Copied from the reddit post:
Hi all, last night, a post from last year from my personal X account suddenly became a topic of discussion here on Reddit. I want to share a few thoughts on this to provide clarity to the community on what is Proton’s policy on politics going forward.
First, while the X post was not intended to be a political statement, I can understand how it can be interpreted as such, and it therefore should not have been made. While we will not prohibit all employees from expressing personal political opinions publicly, it is something I will personally avoid in the future. I lean left on some issues, and right on other issues, but it doesn’t serve our mission to publicly debate this. It should be obvious, but I will say that it is a false equivalence to say that agreeing with Republicans on one specific issue (antitrust enforcement to protect small companies) is equal to endorsing the entire Republican party platform.
Second, officially Proton must always be politically neutral, and while we may share facts and analysis, our policy going forward will be to share no opinions of a political nature. The line between facts, analysis, and opinions can be blurry at times, but we will seek to better clarify this over time through your feedback and input.
The exception to these rules is on the topics of privacy, security, and freedom. These are necessarily political topics, where influencing public policy to defend these values, often requires engaging politically.
The operations of Proton have always reflected our neutrality. For example, recently we refused pressure to deplatform both Palestinian student groups and Zionist student groups, not because we necessarily agreed with their views, but because we believe more strongly in their right to have their own views.
It is also a legal guarantee under Swiss law, which explicitly prohibits us from assisting foreign governments or agencies, and allows us no discretion to show favoritism as Swiss law and Swiss courts have the final say.
The promise we make is that no matter your politics, you will always be welcome at Proton (subject of course to adherence to our terms and conditions). When it comes to defending your right to privacy, Proton will show no favoritism or bias, and will unconditionally defend it irrespective of the opinions you may hold.
This is because both Proton as a company, and Proton as a community, is highly diverse, with people that hold a wide range of opinions and perspectives. It’s important that we not lose sight of nuance. Agreeing/disagreeing with somebody on one point, rarely means you agree/disagree with them on every other point.
I would like to believe that as a community there is more that unites us than divides us, and that privacy and freedom are universal values that we can all agree upon. This continues to be the mission of the non-profit Proton Foundation, and we will strive to carry it out as neutrally as possible.
Going forward, I will be posting via u/andy1011000. Thank you for your feedback and inputs so far, and we look forward to continuing the conversation.
a post from last year from my personal X account suddenly became a topic of discussion here on Reddit.
You mean last month right.
this is the most “i think my userbase are idiots” statement anybody could make. like do you think we dont know how time works andy? fuck you
Yeah, last year, 2024. Stupid way of intentionally phrasing it.
Trouble is Andy, we now know what you privately think and all the follow up statements in the world can’t put that genie back in the bottle.
Proton is an org that exists in an industry whose customers do not trust easily. Publicly aligning with someone utterly untrustable, either as an individual or as a board, has tainted Proton and adversely affected peoples ability to trust. How can we ever know when Proton will find it acceptable again to respond positively to a Trumpian decision or how it might affect our privacy?
To be honest, many of not most CEOs probably privately think that way because it’s advantageous to their business. It’s a product of how the government is owned by the corporations. We all hate it but it’s simply The current state of affairs. It’s literally his job not to let it out into public that he feels that way.
Literal thought policing (“what you privately think”) and quasi-religious purity logic (“has tainted Proton”). This nicely reveals the kind of busybodying inquisitorial mindset that keeps losing elections for US progressives and thus landing the rest of the world with Trump.
There’s an easy solution to the pseudo-problem you raise: judge Proton by its actions rather than the (utterly commonplace) opinions of one of its directors.
Hey bud, when you blurt out what you think “privately”, it’s no longer private, and people not liking what was said publicly isn’t “thought policing”.
Secondly, Protons actions include supporting this wackjob’s “private” thoughts.. Even by your asinine rubric, they’re allowed to be judged on that.
It’s not thought policing. Proton, a company all about privacy, is literally nothing without the trust of its user base. Aligning with someone who is not trustworthy by making a statement that makes no sense (literally saying Trump’s administration will be anti-big tech while it’s been gaining shit tons of support from the Tech Titans Musk, Bezos, and Zuck) completely debases that trust. Additionally it’s not thought policing because companies are not people and cannot think.
Even if it was thought policing, in line with the Social Contract of Tolerance, there is no room to tolerate, let alone vocally support, fascists.
Literal thought policing (“what you privately think”)
Are you suggesting that a statement that he made is not what he thinks?
quasi-religious purity logic (“has tainted Proton”)
lol, sorry you’re incapable of processing descriptive language :) I’ll rephrase it to ‘has negatively affected Proton’s image in the eyes of some’.
