A resurfaced video clip of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has recently circulated online. In it, the Speaker said he and his then-teenage son used “accountability” software to monitor each other’s phones for “objectionable” activity.
While it was not clear in the video what “objectionable” activity was being monitored, the website for the “accountability” program that Johnson said he used, Covenant Eyes, specifically targets porn.
“Covenant Eyes is the software that we’ve been using a long time in our household,” he said.
Johnson went on to recommend the software, saying, “It’s about $15 a month, $16 a month, something like that. And you get up to 10 devices.”
The Louisiana Republican was discussing what he and his then 17-year-old son were doing while speaking at an event about technology at his Louisiana church, Cypress Baptists Church, in Benton, Louisiana.
The Speaker said in the video that his son was his “accountability partner,” and they each received weekly “reports” that broke down their use of their digital devices.
Johnson said that if anything “objectionable” pops up, then the program alerts the accountability partner. He said the software examines keywords, search terms, and images and compiles them into reports and alerts. Images deemed “questionable” are blurred by the program, he explained.
“I’m proud to say my son has a clean slate,” Johnson noted.
Johnson said the software was an electronic spy in the “war on the darkness of technology.”
While he admitted there are “very positive things” about technology, he also said there are “some really dark things.”