Why does Rolling Stone care that a politician uses porn ‘accountability software’?

House Speaker Mike Johnson has come under fire again for behavior related to his Christian faith. This time, for using “accountability software” with his son to avoid online pornography.

A resurfaced clip from 2022 ignited a flurry of online debate Monday, with some shocked by Johnson’s decision to monitor his child’s internet activity and other’s concerned about the potential security implications of a public official exposing his data to a third-party application.

In the video, dug up by X user Receipt Maven last week, Johnson described his use of Covenant Eyes, an app that monitors activity on computer devices and reports potentially pornographic content to a predetermined “ally.”

“It scans all the activity on your phone, or your devices, your laptop, what have you — we do all of it — and then it sends a report to your accountability partner,” Johnson explained during a panel at Johnson’s Cypress Baptist Church in Benton, Louisiana.

Johnson then described how he and his son, who was 17 at the time, successfully used the app as a precaution against pornography use.

“My accountability partner right now is Jack, my son. He’s 17. So he and I get a report of all the things that are on our phones, or all of our devices, once a week. If anything objectionable comes up, your accountability partner gets an immediate notice. I’m proud to tell you, my son has got a clean slate,” Johnson said.

However, the Louisiana congressman’s comments have added to the slate of criticisms against him, as his record of social conservatism has come under increased scrutiny since becoming speaker.

Why was Johnson’s use of Covenant Eyes controversial?

Rolling Stone first reported on the video Sunday night, referring to Johnson’s efforts to prevent his son from viewing pornography as a way for the two to monitor “each other’s porn intake.”

The Rolling Stone article, which was followed by coverage in Fox News and Newsweek, characterized Johnson’s oversight of his son as “creepy” and called the lawmaker “faith-obsessed.”

Patrick Trueman, president of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, says these and other online criticisms are misplaced and reflect the deep polarization between political groups as well as cultural views in the country.

“Of course, you’re going to get people who oppose him, that will hold him up to ridicule because he doesn’t look at pornography, because he takes steps to avoid pornography. This admirable quality will be turned against him by his enemies,” Trueman said in an interview with the Deseret News.

Covenant Eyes applies the most important principles that help people avoid or break pornography addictions, Trueman said — transparency and accountability. The monthly subscription service requires two apps, one that “sits quietly” on every monitored device, scanning for “concerning activity” with artificial intelligence, and another that alerts the user’s “ally” of any questionable behavior.

“This is proven to be the most effective means of keeping a person away from pornographic sites because you don’t want your accountability partner to see you as a person looking at pornography,” Trueman said.

“Oftentimes, the accountability partner will be a man’s wife, or in the case of Speaker Johnson, he put his son there, and I suspect that’s as much for his son’s benefit as for his. So this is a very laudable effort by Speaker Johnson because it demonstrates that he’s not a man who is involved in sexual exploitation.”

Can anti-pornography apps expose your data?

Beyond disagreeing with Johnson’s decision to monitor his son’s internet activity, online critics argued that by sharing his computer data with a third-party organization, Johnson risked losing sensitive material or getting blackmailed.

“This opens up the speaker to a real security risk. To allow a nonsecure outside source full access to the speaker of the House’s phones and computers is a security breach waiting to happen,” said one post by Marty Taylor, executive director of NewBlueUSA, a left-leaning political action committee.

Such comments ignore the fact that most lawmakers have separate devices for work and for home, Trueman said, adding that pornography websites also gather extensive amounts of data from their customers.

“They know individually what you are consuming, and they’re putting it into a database,” he said. “That should be a concern. How do you know how that will be used in the future? And where it will be shared? So it’s a warning to people who are pornography consumers that your information isn’t private, and it could be shared.”

Covenant Eyes monitors users’ internet URLs and captures random screen shots to rate for explicit content. But other than generating reports for users, this information is never stored in connection with customers’ names, according to the company’s privacy policy.

Trueman said it would be wise for other lawmakers to follow Johnson’s example in taking precautions against pornography usage so they can work honestly on legislation dealing with sex trafficking, prostitution and pornography and so they are not corrupted by the exploitation inherent to sexually explicit content.

“Lawmakers are people who should be above reproach,” Trueman said. “Now, if you were to ask a person who is running for public office, are you a man who would exploit another individual? They’d all answer ‘No.’ Well, is that correct if they’re a consumer of pornographic imagery? Because they are engaged in sexual exploitation by consuming that material.”

Related

• Standing up in the fight against sexual exploitation

• The controversy over Mike Johnson’s Christian faith