Promoted on TikTok, ‘No Thanks’ boycott app targets products tied to Israel

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.

Odum,

Holy crap that app has been review bombed like crazy on the Play store. Down to 2.0, claiming it uses your phone to make calls, kills your battery, etc. One even claiming it’s “trying to push it’s own agenda on you without letting you choose how to use for your own benefits” like wtf? The bots and trolls just need enough text to seem legitimate, I suppose.

fawanen,

Zionists don’t play fair.

They are religious nationalists, after all.

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

I think that’s another one. The current app is at 4.8

Play store link

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/804f09a8-d11b-436b-84b4-6396b604998a.jpeg

cosmicrookie,
@cosmicrookie@lemmy.world avatar

This is the one you linked to, through my phone https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/e7def9b5-98d4-485a-a96a-8068ab742db2.jpeg

XeroxCool,

Maybe it’s rapidly changing via bot/invalid review washing. A screenshot from 3 hours prior to your comment shows it at 4.3 but still 14k reviews

Cethin,

I think I’ve heard at some point that the review score there are region based. Different people may see different values based on where they are.

moitoi,
@moitoi@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Scores are regional. I have 4.8 stars in a European country.

VonReposti,

It’s 2.9 for me right now

sness,

2.0 now.

XeroxCool,

2.2 for me now. Clicking the ratings it warns me “ratings are based on recent reviews from your region by people using similar devices to you”. I didn’t check it before, just relayed other comments.

Cuttlefish1111,

Great effort and execution. Wonderful job. We also need one to identify Koch products and halt project 2025. They want to do terrible things.

evasive_chimpanzee,

There was an app called Buycott that lets you join “campaigns” of things you are either for or against, and when you scan something, it tells you which positive and which negative campaigns apply to that product and the company as a whole. Koch was on there. Seems like it may have been abandoned years ago, though.

ModernRisk, (edited )
@ModernRisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I have the app and the developer is a Palestinian himself. I genuinely hope it survives, the app helps a lot to boycot products that deal with Israel.

It’s unfortunate to see that so many products have deals with Israel. Some products are sadly impossible to avoid.

Here’s a screenshot about the app from within the app itself

Thi No Thanks Origin Story

The app on the AppStore (IOS): No Thanks App

EDIT: apologies, should’ve read your post in its entirety. You already mentioned the developer was a Palestinian.

Salix,

I find it interesting that it didn’t get review bombed on Apple.

On the Google Play Store, it’s pretty bad

play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bashsof…

AllNewTypeFace,
@AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space avatar

Interesting how the App Store page doesn’t mention Israel or Palestine.

Diabolo96,

The website you link being timesofisrael is a bit ironic. Great app nonetheless! If they’re writing about it then it’s working and is among the most probable reasons of the tiktok ban

ech,

Yes, the legislation that’s been in discussion for years is because of this app released 5 months ago. That’s definitely how cause and effect works.

andrewrgross,

I don’t think they mean that tiktok is being banned over this app specifically: I just interpreted their comment to mean that tiktok has been an ongoing nuisance to the American mainstream political establishment.

Diabolo96, (edited )

Damn, so it’s been discussed for years but nothing happened. Israel commit atrocities (like always ) but unlike it’s other domestic media, the US government and some of its billionaires can’t censor, lie and push their narrative anymore, so the youth finally see the truth about the genocidal apartheid, ethno-state that is Israel. Now, they ban tiktok.

This is just another perspective you haven’t thought about, or don’t want to think about because of it’s morbid implications about your country (if you’re from USA)

technocrit,

The campaign against TikTok isn’t so much ironic but more an organized campaign against journalism, free speech, truth, etc.

WamGams,

Tik tok is not a journalism app. China does not have free speech, nor do they export it, and if what they are telling you is true, than let’s talk about the genocide of the Uyghurs.

andrewrgross,

I find the Times of Israel to be a decent source. They’re obviously biased in favor of Israel, but it’s not behind a paywall and they’re far more informative than The NY Post, for instance. I think they seem less biased then the WSJ, frankly.

Overall, a useful insight into mainstream discourse in Israel with fairly accurate reporting.

Diabolo96, (edited )

Okey, but let’s put it in another context. would you trust a British colonizer owned newspaper with its news articles exclusively being written by other white colonizers during the 80s Apartheid era south Africa ? Would you consider it to be a decent source of what’s happening in South Africa and what’s happening to the black population ? Heck, apartheid era south Africa wasn’t even an ethno-state and wasn’t doing a grand scale genocide. It’s more akin to a nazi Germany newspaper.

andrewrgross,

Obviously not. But that’s true to some degree for all news sources. I don’t blindly trust any newspaper. I read Times of Israel through a lens of context, just like I do for the NY Times, The Guardian, The Intercept, etc.

I think it’s incredibly useful to see what a country reads about itself. Not only is that true even for countries engaged atrocities: it’s especially true for countries engaged in atrocities.

IcePee,

Slightly off topic, but wasn’t there a general purpose boycott app? One that allowed one to figure out the political stance behind products. Initially it was marketed as the anti-woke app, but further investigation showed that anti-woke was only one profile of many you could subscribe to.

andrewrgross,

That’s cool. Do you have any details?

Anon518,

www.buycott.com

metasaval,

tried the other posters buycott site, but the play store link leads to a “can’t find app” page. at least in America.

this app seems to be similar and is available. messing with it for a few minutes and it works. www.goodsuniteus.com

FlashMobOfOne,
@FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world avatar

I love this.

