Tim and Kristy Turner believe they were called to spread the word of Jesus through apps. In 2005, the pair founded Subsplash, a technology company whose mission, as stated on its website, is “to glorify God and proclaim Jesus is Lord by building a great company that drives for humility, innovation, and excellence to delight the millions of people on the Subsplash Platform.”
“With no ads or censorship, auto-updated content, and a fully-customizable media player, keeping gospel-centered content in front of your community has never been easier,” the company boasts.
But there’s a dark side to the company’s hands-off approach. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Subsplash has given voice to and amplified messages from many religiously affiliated anti-vaccine activists. On one Subsplash-hosted website called “His Glory Me,” viewers can watch videos that urge them not to yield to pressure to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
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The company simply provides the platform—it doesn’t control what individual preachers say. (The company didn’t respond to questions sent by Mother Jones.) But from politics to medicine, the online spread of conspiracy theories has called into question the role of technology companies as gatekeepers.