WARNINGS have been issued over the new "Freedom Phone" which claims to protect privacy and allow free speech without censorship.
According to the company and its founder Erik Finman, 22, the phone aims to "create a future where free communication is not banned by Big Tech".
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The phone has its own app store where no information is censored, allowing customers to read and watch whatever they want.
It also contains preloaded conservative apps, including ones which have been banned by other app stores.
The Freedom Phone operates with its own software FreedomOS and has massive memory space, fast processors, front and back cameras, and all-day battery life.
Self-proclaimed Bitcoin millionaire Finman claims the $500 phone, which launched last week, is comparable to the best smartphones on the market.
'MAJOR PUSHBACK'
"This is the first major pushback on the Big Tech companies that attacked us - for just thinking different," Finman tweeted.
"We’re finally taking back control."
But the new device has a lot of "red flags", CNET reports.
"The Freedom Phone and its politically conservative branding will appeal to many. But there is nothing to suggest that the phone, its privacy claims or avoidance of 'Big Tech' work the way Finman suggests," Patrick Holland writes.
"The fact the phone is already available to order - and that there are more buy buttons on the website than phone hardware specs describing the phone's capabilities - are all red flags.
"The absence of technical details and the fact that the company is already accepting money for preorders heightens our skepticism that the company will be able to meet those orders as well as its lofty privacy claims."
CNET highlights how Finman doesn't explain how the phone works, or how it protects your privacy or free speech.
Based on photographs from the company website a number of Internet sleuths identified that the device has the same form-factor, shape, and appearance of a Umidigi A9 Pro.
Matthew Hickey
It is also unclear if the phone will be able to run apps such as Adobe Acrobat, social media apps such as TikTok or Snapchat, or even dating apps such as Tinder or Grindr.
"It also isn't clear how the phone would handle technical details like IP tracing, website cookies or other conventional tracking tools used on phones and other electronic devices," Holland writes.
Other experts have warned the device appears to be a budget phone from Asia.
Matthew Hickey, the co-founder of Hacker House and longtime cyber professional, told Daily Dot: "This device is a drop-shipped customizable Android-based phone.
"They can be bought and shipped in bulk from Asia with custom logos and branding so as to give the appearance of a phone that has been designed for a unique purpose."
USE IN NORTH KOREA
Hickey told Gizmodo: "Based on photographs from the company website a number of Internet sleuths identified that the device has the same form-factor, shape, and appearance of a Umidigi A9 Pro."
He said the phone is known for its poor security due to its use of processors from MediaTek - a Taiwanese company that provides chips for smartphones.
"I have never encountered a secure MediaTek device in my entire life," Hickey warned.
"Using MediaTek for anything and expecting privacy or security is fundamentally flawed."
Hickey even claimed MediaTek’s processors are widely used in smartphones throughout North Korea due to their "highly customizable nature and low-security barrier".
CANDACE OWENS ENDORSEMENT
It comes after Candace Owens threw her support behind the phone.
The conservative firebrand tweeted: "So excited that I partnered with a SOLUTION against Apple and Google."
Owens also tweeted a clip from an Instagram live, talking her followers through the phone and how she came to endorse it.
She said she was furious that conservative social media app Parler was banned from the app store in the wake of the January 6 riots, in addition to former President Trump being banished from most social platforms.
"A bunch of people contacted us saying they're making a phone," Owens said, adding they were sent a number of different concept handsets.
"Some were terrible. Some were worse than terrible," she said before Owens was finally sent the Freedom Phone.
"I'm so excited," she added. "You need to get this phone.
"I've been on social media for four years... I've never done a sponsored post."
Owens continued: "If it doesn't help save the nation, I don't pitch it."
According to the Freedom Phone website, the handsets will be shipped in August and users will be able to start using it by simply inserting their old SIM cards into their new phones.
The device works with Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and all the other domestic and international carriers.
The Sun has contacted Freedom Phone for comment.
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