I live in the moridor. I have a good friend who goes to church, but is mainly just a social Mormon. She just sent me a text that her Twitter, Instagram, snap chat, and Facebook are all blocked. She went online and read that the church has put up firewalls on these sites throughout the chapels. She is really mad.
Anyone hear about this? I am really stunned!! There really is no such thing as free will and choice in that stupid religion.

Does the church block their own essays? :)

Ask her to test RfM!

...another post surfaces similar to this. We need Zip Codes to form a demographic..........

"Well, that'll fix 'em..."

-The Suits In COB

"Fuck it, if I have to go to church and actually pay attention, I ain't goin'..."

-Most o' the pew warmers


The COB shot themselves in the foot again---

The 14 to 25 crowd will be very impressed, as well as humbled and made meek. They'll quickly understand that it is for their own good and be ever so grateful! It's the new rule because Jesus wants them for a sunbeam.

...OK. So some asshat @ COB has sent a directive? informing Stake Presidents and Bishops that internet connectivity would be restricted or reduced? It would be nice to see or hear about said directive "explaining" the need for Soviet-era clampdowns. Or, it could be as simple as Management realized the members were downloading "anti-Mormon material?"..........

...Is anyone savvy enough to hack into the Church server to see what kind of software is being used...maybe it can be blocked by something simple.......

Chairman Mao.........call your office!!.....what's next?.............the Red guards?

...any computer-savvy techs out there. Is it possible that Church IT guys have the ability to view (real-time) the streams or addresses of internet sites being watched during Church services? There is the ability to monitor in real-time, the viewing and searches made by any given demographic......right? There is software for that.....right? So, it might stand to reason that some random studies conducted at various SL area Wards by IT staff could have determined, based on a statistical evaluation, that a significant number of members might be viewing "alternative, porn, or other detrimental-content sites."

it's possible?....or not?

They use web proxies to provide URL- and content-based filtering. For non-secure connections, they can see everything you send and receive from web servers. In theory, they could log or store it somewhere, but I doubt it. For secure connections, such as those from Facebook and Google, all they can see is the URL. The actual contents are encrypted.

There really isn't a way around it unless you can connect to a different network. You can try some online web proxies, but they're likely blocked as well. However, they'll only stand up to content-based filtering if they force encrypted connections (otherwise you'll receive the same content and the filter will still block).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2015 04:17PM by sd allison.

I have not been to church in, well, years.

Everywhere now, people are on their phones.

Is it that way it is in church? Not just in the Mormon church?
Are people sitting there doing crap on their phones the whole time?

Even in movie theatres, people can't seem to put the d@mn things away. Even though there are signs everywhere, many do it anyway.

It's the way it is everywhere now, it seems. People are walking into each other, oblivious that they are blocking a walkway in a mall because they are on their phone.

Is it that way it is in church too? Are they sitting there playing Candy Crush?

I'm picturing the person at the pulpit looking out at the congregation and seeing everyone looking at their phones.

From what I've seen since I got dragged back in March 2014 you're correct. In every meeting everyone is playing with their smartphones and tablets!! It's no wonder they want to block it!

I attend a Lutheran church and have not seen electronic devices out during the service. Maybe that's because the people want to be there.

If you have to attend church, but really don't want to be there you can always read ebooks or play games. Don't need wifi for that.

That's true, someone can just use the data plan instead of WiFi.

Exactly concerned citizen! My first thought was 'is Kim Jung whatever his name is, the new prophet' this is crazy stuff.

Two options:

1) Turn off the wifi on the phone or other portable device and use a cell connection if available

2) Attend "sacrament meeting" down at your local Starbucks and use the wifi there

Snapchat was always blocked at my chapel. Facebook was until it was determined needed because we had a ward Facebook page and people were always begging for rides to church.

OMG I completely forgot about "rides to church"!

Yes, I remember picking up people to church and home again. From when I was a kid, my mom used to do it, so I just assumed it was part and parcel of what you just did.

Used to pick up this one guy with a decent level of assburglers. That was just charming.

May have nothing to do with the membership. They did it to keep the "asshats @ COB" from making online idiots of themseves.

If they block porn sites the priesthood is going to be pissed!

Why did the church even put free WiFi in the chapels? Anyone with a brain could have predicted that if it was available, then bored people would use it. And there are certainly plenty of bored people at church.

If the charges that be don't like not being able to access social media while engaged in Sacrament services, they should reassign themselves somewhere where they and their wi-fi access are unfettered.

Maybe it's the same mentality that goes into movie theater goers rule of when in the theater watching a movie, turn off cell phones, and that includes texting, tweeting, etc.

It goes to the heart of being respectful to the rights of other patrons, at the movies. Whereas at church it is showing deference and reverence to the sanctuary and others who are there. They may not like being distracted either by someone playing on their cell phones. Unless it's an emergency why else would someone have it on anyway there?

Besides, understandably the church/morg is squeamish at the prospect of meetings being recorded perhaps and talks or testimonies being videotaped to later be uploaded to YouTube or Facebook channels.

I don't know about social media, but I'm at church now and can get on rfm. that's good enough for me.

Is there a circle of people around you who look afflicted, and are looking around, wondering why they can feel Satan's presence?

Surprisingly, no. They're either playing on their phones or looking bored. I'm sure if someone was more in tune with the spirit, they'd call me out.

All you have to do is change the DNS server IP addresses in the internet settings to a provider that does not censor and the problem is solved. Domain name blocking does not work.

Anon Dunn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> All you have to do is change the DNS server IP
> addresses in the internet settings to a provider
> that does not censor and the problem is solved.
> Domain name blocking does not work.


Okay, what does this mean to me, if I'm sitting in a pew, wondering how can get my wifi-only tablet to connect with Twitter?

We never had wifi available when I went to our ward. Wonder if this is only certain areas or what.

Or maybe they just think that they shouldn't pay for members to be distracted at church.