The shame and guilt of traditional purity culture have been digitized and monetized. 💸 We investigate Victory Shield™ (formerly Covenant Eyes) and the booming industry of "accountability apps" that use AI to enforce moral codes, often driven by the high demands of LDS/Mormon purity culture.

1. The Surveillance Engine: We expose how the app works: The Screen Accountability™ feature discreetly captures screenshots of the user's device multiple times per minute. A proprietary AI algorithm scans the image for explicit content, then blurs and pixelates the screenshot before sending a report to a chosen "ally" or accountability partner. This system of continuous, transparent surveillance is designed to leverage the psychological effect of knowing you are being watched to break habits.

2. The Moral Marketplace: The cost for this digital moral policing is approximately $184 per year. This market thrives by reinforcing a specific purity and marriage culture where failure can impact temple recommends or family acceptance. Critics argue the Church, which demands a high level of adherence to covenants, functions like a "transactional covenant factory," creating an environment where paid surveillance feels necessary to "get stuff".

3. The Ethical Minefield: The app's effectiveness is debatable. On platforms like iOS, the monitoring is severely limited, often only working in the Safari browser and not within other apps like Instagram. Worse, the screenshots—even if blurred—can act as a "stumbling block" for the ally, inadvertently exposing them to the exact content the system was meant to block. The core ethical question remains: Is this a healthy, human-centered tool for freedom, or a commercially sold mechanism for guilt and digital anxiety?