New carrier claims to block all porn — even for adults

Trying to keep your kids safe from all the objectionable content out there across the vast, unwashed depths of the morally bankrupt internet can feel like a full-time job. Google already gives Android users a powerful suite of parental controls to set limits on what child accounts can and can’t do. But if that doesn’t seem like enough to you, there’s now a nuclear option available: a phone carrier that claims to block multiple categories of content at the network level.

Radiant Mobile is a new MVNO running on T-Mobile’s network, and bills itself as “the first ever Christian mobile carrier.” It attempts to embrace that label and stand out from its peers on two main fronts: providing access to exclusive, original Christian content through its Radiant Life program, and implementing a massive carrier-level filtering operation designed to block everything from pornography, to news about hackers, piercing, and even fashion models.

Not every kind of un-Christian content gets quite the same restrictive treatment, and it’s actually very interesting to see where some of the lines have been drawn. Pornography, for example, is simply a non-starter, and the idea is to ban it for every Radiant Mobile subscriber, with no way to opt out. Harmful drug content is similarly hard-blocked for kids and teens, but adult users can consume as much as they want. And stuff about tattoos is blocked for kids and teens by default, but a parent has the option to override that block.

So, apparently more than just keeping an eye on your kids, the service is designed to go the extra mile for adults of weak moral fiber who can’t control their own browsing habits. But even taking for granted that this filtering could be fast, effective, and avoids false positives, what about when you’re connecting over Wi-Fi, and not sending data through your carrier in the first place?

Well, Radiant certainly claims that it’s got you covered there, too, explaining that “on Wi-Fi, Radiant’s system intercepts traffic before other VPNs can override it,” and that it “is optimized on Wi-Fi, with no noticeable impact on performance.”

We have more than a few questions about exactly how that’s supposed to work, especially with Radiant noting that it “blocks harmful content without reading private messages or decrypting sensitive data like banking transactions.” How do you evaluate content without reading it, or possibly tell the difference between banking data and pornography when it’s encrypted to begin with?

If you’re curious to find out, Radiant plans start at $30 a month for a single line with unlimited 5G talk, text, and data, and there are discounts available for larger and larger family plans — there’s even one covering families of 8+ for you Quiverfull folks.