Grayjay – The Fight Against Censorship
When we write reviews about programs or apps, we aim to present the pros and cons of the product as objectively as possible, give our personal opinion, warn of potential problems or benefits, and provide you with as much information as possible so that you can make a decision on whether or not you want to use that program or application. That won’t be the case in this review. Here we will try to convince you to give this unfinished application a chance because we believe that this is the right step in improving and fighting censorship on the Internet.
Grayjay is a free app for Android that will allow you to follow creators, not platforms, and resist censorship by big tech corporations.
Why We Believe Grayjay Is Necessary
In the last few years, we have witnessed incredible censorship, especially in the West, which has been going on for at least a decade and a half, but has recently reached a level we could not even imagine until recently. Most of us have seen TV news montages where anchors on 20 – 30 different channels say the same text and pretend to bring us the news.
Analysts who come on the shows to talk about the necessity of war against certain countries, but never say that they are high-ranking officials of corporations that produce weapons. Statesmen who are supposed to regulate certain industries, who after some time spent in the government go to work for corporations that they “regulated” until yesterday.
This has led to the incredible growth of the so-called alternative media. People and organizations that mostly comment on mainstream news and show the lies that are spread there every day. Censorship of these media has been going on for at least 15 years, but since the pandemic it has become more pronounced and much more direct.
Since Western countries have laws that protect freedom of speech, these governments have figured out that they don’t have to censor themselves and thereby break the law, but the big tech corporations, that most of us get our news from, can do it for them. So for years we have had channels on YouTube that have hundreds of thousands or millions of subscribers, and when they publish a video, that video is only shown to a small number of users and, as a rule, only to those who have already watched videos from that channel.
However, this was not enough and when the censorship became the strongest, people began to resist and search and follow alternative channels, which have grown incredibly in the last few years. Unfortunately, the oligarchy did not give up and they started shutting down these channels and banning or at least planning to ban entire websites in certain countries, such as Rumble in the European Union and America.
The problem here is that when you follow a YouTuber, you’re basically just expressing your desire for YouTube to notify you when that channel posts a new video, and you can’t in any way influence whether the corporation will comply. As we can see, if it is a channel that does not follow the script written by the ruling class, it will be censored.
This is where Grayjay comes to the rescue, an application developed by the company of Mr. Louis Rossmann, a repairman and a long-time fighter for the rights of consumers to repair their devices.
How Does Grayjay Work?
Basically, Grayjay is an application for watching videos, similar to YouTube. On the main screen you will have a list of offered videos, and when you tap on one of them, a new screen will open where you can watch the video. As on YouTube, here you will be able to choose the resolution, leave a Like or a Dislike, write comments and everything else we are used to.
What Grayjay brings to us is the possibility that if the author has uploaded the video on several different platforms, you will be able to choose from which platform the video will be played. Also, the best thing is that when you follow a certain channel, every time that channel publishes a video, you will be notified about it in a neat and timely manner. In addition to this, if, for example, YouTube bans a certain channel, you will not even notice it, because you will still receive notifications and you will be able to watch videos from other websites.
Currently, the problem with Grayjay is that the application is not complete, and many options do not work or offer limited capabilities. This will change over time and we believe that there is currently enough that you can use the application without any major problems.
Google Is Fighting Back
After only a few days of Grayjay appearing, Google saw the danger of such a product and as you can imagine, launched censorship and legal attacks. First, they deleted all videos on Louis Rossmann’s YouTube channel in which he presents his app.
After this, they sent a letter to Mr. Rossmann’s company demanding that the company stop developing Grayjay, as they claim it violates the terms of use of the YouTube API. This is, of course, just a lie, and Mr. Rossmann, who has many years of experience in the fight against lobbyists, has previously researched and examined the legal side of using the YouTube API and told YouTube in a hilarious video: see you in court.
In addition, if you download Grayjay from the Google Play Store, you will not get the full version, with all the options that are necessary for it to work properly. For this reason, we suggest you download the application from the official website, where you will get the full version.
We Are Hoping That Grayjay Succeeds in Its Fight Against Censorship
We openly admit that our goal is to convince you to give Grayjay a chance. The app, although available, is still under development and not all options work. However, what it wants to achieve is of the utmost importance if we are to make a fairer and better world.
Platform:
Android