Feeling dirty from the endless hours stalking your “friends” on Facebook? Maybe it’s not your priorities that need fixing but your social network. Introducing FaceGlat, a kosher rendition of Facebook that keeps the ladies and gents separate before you can “like” a thing. As you hit the bilingual homepage, men and women part their separate ways like a digital sea, and are separate forever more. Filters are at code red levels, deleting inappropriate words, pictures, and traif users.
Says 25-year-old Israeli programmer Yaakov Swisa to Nerve about his virtue-seeking Zuckerbergian venture:
Orthodox Jews need the internet at home and at work alike. My website allows them to browse freely, while offering them maximum security. It also reassures parents who worry about their children going on pages that everybody can consult.
That this new development in social networking exists is progress, putting a tool in the hands of folks who wouldn’t pick it up before this fresh Purell cleansing. The Russian version of Facebook, Odnoklassniki, has been an international hit, rekindling old friendships thought forever lost after immigrating.
However, the network built on the fundamental premise of censorship puts it on par with Google in China. Embracing technology is a great natural urge toward progress; the challenge comes in for Swisa and the online community to integrate it with the seemingly opposing force of traditional segregation and censorship.
But that’s not to say it couldn’t work: I suppose it’s this loyalty to conservative values that has made the hit genres of lesbian and gay porn so glat in Israel.