A pro-Palestinian app created to help consumers boycott Israeli products has gained traction on TikTok amid calls in Hebrew-language media for Google to ban it.
The free app, called “No Thanks,” was launched by Palestinian graduate student Ahmed Bashbash last November. Downloaded by 100,000 users within a month, the app enables consumers to scan product barcodes to determine if the item has connections to Israel.
By the start of April, “No Thanks” reported one million people had downloaded the app. Millions of users had viewed tikTok influencer videos promoting “No Thanks,” contributing to the app’s growth of 900,000 downloads in four months.
That is great.
But I also think leftists should not be downloading protest apps directly through google, because they have that data.
We need to better expose protest movements to things like fdroid and how to combat the surveillance they carry in their pocket.
Short termz the app seems like a good thing, but we need to move away from google play long term.