It puts a lot of features at the fingertips of the faithful, including the ability to filter whole neighborhoods by religion, ethnicity, “Hispanic country of origin,” “assimilation,” and whether there are children living in the household.

Its core function is to produce neighborhood maps and detailed tables of data about people from non-Anglo-European backgrounds, drawn from commercial sources typically used by marketing and data-harvesting firms.

training videos produced by users show the extent to which evangelical groups are using sophisticated ways to target non-Christian communities, with questionable safeguards around security and privacy.

In one instance, he points to the sharable note-taking function and suggests leaving information for each household, such as “Daughter left for college” and “Mother is in the hospital.”

increasingly popular among Christian supremacist groups, prayerwalking calls on believers to wage “violent prayer” (persistently and aggressively channeling emotions of hatred and anger against Satan), engage in “spiritual mapping” (identifying areas where evil is at work, such as the darkness ruling over an abortion clinic, or the “spirit of greed” ruling over Las Vegas), and conduct prayerwalking (roaming the streets in groups, “praying on-site with insight”).

newly arrived refugees might well find a knock on the door from strangers with knowledge of their personal circumstances distressing—and that’s before these surprise visitors even begin to attempt to convert them.

placing people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds on easy-to-access databases is a dangerous road to go down

    • Fapper_McFapper@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I tried but they want you to give them your home address and I didn’t feel like doxing myself. I’m going to have to come up with a different home address that’s valid in their system. At the same time I don’t want to cause grief for the person whose address I use. Maybe I can use a church address.

    • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      Yeah I’m wondering what happens if we download it and start giving it bad data. Just say everyone is Christian, or that you’ve met with everyone in your town every day.

      • Piece_Maker@feddit.uk
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        8 months ago

        Why would you say everyone’s a Christian? Might as well have some fun. Change all the ones marking themselves as Christians to say that they’re gay liberal polygamists or something.

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          I figured obviously incorrect data on potential users of the app would be sussed out rather quickly, but posing as a devout bigot who has been converting everyone in town would be more “believable.”

      • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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        8 months ago

        Just giving it random data should be good enough. If the users can’t trust the validity of the data, they might stop using the app.

  • Jubei Kibagami@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    So, in theory, The Satanic Temple could make an app to mark all the Christian households then. I wonder if they’d be interested in that.

      • Jubei Kibagami@lemmy.world
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        I suppose that app of theirs would work both ways 😂 But the temple app could open with a splash page of the Baphomet statue with the children.

        • SecretSauces@lemmy.world
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          Do you think if the Satanic Temple made a line-by-line copy of their app, but painted it black/red, the Evangelists would cry foul and complain about everything we’re complaining about?

          What am i saying? Of course they would.

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    8 months ago

    Interesting.

    If they’ve built an app that can target non-christian demographics, then they’ve also built an app to target christians.

    I wonder if they’ve made that realization yet.

  • Fapper_McFapper@lemmy.world
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    Fucking Christians, they just can’t believe in their fairy tale daddy in the sky and leave the rest of us alone, they have to smear their god like shit everywhere. Religion is a mental illness, it’s long overdue we start treating it that way.

      • Fapper_McFapper@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        lol, it’s going to turn into a hunting app with best times to hunt, type of heathen, etc. it would be funny if it weren’t so scary.

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    Wow, the Christian app that lets you sort people by religion ALSO lets you sort them by race and ethnicity?

    I am shocked. SHOCKED!

    Well, not that shocked.

  • friend_of_satan@lemmy.world
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    Big brother who art in heaven, surveillance be thy name. Thy data come, recon be done, stored in SQL as it is in heaven. And lead us not into frustration, for thine is Consistent, Available, and Partition tolerant. COMMIT ;

    select * from prayer_requests where response = 'yes' ;
    
    0 rows returned
    
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    Very much creepy and very much on brand with evangelical assholes who prey on the less fortunate.