BDS all the fucking way.

Andromxda, (edited )
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

It’s a great app, unfortunately it’s not open-source. According to the Exodus report, it contains some tracking SDKs, but their network activity can be blocked in DNS. It also displays an ad banner by default, but this can easily be turned off in the settings.

cyd,

It’s gonna get pulled from app stores for “promoting antisemitism”. You don’t need to be the Kwisatz Haderach to foresee this.

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

Great app works very well. Users can submit barcodes and brands and the database is really significant by now. I tried it on a few articles and it correctly recognized each of them.

natural_motions,

I guess I’m curious if the user submitted products are vetted or not. Seems tough for one guy to keep up with that.

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

It checks for the brand of the product and if it is on a boycott list it even provides a link with information why.

Most brands on the boycott list are major global brands such as Mondelez, Unliver, Pepsico etc. As their products have similar barcodes worldwide most of the brands check out between countries.

ianovic69,
@ianovic69@feddit.uk avatar

Screenshot from Google Play.

https://feddit.uk/pictrs/image/c0e7df21-502f-40f8-977e-fcb1e331aa43.jpeg

x4740N,

Is the app open source ?

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

I can’t find info on that so I am guessing at the moment it’s not. Though it seems to be more of a small volunteer project than a big group effort for now.

WamGams,

Hint: if an aoo is collecting your data and tracking you, as this app does, it is not open source.

This implies they are selling your data to brokers.

fawanen,

No it doesn’t.

WamGams,

It doesn’t collect your data or it isn’t selling that data?

Another user on this very thread pointed out the specific trackers being used by the app. Unless that person is lying about them collecting the data, they will almost certainly be selling it.

That’s the thing about data collection: its a lot of money to store. How are they funding the operation unless turning you into the product?

fawanen,

Look up specifically what Admob, Crashlytics, and Firebase analytics track.

That’s the thing about data collection: its a lot of money to store. How are they funding the operation unless turning you into the product?

Are you referring to data on users, or data on the products this app tracks? The app doesn’t need to store user data beyond what is required for it to function. Even if it stored such data, each user will only take up kilobytes to maybe a few megabytes because it’s just text data.

As for the data on the products, by far the largest files would be images. The rest is just text data.

Standard Google Cloud Storage is $0.20/GB per month. There’s no need for this app to store 16k+ photos, so the actual storage costs are negligible.

WamGams,

Let’s hope you are right. I personally think an app of this nature should be fully open source.

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

It claims " no data collection" in the play store

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/701d8db2-f76e-4573-ad54-ce323f9d54bf.jpeg

WamGams,

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.

Artemis,

Looks like it has Google AdMob, CrashLytics, and Firebase Analytics trackers…as well as FB Share according to Exodus. While I totally support the cause, this app is definitely tracking/profiting off of it’s users behind the scenes.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Sure, but is it open source?

fawanen,

He doesn’t know but still wanted to feel useful.

Artemis,

Day old account with tonnes of down votes and attacking people just trying to help…you are very clearly a troll. Also, I must be a guy since I’m commenting about tech? 🙄

lunarul,

How are crashlytics and firebase analytics profiting off of users? I cannot imagine not including those in an app you’re actually hoping to improve.

Artemis,

There are other privacy-respecting trackers that could be used for app improvement. At the end of the day, Google profits from the data collected here, and Lemmy has a big community of users looking to avoid this. Tangentially, Google also has massive contracts with the Israeli military that have recently come under fire in the news…just another reason to use different app-improvement trackers if the goal is to truly boycott/divest, etc.

fawanen,

I’m guessing you have no idea what those technologies do.

Google Admob is literally for serving ads.

Crashlytics is for monitoring crashes.

Firebase analytics is for monitoring firebase usage, which is required for things like push notifications when using firebase.

Try uploading an app to the Google Play store yourself before you spread FUD on matters you know nothing about.

Artemis,

I pointed out the trackers that are included in this app for full transparency…not everyone likes having Google and Facebook on their phone. The inclusion of these trackers also hint that the app isn’t open source, which was the initial question. I’m not sure any of this called for such an inflammatory response…

febra,

It’s a great app. I’ve been using it for some time now

fawanen,

Interesting. I’m definitely going to be checking this out.

If I have to decide between two products and one of them has fewer ties to Israel, you know which one I’m going to pick.

Mrkawfee,

This app is so useful in helping me exclude products that support the apartheid genocide regime.

Boycott Divest and Sanctioning Israel is the only way to bring about the end of Zionism.

Zagorath,
@Zagorath@aussie.zone avatar

I love the idea of the app, but I think some greater coordination with the BDS movement would help. Instead of a simple “yes/no”, tell the user of the app which category the product/company is listed in by BDS and let them make up their own mind.

For example, currently products in the “pressure targets” are displayed exactly the same as “consumer boycott target”. As BDS says, boycotts are most effective when they’re more highly targetted. So there’s no problem with boycotting the pressure targets, but there is if someone uses the fact that they’re boycotting a pressure target as an excuse to feel good and not boycott a boycott target. Being clearer could only help.

Relevant BDS page.

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

I think a rating score would indeed be better. Big disctinctions I make are

  • Vocally support israel
  • Donate money to israel
  • Production in israel
  • Production in illegally colonized Palestinian territory.

I also found this website which does not work with barcodes but does mention different brands and reasons why:

boycott.thewitness.news It even got Ben and Jerry’s right

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/4d029dd2-bf15-41b1-9a36-1d7b70d4cb4a.png

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