Will Accountable2You provide screenshot accountability?
Our desire at Accountable2You is to provide an accountability solution that protects your privacy, respects the accountability partner, offers peace of mind, and helps establish a transparent lifestyle that leads to better choices.
Our software provides an easy-to-read, line-by-line list of activities with corresponding time and date stamps, allowing the accountability report to tell the story of what happened, how it happened, and for how long. Accountability is about the conversation, and our reporting allows those conversations to occur in transparency.
In short, our goal is to give the customer the best, most comprehensive tool to help achieve accountability in more areas than just pornography. Yes, pornography is a huge part of it for many, but it's not the only part.
The next question that understandably follows an opening statement like the one above goes something like this, "Well, if that's all true, why not also include screenshot accountability in the mix?" It's a fair question, and while we recognize that perspectives differ, we wanted to transparently share the considerations that lead to Accountable2You's unanimous decision to not include screenshot accountability in our service.
Screenshots can't alert for the small battles leading up to pornography.
If a person's sole desire for accountability is to avoid taking the final step of viewing "hardcore pornography," then a screenshot-type accountability solution may work for them. Yet, we view accountability on a much larger scale. The battle against pornography and other temptations begins with smaller, incremental, nearly unnoticeable choices. Screenshots can't detect these micro-choices and their respective temptations.
Using currently available technology, screenshot detection can vaguely determine levels of nudity in an image. In other words, while some sensual, but not fully pornographic content may trigger an alert in rare instances with this technology, only the harshest forms of pornography on a screen produce alerts reliably.
We feel that once the pornography is on the screen, it's too late to intervene and encourage better decisions this time around; the decision was already made.
There's infinite grace for second chances, repentance, true change, and lasting healing - especially after bad choices - but we aren't satisfied to promote a reactive pattern so that grace can abound.
Screenshots sound the alarm once it's too late (e.g., the pornography is already on the screen) to help someone escape temptation. Accountable2You's monitoring app targets early warning signs so accountability partners can offer help sooner and help fight the little battles, rather than notifying them after the fact.
We protect customer privacy and the purity of accountability partners.
Many of our customers have expressed concerns surrounding the idea of an app silently capturing screenshots of their visited web pages, family photos, banking apps, and various account-related data and then sharing it with an off-site server where the unblurred images are scanned and rated. We agree.
Pornography harms everyone, including accountability partners reviewing the flagged images. When screenshots are indiscernibly blurred and then flagged for review, unanswerable questions and anxious tension arise in perhaps already-strained relationship: "What really happened here? Was it a false positive? Can I trust their response?"
To use an illustration, in substance abuse recovery programs, no respected therapist recommends that the sponsor/partners subject themselves to small amounts of the addictive substance to confirm its harmfulness. When screenshots are blurred yet (by design) still discernable, accountability partners are subjected to the same pornographic content as the person they're supporting. We honor and respect the accountability partner's commitment to purity - and we aim to protect that commitment by keeping the shame of pornography outside of their purview.
Accountability isn't only about pornography.
Many customers have different areas they want to be held accountable for, not exclusively pornography. Screenshot accountability focuses exclusively on visual pornography in the form of on-screen nudity. As a result, those struggling with other online addictions and negative behaviors cannot be served through screenshot accountability.
Using Accountable2You, you can view time spent using various apps, create custom trigger words and phrases to alert for specific areas of struggle (websites, searches, apps, etc.). In short, you can shape Accountable2You to help you meet your unique goals.
Conclusion
Based on extensive internal research, conversations with respected contributors (therapists, pastors, parents, etc.), and for the reasons listed above and more, we've determined that screenshot accountability isn't an option we can, in good conscience, put forward to our customers.