Caitlin Todd enjoys making friends on social networking Web sites, but is turned off by content that she believes is inappropriate on a number of popular pages.
So Caitlin, 16, meets people only on Christian social sites like www.hisholyspace.com and www.xianz.com, where profanity is prohibited, prayer is urged and content is strictly monitored.
“I use Xianz because it is a place that I can come to and have fellowship with friends. Sharing God’s word and helping others," Caitlin wrote in an e-mail message. “Xianz is like a big church!”
Numerous religious-themed social networking groups are now on the Internet, allowing users to create prayer groups, discuss movies and find potential significant others. Creators and users say the sites are family-friendly alternatives to networking sites like MySpace, which says it has more than 100,000 religious groups but also contains content that some, like Robbie Davidson, founder of Xianz.com, find offensive.
“There’s a lot of people tired of seeing half-naked women in ads” on networking sites, said Mr. Davidson, who started his site last year. He says it has about 30,000 members. “I wanted to provide a safe alternative that was family friendly for the Christian demographic,” he said.
Xianz.com bills itself as a “Faith-Based MySpace,” while www.mypraize.com calls itself a “Christian MySpace Alternative.”
Not all the sites are Christian-oriented. Muslim users can log onto www.muslimspace.com, www.naseeb.com and www.muslimsocial.com. Jewish sites include www.shmooze.com and www.koolanoo.com.
Many of the sites are patrolled by users or employees who report users who post obscenities, sexually explicit content or derogatory language. Mr. Davidson said he had kicked people off the site and, in one instance, reported a user to the authorities.
Last month, MySpace agreed to hand over the names, addresses and online profiles of convicted sex offenders after attorneys general from eight states demanded that the site, which is owned by Fox Interactive Media, do so. MySpace also deleted the profiles of 7,000 convicted sex offenders.
Judith Donath, an associate professor at the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies social networking, said many users of social networks explored only parts of the sites that were of interest of them. New niche networking Web sites are an extension of that and part of that, she said.
“I imagine groups that break off find social-networking technology useful and want to maintain a fairly closed group that is not interested in interacting with a large group of people whose lives are antithetical to their own,” Professor Donath said. “This might happen especially if someone has a very specific set of cultural mores and wants a particular symbolism, reminding everyone what the site stands for and believes in.”
Susan Botros of Louisville, Ky., joined www.muslimspace.com last year after receiving some “nasty e-mails about the religion” on MySpace, which she had joined to promote the Muslim faith.
Ms. Botros said she felt comfortable on muslimspace.com and delved into religious topics that non-Muslims would be unfamiliar with.
“I like it for the simple fact that I feel like I’m part of a big family,” she said. “I can post things there that if I posted on MySpace people wouldn’t understand.”
Reuven Koret, an Internet entrepreneur who founded www.shmooze.com, got the idea for the site after helping to create an African-American-focused Web site.
“I thought this seems like something good for far-flung Jewish people to explain and connect people to the state of Israel,” Mr. Koret said.
The site has about 5,000 members and allows them to delve into different aspects of the faith.
“It gives us the ability to get a little more into the diversity of Jewish content and Jewish groups,” Mr. Koret said. “People who meet at Shmooze have at least one thing in common, and that creates a feeling of intimacy.”
While the Web sites allow users to branch into a larger religious network, some worry that it might weaken local faith communities.
“Can this diminish the person’s experience of their local community and local church?” asked Mark Regnerus, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin.
Ms. Botros said she considered muslimspace.com to be an extension of her religious community, and often shared some of the things she encountered on the site with members of her mosque and children at the Muslim school where she teaches.
“I take what I get online and bring it back to the people here,” she said.
Shawn Ireland, 22, of Mishawaka, Ind., uses www.holypal.com, to discuss matters of faith with others, and learns from people who might not agree with him.
“I just like being able to talk to other people about the Lord,” Mr. Ireland said. “It’s a place you can go and always have someone to talk to, whether you agree or not.”