This nicely reveals the kind of busybodying inquisitorial mindset that keeps losing elections for US progressives and thus landing the rest of the world with Trump.
Neither I, nor Proton, are American so its difficult to see how my opinion keeps landing the world with Trump.
Literal thought policing (“what you privately think”)
Your private thoughts, nobody cares about. He didn’t have a “private thought” exposed, he literally posted his thought publicly.
THATs the issue, and people can choose to disassociate with you, if you publicly ruminate how you’re going to work hand-in-hand with a fascist state.
judge Proton by its actions rather than the (utterly commonplace) opinions of one of its directors.
And, this is what we are doing. A CEO speaks for the organization, and telegraphs it’s actions. And his actions are gross.
If the org wants to fix this, they need to fire him. Because otherwise, his opinion is the opinion of the organization.
I love user notes; this one has ‘fascist centrist’ attached, and lo and behold.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them
I’m personally satisfied with the statement, position and reflection on the issue.
It was a fuck-up to publicly respond to donaldtrump in what could be seen as an endorsement. This was acknowledged and remedied.
The no politics stance is probably unavoidable, as mentioned but they should never focus on political parties, but on defending the values, this is what is clarified and that’s best. We should accept to support a bill strengthening privacy even if it may come from a political party we generally do not support. Denying our support to such a bill would not strengthen the core value we defend. And as individuals we may still criticize all other activities of such a political party if we disagree with others of their activities.
As a community, I hope we can come together, and resist the temptation of purity tests, and acknowledge that we are all fighting for the same cause, no matter our perspective on other issues. We need the support of everyone.
His main point is outright wrong though. Republicans are not better at anti-trust, they’re the big money. Thinking Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos will protect small tech companies is laughable.
This comment is not the original. He changed it.
we are all fighting for the same cause
Catering to the “Libertarian” neo-Nazi crowd so they buy your product vs wanting to defend minorities against these sort of people is not the same cause
I’m still confused how he could have been dumb enough to think, let alone imply, let alone say out loud, that Republicans want to reign in big tech, when they so transparently want to capture it and make it an even worse version of itself. It’s not that everything they do is a cynical power grab, it’s that everything they do is a blatant cynical power grab, and being in the privacy business without having a perfectly clear understanding of that feels equivalent to not knowing what a VPN is.
His statement here is great, and I support it whole-heartedly and unabashedly. It just feels almost…I don’t know, unrelated somehow? Even though ostensibly it isn’t.
proton is cia
proton is ciait’s modern crypto AG
Yeah, I pay for Proton to try it out. I was liking it but this guy bending the knee to someone like trump is a huge red flag. I won’t be renewing my subscription!
You can tell Andy is European because he does not understand American politics.
If you say anything positive about an American politician it means you will stan them for life and support all their actions unconditionally.
Likewise if you say anything negative about an American politician it means you hate everything they stand for.
If you say anything positive about an American politician it means you will stan them for life and support all their actions unconventionally.
There is nothing positive about the GOP, Trump, or the American Reich Wing.
The communication that kicked off this whole thing was saying something positive about Trump and something negative about Democrats in direct comparison, on an issue that the Democrats are actually way better on.
It’s not just saying something positive about a political official or party. It’s actively saying “this party is better than that party.” And he was wrong on the merits of the statement.
And then amplifying the message using an official account is where it went off the rails. CEOs are allowed to have opinions as individuals. But when the official account backs up the CEO, then we can rightly be skeptical that the platform itself will be administered in a fair way.
It’s funny how people completely lost their minds when they could see a potential connection between what he said and some political side while those same people are perfectly fine with ignoring what’s really wrong with Proton and its marketing - even though it all goes against their core beliefs of “privacy” “security” “open-source” etc.
Edit to include what I didn’t have time to type:
Any e-mail service that doesn’t provide standard IMAP/SMTP directly to their servers and uses custom protocols is yet another attempt at vendor lock-in and nobody should use it.
What Proton is doing is pushing for vendor lock-in at any possible point so you’re stuck with what they deem acceptable because it’s easier for them to build a service this way and makes more sense from a business / customer retention perspective. Proton is doing to e-mail about the same that WhatsApp and Messenger did to messaging - instead of just using an open protocol like XMPP they opted for their closed thing in order to lock people into their apps. People in this community seem to be okay with this just because they sell the “privacy” cool-aid.
People complain when others use Google or Microsoft for e-mail around here, but at least in those providers you can access your e-mail through standard protocols. How ironic it is to see privacy / freedom die hard fans suddenly going for a company that is far less open than the big providers… just because of marketing. :)
Proton is just a company that wants profits and found out there was a niche of people who would buy into everything that they label as “encryption” and “privacy” no matter what the cost. They’ve learnt how to weaponize “privacy” to push more and more vendor lock-in. Not even Apple does this bullshit.
