Using Boost for Lemmy, I got an obvious political ad from the right asking to sign a petition to scrap the gun "ban" in Canada (it's a registry not a ban).
Now I understand this is an ad but I don't appreciate having propaganda from the right injected into my browsing on lemmy. Have better ads, or let us report them.
No idea why that's so scary to you. The only permission that's understandable to be concerned about would be external write perms and that will at worst delete a bunch of your shit, not snoop through any of it. Trackers are also super typical, you'll have a really tough time using your phone while avoiding all of these.
Hell all the OSS apps I use have some sort of crash reporting and way the fuck more permissions than boost does. Dude wants to make money off Boost and I think he deserves it. Most devs do, most OSS folks just accept they'll never make a cent from their labor or rely on donations.