ON THE PARTY LINE:

"The Freedom Phone is a free speech and privacy-first focused phone. With features like tracking blockers and an uncensorable app store," the product's website says. Carrying a price tag of $499.99, the Freedom Phone ships in August. It works with all major carriers and, ironically for a product that's supposed to combat big tech, its website includes share buttons for both Facebook and Twitter.

The phone boasts an "Uncensorable App Store" called PatriApp, and comes preloaded with apps favored by conservatives, such as Parler, DuckDuckGo, Rumble and Newsmax.

"We want to create a future where free communication is not banned by Big Tech," the website says. "We want to bring back free speech. Forever."

The man behind the Freedom Phone is Erik Finman, who calls himself the "youngest Bitcoin millionaire." In a tweet this week, Finman calls the Freedom Phone "the first major pushback on the Big Tech companies that attacked us--for just thinking different."

The phone has been endorsed by a list of Trump-adjacent celebrities, like Candace Owens, Dinesh D'Souza, Roger Stone, and Ali Alexander.

However, the Freedom Phone isn't quite what it claims to be, according to the Daily Beast.

The Freedom Phone "appears to be merely a more expensive rebranding of a budget Chinese phone available elsewhere for a fraction of the Freedom Phone's price," according to the Daily Beast. Off-brand phones like this typically do not go for a $500 price tag.

The Freedom Phone is merely a rebranding of a Chinese smartphone called the Umidigi A9 Pro, made by the tech company Umidigi- and it typically costs around $120, according to the Daily Beast.

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