Overcoming Online Censorship: Strategies for Digital Discipleship and Ministry Ep.4

Ever thought that sharing the Gospel online could land you in Facebook jail? It's a reality many digital disciples are facing today. With the landscape of online censorship constantly shifting, it can feel like navigating a minefield while trying to fulfill our mission. Yet, with wisdom, understanding, and discretion on our side, we can overcome these obstacles and continue to serve as Kingdom Influencers.

In this episode, we peel back the layers of online censorship and its impact on digital missions. We walk you through real-life examples, highlighting the balance between sharing truth-filled content and avoiding unnecessary censorship. Additionally, we discuss innovative workarounds such as building a following using 'safer topics' and leveraging less-censored platforms like emails. It's a challenging path, but with the right tools and strategies, we can shine our light brightly in the digital realm, unfettered by censorship. Get ready to fortify your online ministry and ensure the Gospel continues to reach those who need to hear it most.

If you are interested in taking your digital discipleship to the next level through blogging, YouTube, social media, and/or online Bible study groups, be sure to join my private FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/kingdombloggers
You can also follow me on YouTube where you will find a variety of helpful tutorials for navigating each of these important platforms: https://www.youtube.com/@KingdomBloggers

Transcript

LeeAnn Fox: 0:02

Welcome to the Kingdom Influencers podcast, where our mission is to get more Jesus online. This podcast will equip and empower ministry leaders as well as regular everyday Christians to take the message of Jesus Christ throughout the digital realm. I'm your host, Leanne Fox, digital Ministry Coach and the creator of the Kingdom Bloggers Ministry, and I am so excited and honored to be a part of this journey with you. Let's get started. Welcome, kingdom Friends, to our fourth episode of the Kingdom Influencers podcast. Today we're going to be talking about something that every single online influencer or everyday regular Christian has to deal with, and that is censorship. No matter where we look online, the enemy is using censorship to try to keep us from sharing the gospel, from carrying out the mission that God has put us on. So today we're going to kind of unpack what censorship looks like in the online environment, how it impacts Christian influencers and, more importantly, how do we deal with it. How do we overcome it, how do we remove that obstacle so that we can continue on with the mission of sharing the gospel in the online space? All right, so our verse for today is going to be Proverbs 2, verse 11 through 12, and this is from the NIV translation Discretion will protect you and understanding will guard you. Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse. All right, I think that is so important. We have some very key words in this verse Discretion, understanding and wisdom. All right, so we're going to jump in and then we're going to kind of come back to this verse a little later in the episode, all right, so what does censorship look like as a digital disciple?

LeeAnn Fox: 1:51

Well, first, let's talk about censorship in general. This is the enemies. Like I mentioned earlier, the easiest way to keep us from building the kingdom online, from getting more people to know Jesus and to accept him as their Lord and Savior, is simply to keep us from being able to speak right, to be able to share this stuff, and that's what censorship is. It's basically shutting us up. And so what does that look like for us as online influencers?

LeeAnn Fox: 2:22

The most obvious ones we've seen and we've seen them a lot more so in recent years but things like when you share a piece of content and you notice it doesn't get any likes or any kind of engagement at all, and when you go in and look at your analytics you know, for those of you familiar with. Looking at your analytics, you can see the reach of the post. In other words, how far did this particular platform, whether it be Facebook or Twitter or whatever how many people did it show it to? Right and so even some of your content that you're like that wasn't really good, I just threw it out there. It might got really wide reach, right Like Facebook or whatever platform showed it to a lot of people and maybe they just didn't like it or whatever. But when you go and look and you see that like 10 people saw it, like the reach was like small. That is that platform's way of censoring you. It's like not showing it to people, so if they don't show it, they can't see it.

LeeAnn Fox: 3:24

Certain platforms, such as Facebook, has been notorious in recent years for putting you in Facebook jail for sharing either like resharing someone else's content or you making your own post. That goes against their guidelines, which, honestly, their guidelines are ridiculous, like we all know. That right, I actually shared and this had nothing to do with Christian content, but true story I had shared in my Facebook group. I have several Facebook groups for my students and my mastermind and things like that, and in my mastermind group we don't always just talk shop, which is you know how to be a digital disciple and blogging and all that. We're actually really good friends in there, and so we share personal stuff too.

