Tools: CovenantEyes

Today we have our first guest post. I asked Charles Baldon (charlesfreedom.blogspot.com) to write a post on a great tool for helping to keep the Internet safe: CovenantEyes. He started using CovenantEyes years ago, so he knows more about it than anyone else I know. This is the first in another ongoing series that will focus on tools we can use to live our lives in a more Christ-like manner in today's culture.




Be careful, little eyes, what you see…

The Internet is an amazing place, offering us instant access to information that once took weeks to research. We can share information with friends and family with the touch of a few buttons. We can get more work done faster than ever before (if our employers have blocked YouTube and Facebook at work). The Internet has become a virtual reflection of our culture expressed in a million digital ways… which means there is a large portion of the Internet we need to avoid. Enter Covenant Eyes (link to site): as a Christian and as a parent, this software could become one of your best friends online.

Our society eats, sleeps and breathes sex. Go to the grocery store, and examine the covers of the magazines you'll find there. Turn on the TV and watch almost any prime time show. Go to church, and watch how people dress (ladies, your husbands are noticing, even if you aren't). Online, free and easily accessible pornography is everywhere. And over 70% of men and over 20% of women are struggling with it.

What is Covenant Eyes?

Covenant Eyes (CE) can do 2 things. First, it will monitor every site you visit online, scoring them for potential inappropriate content. It then emails your browsing history once a week to your accountability partners, who receive a report and can see where you have been online. The scoring system makes it easy to spend a few minutes with the report and be able to hold you accountable. Secondly, CE can be filter, blocking sexual content and protecting your family's purity.

Covenant Eyes as accountability

Internet pornography is deadly to us because it is a private sin. We can "get away with it" and we have a very good chance of never being caught. Browsing histories can easily be deleted. All traces of where you have been online can be removed. But what you have seen can never be unseen. What we need is accountability. We need our Christian brothers and sisters to look us in the eye and ask us tough questions. Covenant Eyes is a great tool, but it's not perfect and it needs a human touch. Pick two of your fellow Christians who will commit to reviewing your reports, and calling you on things they find there. Is this comfortable? Absolutely not! Is it vital to our spiritual lives? Absolutely!

Covenant Eyes as a filter

My first rule for my kids online is that they are never online without my knowledge – this is where many parents go wrong, thinking that their kids need "space" or "freedom." Letting children (even older teens) online without teaching them good rules for behavior is like letting them play in traffic on the freeway. The Internet is a dangerous place, and our kids need more protection when in it, not more freedom. With CE, you have the power to log them in if you'd like, or you can give them a login to use. Because even the simplest Google searches can lead to questionable sites, it doesn't take long for bad things to happen. Using CE as a filter, these sites (for example, YouTube) are blocked. A page will come up calling for an authorized user to either allow access or not. This lets parents be parents, and kids be safe.

What does it cost?

The price for Covenant Eyes varies, but in general the monitoring runs $7.99/mo and the filtering runs $5.99/mo. It is not just a one-time fee because the Internet is constantly changing, and CE is constantly updating their scoring and what they are blocking. In my experience, the cost is very small compared to the cost of not having it. Coming up with $15 a month is not a problem for the large majority of us, it just depends on what our priorities are. What is your – and your family's – sexual purity worth to you?

But I don't have a problem with…

First of all, most of us men DO have a problem with pornography, we just don't like to talk about it because we are embarrassed and ashamed. So we need the accountability online that CE gives us. And if you truly are in the minority that don't have a problem, great! Installing CE removes any temptation you might have while online, keeps this terrible addiction from developing, and it also protects your family. Either way, the need for protection is there, and Covenant Eyes is the best thing I've found to offer it.