A “faith-focussed” mobile network is launching in the US, aimed at Christians.
Radiant Mobile promises to block “harmful content”, including explicit adult sites and websites relating to self-harm and drugs.
Blocking sites via a network offers stronger protection than downloadable app blockers, such as Covenant Eyes, the pornography accountability app which notifies a friend or family member if a user searches for sites they have chosen to block.
Radiant Mobile uses existing T-Mobile coverage. It partners with an Israeli tech company, Allot, to ban certain sites.
Somewhat controversially, LGBTQ issues also fall under its blockable categories, but can be permitted with parental controls. This can include the webpages of certain universities or new sites, with Yale University’s LGBTQ page being categorised as “sexuality” content.
Users are also offered a series of Bible-based AI-generated games and videos, aimed at replacing ‘doomscrolling’ in children. Some of these will feature popular characters like Cinderella and Tinker Bell, with Radiant having sought permission from Elf Labs, which holds the copyright to dozens of fairytale characters.
Radiant’s founder, Paul Fisher, spent the first 35 years of his career as a supermodel talent agent. After a friend suggested he look into actor Ryan Reynolds’ wireless network brand, Mint Mobile, he began thinking who his “audience” might be.
Fisher told MIT Technology Review that the idea for a Christian network felt divinely inspired late one night.
“God is talking to me,” he recalled. “Do something in the faith-based industry.”
“We are going to create—and we think we have every right to do so—an environment that is Jesus-centric, that is void of pornography.”