LeeAnn Fox: 4:12

And there was one week so my, my youngest daughter, she just she moved out this past year. She's she's 19 now, and you know, once you're all of your kids are 18 and over, or basically once they start working, once they're 16, it's very hard for you as a mom to get all your kids together for lunch, and so Both of my kids happen to be off from work on the same day, and I had apologized because I needed to cancel, I think, something that we were supposed to do, and so I made a post in this group. That was you know, sorry, you know I won't be there, or whatever, and my reason was that my kids had kidnapped, or I kidnapped my kids for a rare opportunity to have lunch with them or something to that effect, but because I put the words kidnapped my children. But this book sent me a warning that you know. This was my first warning, so just don't say these things again. And so, of course, it didn't show the post and all that, but just simple, stupid things like that.

LeeAnn Fox: 5:14

Facebook will just put you in jail and then when you're in jail you can't share anything. A good friend of mine, a blogger friend, cheyenne Rosevine cottage girls for any of y'all that you know are familiar with her, her platform, her ministry this girl shares gardening, she has goats, she has a beautiful garden and she shares, you know, devotional content. I Cannot tell you I lost count in how many times she's been put in Facebook jail for something and I always go look to see what it was she posted. Like she'll send it to me privately or or in another platform and I'm like I do not even see how that in any way could be construed as offensive or whatever. So we always have to deal with that Another way that we are impacted by it. You know you've seen and maybe not all of us, most of us little people, if you will, but you've seen larger platforms. People on platforms that have huge followings Get D platform like they get their accounts completely shut down because of how big their influence has become, but it's an influence in in more of a Christian kind of way and for whatever reason, they find a way to De-plat for them for again violating community standards. I've seen this happen over and over again. I've even seen People have their email services Cancelled, like whatever service they use to do their their subscriber lists. I've seen them be removed like the company just kicked them out because they didn't agree with the kind of content they were sharing Other kind of ways that you might not realize the censorship, but it is.

LeeAnn Fox: 7:02

You know, when we share Christian content, conservative views, anything that is biblical in nature, it can cause us to be blacklisted, which means we have, you know, fewer opportunities to get in front of new audiences. And what I mean by that is being invited to, say, be a guest speaker on a podcast, a secular podcast that still talks about some of the stuff your ministry is about. So, let's say, you're a Christian mom blogger, so a lot of your stuff is about you know the mom side of things, but you also insert your Christian mindset, biblical principle, things like that. And so maybe a really popular podcast that you've wanted to be a guest on, you reached out to them, but because you share biblical content, they won't let you be on their show because they're afraid it'll offend the rest of their listeners, things like that. So these are all just different ways.

LeeAnn Fox: 8:01

That censorship, what, basically what it looks like for us, and there's probably many more ways, but these are some of the more obvious ones. So how does it impact us? Well, obviously, I mean it can impact our growth. You know, if your content's not being shown, so your reach is limited, if you get put in Facebook jail, you can't do anything. Of course, if you're D-platformed, you're, you know, like what do I do now? But really, the growth from not being able to go on all the different other shows and you know videos and you know doing the lives with other creators, so it really can impact your growth.

LeeAnn Fox: 8:41

But one of the things I see and I hear a lot you know people reach out to me for advice is they feel so restricted. It's like I wanna honor God and I don't wanna not cover things, but how do I do it in a way that you know doesn't get me kicked out, doesn't get me censored? And so there are certain topics that we really need to talk about today, that we really need to educate people from a biblical standpoint, but because of censorship, we don't. So, in essence, we're telling God like sorry God, I'll talk about everything else, but not that. Like this is what people say to me as to how it is impacting them and, on the flip side of that, another danger of how it can impact influencers is, aside from just not sharing the truth, biblical truth we tend to just sort of go with what's happening and we don't stand up and defend the biblical truth right, so we just kinda go with the flow, and that's not helpful either. That's basically kind of what I would slap in the face to God, saying you know, yeah, god, I'm gonna be an influencer and I know these are probably some of the more important things that you want people to know about you, but I'm just not gonna do it right, and so it can almost be like a double-edged sword, I guess.

