates sex with children as healthy. How long before they begin to fight for their "civil rights," including depiction in films and on TV in a "sympathetic" light? When I lived in Bulgaria (1996-2005), I was shocked to see pornographic photos (sometimes quite large photos) displayed on the dashboards of public buses, and even on the panel behind the drivers seat so that the photo was facing the passengers, where everyone had to see them, including children. When I expressed my dismay about this, I was told, "That's democracy. We're a free country now. No more Communism. Everyone is free to do what they want." I was horrified that they thought freedom meant that anyone could basically do pretty much anything, short of murder, and it was okay. That's not freedom, that's anarchy. and the disintegration of a civilized society. Lines do need to be drawn, and standards do need to exist. That which is outside them will always exist, but let it exist outside the mainstream of society, not be made an integral part of it.

As I noted many times before, there are some people here who are just too comfortable with the totalitarian temptation. They would like to see virtue imposed from above, rather than cultivated from within.

It is worth noting, Alice, that child abductions are not more common now than they have been in the past. That you think they are, and all in capital letters no less, makes me wonder how far your false sense of security extends.

I don't know why anyone would look back seriously on the 50's or 60's as decades of virtue. In any case, government censorship has served mainly, I think, to lull generations of parents into thinking that the crumbling standards of the state are synonymous with morality; after all if it wasn't okay for kids, it wouldn't be on TV, or in the curriculum, or on store shelves.

We have proof all around at how poorly this tack has worked, and how ultimately destructive it has been for the Church and for the family, yet we still hear calls from decent Christian folk for the state to send us salvation.

I told her as much (and also told her the vast number of child abductions are committed by non-custodial parents), but what are you going to believe? FBI statistics, or Cable News Network?

No need to be snarky. If you note, I never said "if it saves one kid..." So if you are responding to my post (which you were), please restrict your comments to my argument.

Granting too much authority to the government (any government) is a legitimate concern. A government can very easily move from limiting pornography to limiting all "dangerous" content to defining Catholic content as "dangerous." So I am aware of - and concerned about - the dangers of any type of government action in this area.

And yet there is a proper role for government restricting certain types of behavior. This has been affirmed by Christians East and West since the time of St. Paul. Although I am personally attracted to libertarian thought and want a very limited government, the abuses we see in many governments today do not negate their proper use. In my mind the dangers posed by pornography - and its addictive nature (studies have shown that pornography can be as addictive as crack cocaine) - do warrant a legal restriction on its dissemination, even though I realize such a law might be abused in the future.

Again, if we refuse to implement laws because they might be ignored by the people or abused by the government, then we would have no laws at all.