I was looking at moving to Proton as this all went down. Those plans are on hold.
After reading through it, I am having trouble figuring out how to read his comments because I wonder if there is some different cultural references or simplification going on between the Swis exec and American readers.
It was absolutely a stupid comment and was then the response was handed badly, but I don’t know that I read it as aligning with Fascism.
Thanks for the link. I was about to extend my Proton mail subscription to the full monty, but backed out when I saw the original incriminating post (which did surprise me, based on what I thought I knew about them). The writeup does offer a compelling argument for that one post having been taken a little too far in todays tribal political environment.
Yeah. I am not ready to move to Proton quite yet, but this doesn’t feel like it was intended the way many Americans are reading it. They also have posts like this (not from the an executive I think, but official) that don’t sound like getting in bed with the government: https://proton.me/blog/trump-controls-nsa-fbi
All that is to say, I am planning to give this a little longer and see what else happens, but I have not ruled out Proton yet.
But the shithead exec is supportive of fascists which means privacy is secondary to the desires of the current regime. That’s just a standard part of fascism. And if the current regime is allowing untested backdoor code to be inserted in the Treasury department and NASA and the CDC and most major social media to strip out protections for people they don’t like, climate change, etc. Just imagine what someone who actually supports them ideologically would be willing to do.
I distance myself from companies run by people who say or explicitly support people who say that I don’t or shouldn’t exist. There are a few other things that make me distance myself from companies, but that one is a pretty hard line. (I’m gender “non-compliant” and on the Autism spectrum among other things that have been explicitly said don’t exist, shouldn’t exist, or need to be “cured”). Otherwise, I try to distance myself from any companies who explicitly collect and sell my information and other things that I find problematic, but that’s not always possible.
People on all social media really can’t seem to understand that the choices aren’t exclusively “everything has a perfect open source, non-profit utopia” and “fuck it, everyone is corrupt so it doesn’t matter what service you use.”
You are able to do what you can, where you can, to mitigate risks and try your best not to support fascists. Especially when there are a dozen alternatives.
Then again, maybe people are just arguing in bad faith.
Well, the latest development I’ve seen is they’re deleting (censoring) comments calling out the political bias of their CEO on their post about how they’re fighting against censorship:
Here’s an evidenced account of part of what their CEO asserted:
This is what the CEO posting as u/Proton_Team stated in a response on r/ProtonMail:
Here is our official response, also available on the Mastodon post in the screenshot:
Corporate capture of Dems is real. In 2022, we campaigned extensively in the US for anti-trust legislation.
Two bills were ready, with bipartisan support. Chuck Schumer (who coincidently has two daughters working as big tech lobbyists) refused to bring the bills for a vote.
At a 2024 event covering antitrust remedies, out of all the invited senators, just a single one showed up - JD Vance.
By working on the front lines of many policy issues, we have seen the shift between Dems and Republicans over the past decade first hand.
Dems had a choice between the progressive wing (Bernie Sanders, etc), versus corporate Dems, but in the end money won and constituents lost.
Until corporate Dems are thrown out, the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.
There’s also this lemmy discussion from the day after but by that point the Proton team had fully kicked in their censorship so I don’t know how much people were aware of (apologies I don’t know how to make a generic lemmy link)
https://feddit.uk/post/22741653
Proton, but I’ve been questioning that of late :-/
I was looking at moving to Proton as this all went down. Those plans are on hold.
After reading through it, I am having trouble figuring out how to read his comments because I wonder if there is some different cultural references or simplification going on between the Swis exec and American readers.
It was absolutely a stupid comment and was then the response was handed badly, but I don’t know that I read it as aligning with Fascism.
This is the best writeup I can find: https://archive.ph/2025.01.29-213655/https://medium.com/@ovenplayer/does-proton-really-support-trump-a-deeper-analysis-and-surprising-findings-aed4fee4305e
Thanks for the link. I was about to extend my Proton mail subscription to the full monty, but backed out when I saw the original incriminating post (which did surprise me, based on what I thought I knew about them). The writeup does offer a compelling argument for that one post having been taken a little too far in todays tribal political environment.