LeeAnn Fox: 10:03

But okay, so how can we? I guess this is the most important part, this is what you came here to listen to today how do we overcome, how do we adapt, how do we like to get around these obstacles of censorship as we tried to build our ministries online? So the first and most important literally this is the most important thing you always have to remember Remember your mission. Whatever God has called you to do, that is your mission right, and not just share the gospel online like what is your more specific mission? Like, my mission is to empower and educate, like teach, those who feel called into this. My mission is to show them how right my mission is not to necessarily share the gospel per se. Of course, we're all tasked with that, I think, as believers. But my specific mission in my ministry is not that. It is to ensure that you guys can find me so that I can continue to show you how to do what you do right. So always remember your mission.

LeeAnn Fox: 11:16

And so there's sometimes you do have to make a judgment call on sharing certain types of things, and this goes back to so the part where I said, like we say, no, god, I'm not going to do that because, right. And so we're afraid to share things out of fear of being canceled out, of being de-platformed or Facebook jailed or whatever you want to call it. But when you are thinking about posting something or sharing something, you do have to look at it. And this is where we revert back to the verse for today the discretion, understanding and wisdom, those three powerful words in that verse. So you have the discretion as to share or not to share, but you have to understand the bigger picture. Okay, you have to understand the bigger picture of how, what you about to share, like, if you choose to share it, how does that impact your mission? Understanding the bigger picture of how it impacts your mission Remember your specific mission, what God has called you specifically to do with your ministry. And then the wisdom to know whether it's a good idea or how to find the loophole. And we're going to talk about loopholes in just a minute, so let's break this down.

LeeAnn Fox: 12:39

I'm going to tell you a story. This really happened maybe about a month ago. So in you know, my church circles, my friends from church and stuff, everyone kind of knows that I'm like the Facebook person, like I know how to do all the social media stuff. If there's an event that everyone needs to see, like I can create an event on social on Facebook and share it, and like I'm pretty much friend to anybody. So I have a lot of friends on Facebook. They're not really my friends, they're just people who I friend because I share information and they'll see it Right. I have a lot of work with veteran groups when I first got out of the military and a lot of things veterans don't know about because they don't know what things to follow, and so I follow everything and anyway.

LeeAnn Fox: 13:24

So there was this event that is like a nationwide event really, called taking back the rainbow, and I guess it was like a walk where and what they encouraged was people locally, like in different areas, to organize a local event and you could buy this shirt. And it's a really great thing because we, as Christians, know what the rainbow means, we know its purpose, we know why God created it and all that, and we know that the enemy has kind of tried to use it for his purposes, and so this was a Christian led event nationwide. And so she asked if I could help promote it, and so at first I was like, yeah, sure, let me, when I get home I'll go check it out, or whatever. Well, when I started reading the links that she gave me yes, great event. And back before I had any, you know, like grown up wisdom about how my actions have consequences, right, I would have just been like, oh yeah, I'm going to share that. I don't care what Facebook says.

LeeAnn Fox: 14:34

But as I was reading through the information on this website and the verbiage that was being used, which every bit it was truth, it was important and something that we definitely, you know want to do, but I had to make the decision on whether to just reshare and you know a post that she had already made, or or to create an event from my my profile my, my personal profile and maybe create an event from my personal profile, and in the end I had to choose not to. I did end up sharing the post that she had already made, but I decided it was not in my ministry's best interest to risk sharing that information as though it is my own, because the chance of Facebook censoring it or putting me in jail or whatever was very high, simply because of the words being used. You know, we live in a time when hate speech nobody really even knows what hate speech means anymore because it's so convoluted. But as Christians, there is a lot of things that are biblical truths that society has deemed to be hate speech, and so we have to be very mindful of that. And so she kept asking like to share and share, and I finally you know I need to have this conversation with her as to why I did not. So if she shared it and her account got shut down or got put in jail, the mission wouldn't be so much impacted, but if mine got shut down, not saying I'm more important than her, but I know what my mission is. I am on here not for me. I'm on here for the mission of, like I said before, helping in, equip, bible study people like Christians to take back, you know, the digital realm or whatever. So if I shared this, the risk of my ministry being shut down was there, and so I know what my mission is. My mission is what we've already said, and so I cannot complete my mission.