Now, I can see anyone commenting “oh but they have to it because of security” - no they don’t. That’s bullshit.
Any generic IMAP/SMPT provider + Thunderbird + PGP will provide the same level of security that Proton does - that is assuming they didn’t mess their client-side encryption/decryption or key storage in some way. PGP makes sure all your e-mail content is encrypted and that’s it, doesn’t matter if it’s done by Thunderbird and the e-mails are stored in Gmail OR if it’s done by the Proton bridge and the e-mails are on their servers, the same PGP tech the only difference is the client. So, no, there isn’t the reason to do it the way they do it besides vendor lock-in.
I understand your concerns of vendor lock-in. The fear is that it could avoid people leaving the service in the future. However, do you know that I use a generic email client that, through IMAP, contains a Proton account?
Sure, you’re using a bridge they develop and they can away or break at any point. It’s not the best ideal. Why support a company that is actively trying to turn open protocols into more closed stuff? Makes no sense. That type of non-sense is what got us into the situation we’ve now with WhatsApp and other messengers.
What is wrong Proton and their marketing?
Any e-mail service that doesn’t provide standard IMAP/SMTP directly to their servers and uses custom protocols is yet another attempt at vendor lock-in and nobody should use it.
What Proton is doing is pushing for vendor lock-in at any possible point so you’re stuck with what they deem acceptable because it’s easier for them to build a service this way and makes more sense from a business / customer retention perspective. Proton is doing to e-mail about the same that WhatsApp and Messenger did to messaging - instead of just using an open protocol like XMPP they opted for their closed thing in order to lock people into their apps. People in this community seem to be okay with this just because they sell the “privacy” cool-aid.
People complain when others use Google or Microsoft for e-mail around here, but at least in those providers you can access your e-mail through standard protocols. How ironic it is to see privacy / freedom die hard fans suddenly going for a company that is far less open than the big providers… just because of marketing. :)
Proton is just a company that wants profits and found out there was a niche of people who would buy into everything that they label as “encryption” and “privacy” no matter what the cost. They’ve learnt how to weaponize “privacy” to push more and more vendor lock-in. Not even Apple does this bullshit.
Now, I can see anyone commenting “oh but they have to it because of security” - no they don’t. That’s bullshit.
Any generic IMAP/SMPT provider + Thunderbird + PGP will provide the same level of security that Proton does - that is assuming they didn’t mess their client-side encryption/decryption or key storage in some way. PGP makes sure all your e-mail content is encrypted and that’s it, doesn’t matter if it’s done by Thunderbird and the e-mails are stored in Gmail OR if it’s done by the Proton bridge and the e-mails are on their servers, the same PGP tech the only difference is the client. So, no, there isn’t the reason to do it the way they do it besides vendor lock-in.
I lean left on some issues, and right on other issues
Holy shit I feel so STUPID for giving $30 a month for this clown. I am so pissed, I hate myself for allowing myself to migrate my stuff all over thinking it would be fine. I am so fucking pissed right now.
The American mind cannot grasp liking specific policies of a given party
Well he did build the Autobahn…
And the allies countries did far worse things in their colonies but whos counting
I’m pretty sure most countries have done worse things than build the Autobahn.
You need to understand the Republican party is a fascist one. Giving anything to them is a mistake.
Words are nothing, Andy should step away from proton.
Assuming Andy Chen isn’t American, this is understandable:
“It should be obvious, but I will say that it is a false equivalence to say that agreeing with Republicans on one specific issue (antitrust enforcement to protect small companies) is equal to endorsing the entire Republican party platform.”
But it’s extremely tone deaf to Americans who live within the two party duopoly in the US, and who are sensitive to the fact that you can’t really be a compromise between the two (as politics stand, currently)
Is he really using u/andy1011000? And he just started now? That’s binary for andy88, and isn’t 88 a well-known neo-Nazi dogwhistle as idiot code for “heil Hitler”?
Additional context:
88 is a white supremacist numerical code for “Heil Hitler.” H is the eighth letter of the alphabet, so 88 = HH = Heil Hitler. One of the most common white supremacist symbols, 88 is used throughout the entire white supremacist movement, not just neo-Nazis.
we refused pressure to deplatform both Palestinian student groups and Zionist student groups
Insane equivocation. One of those is a national and ethnic group; the other is a political movement whose pet project is currently on trial for genocide… “we refused pressure to deplatform both Jewish student groups and National Socialist student groups”
Literally none of this matters and its all just noise. American politics and Americans themselves are insane.
In the first comment after the second Proton toot, some queer woman complains about something related to the killing of people that are non-binary.
!Man, I love Mastodon.!<