    Still, I suppose it will give me more of an opportunity to tell them to kindly fuck the hell off my property when they ask for the ‘nice Asian family that lives here’ when my very Italian wife answers the door as they stand there looking very confused.

    • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      That may work at first but if the religio-fascists take over the government, they won’t be asking anymore.

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    The fact white supremacists hijacked the Christian religion and is using it to effectively push their ideology is telling. I remember when they tried to take over punk music and were quickly told “ Nazi Punks Fuck Off”. Turns out punks have better morals than Christians. Hilarious.

    • vala@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Turns out punks have better morals than Christians.

      I don’t think that any reasoning person thought otherwise.

      • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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        Were you around for the satanic panic bullshit in the 70s or 80s? They painted punks (which were lumped in with metalheads and anyone who didn’t dress like yuppies) as dangerous degenerates back then.

        Worked as a nice filter to gain more independent thinkers into those genres though I guess, so it worked out in the end.

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          I wasn’t around personally but I’m familiar with the story.

          My point is really that any reasoning person sees that the punk mindset is generally pretty morally sound.

          I don’t think the parents, preachers and politicians involved in the satanic panic were super logical people tbh.

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      “Hijacked” implies they weren’t a welcomed part of it from the beginning.

      • Cuttlefish1111@lemmy.world
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        Yes they’ve always been racist, But this time it’s much different. Nazis and white Supremacists have blended in with them. I believe this a very important nuanced distinction.

      • Cuttlefish1111@lemmy.world
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        No doubt, yet I feel the movement (to expand) has been organized and pushed by white supremacists and not Christians.

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    This is going to be real Handy for them the day they try to put us all up against the wall.

    • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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      So many people in this comment section not getting it. This is a list of people they will send to the camps. They’re preparing for when the fascists take over.

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    prayerwalking calls on believers to wage “violent prayer” (persistently and aggressively channeling emotions of hatred and anger against Satan)

    In other words first they will use words then move on to more “persuasive” methods when that doesn’t work.

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      Okay, so this app is super messed up, but this take on prayerwalking is the equivalent to satanic panic for D&D.

      Prayerwalking is just what the portmanteau describes. Sometimes it contains an evangelistic bent of looking for specific people to pray with or whatever, but mostly it’s just people out praying for people and places.

        • Ashyr@sh.itjust.works
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          Completely agree. I genuinely believe everyone should be allowed to believe and behave how they want, free from coercion, so long as they aren’t inhibiting anyone else’s ability to believe or behave as they please.

          I think there’s plenty to criticize here without resorting to the same outlandish polemics they employ.

      • MrsDoyle@lemmy.world
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        “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. … But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” Matthew 6:5-6

        • Ashyr@sh.itjust.works
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          I don’t disagree with the sentiment, though the historical context makes the statement very different. The point wasn’t that you can only pray in private. The point was you can’t use apparent piety to increase your social collateral.

          Doubtless, some of these people are only out there for exactly that reason. Others because they genuinely care and are deeply misguided in how best to demonstrate that concern.

          • atrielienz@lemmy.world
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            They won’t accept historical context for anything they believe in. Why should this be any different?

            • Ashyr@sh.itjust.works
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              Because we should at least be consistent in our arguments even if they’re not. That’s why I’m saying anything at all.

  • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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    Of course it’s some shit-stain in Florida doing this.

    Just Google map search Mapping Center for Evangelism and his home address pops up.

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    I had such an apologetic coming up to me. When i told them my name was “‘Julia’); DROP TABLE neighborhoods;” they were immediately irate!

    • Jojo@lemm.ee
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      Aw, little Julie tables! I wondered how you turned out after your sister left town. How’s the transition coming?

      • MyFairJulia@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        It’s fine. Transitioning to Couchbase was fine. Was a bit weird getting used to NoSQL… Oh you mean my hormone therapy!

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    8 months ago

    So is it removed from the appatore yet? Or does it need some motivation?

    Can it be flagged or something? That could get it removed.

    This shit is pretty fucked up.