LeeAnn Fox: 16:52

If that happens, there are other ways for me to share this information about this event. You know, kind of back channels, if you will, Word of mouth. I mean, it's here in my town, but I had to make the decision, so the discretion was mine. I understood the bigger picture and I had to, you know, lean on God for the wisdom to say, hey, look, god, I know what you've called me here to do, but if I do this, I'm not going to be able to accomplish this mission, and my pastor has mentioned this in some of the sermons he's done in the past. Like you know, just because you can doesn't mean you should. And when it comes to building the kingdom and, you know, taking more people to heaven and things like that. When all is said and done, you know, yes, I'm a Christian, I know I'm going to heaven, but I know also, when I get there, I have to account for my time here on earth.

LeeAnn Fox: 17:47

And and if my ministry got shut down because I wanted to show Facebook who's boss and be like they're not going to censor me, right? And then I got shut down, in my mind, this conversation is going to go like this. He's going to say did you do everything you could to share the good news while you on earth? I was like, yeah, until that time Facebook shut me down. And then he's going to say, well, was there any way to prevent that? And I'm going to be like, yeah, I guess there was. I could have figured out another way, but I was like so adamant that you know free speech and all that, and Facebook shut me down, and so I don't want to have that conversation with God right now. I want to be like I did everything I could to continue on the mission that you put me on. I mean, call me a suck up, but whatever, when I get at those pearly gates, that's how I want the conversation to go. So that's just one example.

LeeAnn Fox: 18:41

Now some of you may say, like, well, you know you, you didn't share it, and so it's because you were afraid. And and I think the word afraid is not the right word to use there Like, I'm not afraid of Facebook or the powers that be. What I am afraid of is not completing my mission, and so you have to take detours in order to complete the mission, right, and so I look at everything as a detour. Like, as a Christian, you should just expect your life to be detours and loopholes. So that brings me to the second topic, looking for the loopholes. I tell you I did 18 years in the military as a woman coming in when women weren't really wanted in certain career fields and things like that, and I made it all the way to the rank of E seven, right, and then I was medically retired. I had a lot of medical issues, but how I survived 18 years in that environment was because of the loophole.

LeeAnn Fox: 19:42

I like to consider myself the master of loopholes, and you may call it detours, whatever. I think loophole is just a term that we're all familiar with, and if one door closes or they tell me no, because, like you can't do this, because then I'm going to figure out how to get around the word, because what's because of this, what's because of this? Okay, well, what about this? And so in the online environment, we have to look for those loopholes, those detours. And so you know, like I mentioned about sharing certain types of content, we know today there are some very hot topics that are biblical truths and I'm not going to mention those words on here because, again, like, everything gets screened for content and whatever but we know they're the trending topics on the news right now and there are things that Christians are very passionate about, about promoting, about guarding in just all of that.

LeeAnn Fox: 20:43

But sharing, say, a blog post, writing a blog post about this particular topic Number one, google may not ever show that, it may never allow you to rank and search results. But two, if you then share the link to that post on, say, facebook or any other platform that allows link sharing, then you run the risk of again the Facebook jail or the deep platforming and things like that. And so you may say, well, this is very important. As a Christian, I should be writing about this stuff, ok, so, yes, you should be sharing this information, you need to pour into people about this topic, but it doesn't have to be in a blog post and it doesn't have to be in a Facebook post.