Yeah. I am not ready to move to Proton quite yet, but this doesn’t feel like it was intended the way many Americans are reading it. They also have posts like this (not from the an executive I think, but official) that don’t sound like getting in bed with the government: https://proton.me/blog/trump-controls-nsa-fbi
All that is to say, I am planning to give this a little longer and see what else happens, but I have not ruled out Proton yet.
i get it… its still a quality service despite that one shithead exec
But the shithead exec is supportive of fascists which means privacy is secondary to the desires of the current regime. That’s just a standard part of fascism. And if the current regime is allowing untested backdoor code to be inserted in the Treasury department and NASA and the CDC and most major social media to strip out protections for people they don’t like, climate change, etc. Just imagine what someone who actually supports them ideologically would be willing to do.
if you distance yourself from every company that has a dick executive, youre going to need to go off-grid. good luck.
I distance myself from companies run by people who say or explicitly support people who say that I don’t or shouldn’t exist. There are a few other things that make me distance myself from companies, but that one is a pretty hard line. (I’m gender “non-compliant” and on the Autism spectrum among other things that have been explicitly said don’t exist, shouldn’t exist, or need to be “cured”). Otherwise, I try to distance myself from any companies who explicitly collect and sell my information and other things that I find problematic, but that’s not always possible.
Keep fighting the good fight!
(I’m trying to be encouraging, but obviously finding a baseline decent mail or other tech provider shouldn’t have to be a “fight” …)
People on all social media really can’t seem to understand that the choices aren’t exclusively “everything has a perfect open source, non-profit utopia” and “fuck it, everyone is corrupt so it doesn’t matter what service you use.”
You are able to do what you can, where you can, to mitigate risks and try your best not to support fascists. Especially when there are a dozen alternatives.
Then again, maybe people are just arguing in bad faith.
CEOs != everyone
Using the official company social media to double down on what the CEO said = company policy = how company will act
I think the more punchline phrasing for it:
Fascist = wants to have control over you.
Can you explain what happened/what they said?
Well, the latest development I’ve seen is they’re deleting (censoring) comments calling out the political bias of their CEO on their post about how they’re fighting against censorship:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonVPN/comments/1ij4qn9/behind_the_scenes_of_proton_vpns_fight_against/
Here’s an evidenced account of part of what their CEO asserted:
This is what the CEO posting as u/Proton_Team stated in a response on r/ProtonMail:
Source: https://archive.ph/quYyb
To call out the important bits:
That was posted in ther/ProtonMail sub where the majority of the event took place: https://old.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i1zjgn/so_that_happened/m7ahrlm/
However be aware that the CEO posting as u/Proton_Team kept editing his comments so I wouldn’t trust the current state of it. Plus the proton team/subreddit mods deleted a ton of discussion they didn’t like. Therefore this archive link captured the day after might show more but not all: https://web.archive.org/web/20250116060727/https://old.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i1zjgn/so_that_happened/m7ahrlm/
Some statements were made on Mastodon but these are subsequently deleted, but they’re capture by an archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20250115165213/https://mastodon.social/@protonprivacy/113833073219145503
I learned about it from an r/privacy thread but true to their reputation the mods there also went on a deletion spree and removed the entire post: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1i210jg/protonmail_supporting_the_party_that_killed/
This archive link might show more but I’ve not checked: https://web.archive.org/web/20250115193443/https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1i210jg/protonmail_supporting_the_party_that_killed/
There’s also this lemmy discussion from the day after but by that point the Proton team had fully kicked in their censorship so I don’t know how much people were aware of (apologies I don’t know how to make a generic lemmy link) https://feddit.uk/post/22741653
I hadn’t seen all that. I may have to move my services again
Someone mentioned Tuta…