LeeAnn Fox: 21:32

What you do do is write about some of the oh, I guess, air quotes here you can't see them, the safer topics, if you will, the things that we don't really worry about censorship with. Write about those things, post about those things. Then you get a following who then might join your email list or other type of secondary, tertiary platform if you will. And it's through there. So your email while there have been cases of censorship in email, it's probably the least censored at this point, I mean, at least from what I see, it's the least censored one. And so if you can get people on your list by writing about these other safer topics, it is through those emails where you have those direct, personal conversations that you can then pour into them with some of these more censorable topics, if you will. And so that's what I call a loophole.

LeeAnn Fox: 22:33

Don't go on the direct approach, don't hit it head on, because you're going to crash. You're going to crash and burn and then your ministry is over, so you have to figure out how to work around the problem. That's how you get through life. You come up to a wall, an obstacle, you figure out how to go around it. And so censorship, that is the loop holes and detours. That's how you win the game of censorship. And so that's just one example. I mean there's many other examples.

LeeAnn Fox: 23:06

And again, that whole discussion and understanding and wisdom. You've got to understand how this game works. You can't just go into it like I'm going to do whatever I want, because this is a free country. That's not going to work, y'all. The enemy is good. The enemy is really good about using things to his advantage, using what we see as our freedoms to remove that freedom from us. And so you have to be smart about it. You have to have the wisdom. But before you could have wisdom, you have to understand how the game works. I guess that's how it works. I love this verse the discretion, understanding and wisdom. That sums it up that is how you win the game of censorship.

LeeAnn Fox: 23:45

So I've had many Christian influencers or aspiring bloggers or whatever come to me and they're just like Leanne, it's pointless. Everything I do, it seems that I'm getting in trouble. Or in other words, like Facebook, jail, things like that. And so what's the point? What's the point if the places that we have available to us, like the platforms, if they're just going to censor us, what's the point of us even being there? And well, the point is that we need to be there, but the point is stop going for the direct approach. Look for those loopholes. Continue on your mission. Know your mission. Like I said, that's the number one. If you don't know exactly what your mission is, then you don't know what obstacles look like and you definitely don't know how to figure out the loopholes for them. So, anyway, that's all I have for today. I hope this really encouraged somebody.

LeeAnn Fox: 24:43

I always hear something I see in comments all the time, or I hear, is it's just not fair that Christians are censored, we're so attacked, but y'all, the Bible clearly tells us this is going to happen. I mean, jesus himself was beaten. I mean he was attacked in so many different ways to the point of being crucified on the cross. So what makes you think that we're not going to come against that same kind of resistance? Like, that's how this game works. When the day you decide to become a Christian, first the enemy's going to come at you. That's what we call spiritual warfare. But the moment you decide to step into, say, some sort of influential platform, like a Christian influencer in any aspect of the online space, the moment you decide that, you have to accept that you will continually be faced with censorship and opposition.

LeeAnn Fox: 25:47

That's just how this game works, and if we didn't experience that, like getting to the other side, reaching heaven wouldn't be so much worth it, because, I mean, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. So it shouldn't come as a surprise. You shouldn't get angry. I mean, yeah, I mean it's hurtful, and I guess we do get a little angry about it. But don't focus on that. Focus on yeah, I knew this was coming, but I'm prepared. So we always prepare for the dangers that we anticipate or the obstacles we're going to anticipate. In the online influencer world, it's no different it's probably 10X than it is for the people who aren't in the online realm. All right, guys. So thanks for joining us today. I hope this was helpful. I hope it encouraged someone.

LeeAnn Fox: 26:36

Be sure to share this episode with a friend, share it on social media or just share it, and be sure to follow us, if you're not already, and leave me a review. Leave a review. Tell me what you think about what I'm telling you or what I'm sharing, and stay tuned for next week, the next episode. We're going to talk about confidence, but more importantly, like it's titled, I'm Not Pretty Enough how the Enemy Uses Social Ideas Like what the World Thinks we Should Look Like, or Our Age, our Beauty Standards, things like that. We're going to talk about that and how to get past that so you can actually make an impact in the online world for Jesus. All right guys, remember, if you're not using the internet to influence others towards Jesus, the enemy will surely use it to influence them away from him. God bless and have a great week. Bye-bye.