this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
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Privacy

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Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

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In an unexpected mask off "secure" email and VPN provider Proton took the stance of siding with the fascist MAGA Reps. Proton's services are no option for me and many others any longer. Let's collect and discuss alternatives (E2E encrypted email and VPN) here 🔐👇

Always try to provide:

-Server location (jurisdiction)

-Governance

-Integrity/trustworthiness/transparency

-User experience/ease of use (grade 1 to 10, lets take Proton as a benchmark with an 8)

-Pricing and links

If you know alternative setups, feel free to share, too.

#ProtonExodus

Background: https://lemmy.ca/comment/13913116

Edit:typo

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[–] JubilantJaguar 93 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (13 children)

Misinformation. OP is advocating that you shoot yourself in the foot.

The CEO said something silly on Twitter which revealed either that (a) he shares an exceedingly banal opinion with literally half of America or (b) he's not above a bit of preemptive sycophancy to advance his (positive) anti-trust agenda.

There's nothing particularly scandalous in the offending tweet:

  • Implying that the Democrats are now "the party of big business" is arguably true (and very boring)
  • Implying that the Republicans now "stand for the little guys" is dumb but also arguably true, unfortunately - the working classes swung to Trump in the recent election while the Democrats are fast becoming a party of high-earning elites (which is why they lost)
  • Saying that the antitrust actions began under Trump I is, well, true

Proton is not owned Zuck-like by its CEO. It's controlled by a foundation with other stakeholders on the board, including the inventor of the Web himself. In its niche it is still by far the best option. Ditching it for a nebulous non-existent alternative because the CEO expressed a dumb and extremely commonplace opinion is just silly and self-defeating.

PS: to be clear, OP is peddling misinformation because it's not true that "Proton took the stance" of anything. It's the personal opinion of the CEO that's at issue. It's a major distinction. I find it disappointing that people interested in privacy would have such little respect for a private individual's right to have their own thoughts.

PPS: to be extra clear, my comments are about the post above, not stuff that people are reading elsewhere. But the substance stands. See discussion for detail.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 15 minutes ago

OP is peddling misinformation because it's not true that "Proton took the stance" of anything.

Except Proton's official Mastodon account made another post afterwords doubling down on the CEO's comments. They ended up taking down the post due to getting a ton of backlash

[–] [email protected] 3 points 19 minutes ago

The privacy community is always told to verify, not trust. The board of Proton have decided to publicly state something that leads a lot of people to be unable to trust them - namely supporting the choices of an extreme right wing leader who has repeatedly demonstrated the foolishness of trusting anything he says or does.

This CEO is totally free to have their own thoughts but its verging on the ridiculous to think that other people aren't going to have a negative reaction to them and seek alternatives. Its next to impossible to trust a company that express approval of Trump decisions because its impossible to trust Trump. And Proton going out of their way to publicly state their approval when they are not even a US org and would've lost nothing by simply not saying anything suggests a board that was keen to publicly express support for Trump. It inevitably makes people who are already on the receiving end of Trumpian hate legislation, or who soon will be, wonder what else Proton might be willing to do for Trump in the future.

[–] 800XL 27 points 3 hours ago

Implying that the Republicans now "stand for the little guys" is dumb but also arguably true

No, no it isn't arguably true. It's just flat out incorrect. 100% of people could vote for him or others like him out of fear of disappearing in the night if they don't. That doesn't make him or the party "for the little guy".

It doesn't matter that 51% of the country votes for the Republicans. The party has consistently shit all over "the little guy" and made him eat it for over 40 years, telling him he's eating shit and then said only the party can fix it.

All the while the party's been giving tax money to their friends and saying "don't worry, we're here now. you can feed him as much shit as you want. we'll find someone cleaning up shit and make the "little guy" think that person was making it instead. that way when you get caught doing it no one will believe it"

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 hours ago

As a non-American I don't normally care about US politics or what "literally half of America" think but I am concerned with far-right politics spilling over in to my country. So I would naturally want to resist organisations aligning themselves with those politics, whether they are scandalous to Americans or not.

[–] CatsGoMOW 130 points 10 hours ago (5 children)

I largely agree with what you’re saying, except the official Proton Mastadon account doubled down on that personal opinion. That seems pretty clear that it’s endorsed not just by that one individual on the board.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 9 hours ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

Can you screenshot it? The link doesn’t load

[–] [email protected] 34 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (2 children)

Archives in case they delete it:

https://web.archive.org/web/20250115165213/https://mastodon.social/@protonprivacy/113833073219145503

https://archive.is/lBQd8

Text copy of their post:


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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

This doesn’t seem bad? Its true dems embraced the corporate side. The republicans suck and are only going after tech until tech bows down to them (like zuck has been doing) but the post isn’t really outrageous or worse than the first tweet

[–] [email protected] 1 points 46 minutes ago

Right? So much of this seems like people not able to tell if actions are good or bad independent of who takes the action. There's no way their team could ever do anything bad, and anything done by the other team is automatically bad.

God forbid you try to reinforce a rare good behavior from someone who's also done a lot of horrendous things.

[–] Sludgehammer 14 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Looks like backing up the post was a good call.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Just puked a little after reading that.

[–] errer 15 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Here’s what I don’t get: if the leadership at Proton believes this shit, why share it on social media at all? It clearly isn’t going to make anyone in the left happy. Are they trying to capture porn-loving MAGA?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 hours ago

Appeasement to the fascists so they don't get banned like they did to tiktok (I assume)

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[–] mean_bean279 72 points 9 hours ago (5 children)

I love how you’re claiming misinformation while posting misinformation. It’s not the CEO, it’s a board member. That said, the company also officially posted these ideas on their Bluesky account.

This isn’t a “CEO” expressing a belief, it’s the board, and now the official company line.

I’m not disagreeing with their post particularly on corporate dems, but this is a company and not a persons sole belief.

Also, if dems are the party of big business then why are all these big businesses donating to Trump? Does that just mean republicans are the party of even bigger business?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago

Both parties are the big business parties. Big business is “donating” (bribing) Trump now like all big businesses have done to both parties since citizens united passed.

[–] conicalscientist 28 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

Their bullet points are spin-doctoring.

Also the comment got a few dozen upvotes almost immediately. Suspicious.

[–] mean_bean279 8 points 5 hours ago

I was thinking the same thing. In all the threads about it. It just seemed oddly suspicious and not typical of what the digital privacy community has typically believed… I mean, I’m also not going to homogenize a community like that though and Proton has been a mainstay.

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[–] jaggedrobotpubes 51 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (12 children)
  1. It isn't misinformation.

  2. Someone like this board member being a traitor to his species isn't covered by "opinion". No normalizing nazis. It's such a low bar. He couldn't clear it.

  3. He blasted his treachery over the public airwaves. His privacy isn't being violated.

This whole comment feels like an exercise in using all the best words to miss the point. We know, as does this probably-lying board member, that Republicans are only going to go more authoritarian, and the only reason they would pretend to care about big tech abuses is to grab the steering wheel from them to commit far worse abuses. No company that gets into bed with traitors is going to become the new center of my digital life.

Tuta for email, syncthing for photos bc I'm not self-hosting, mullvad for VPN.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

You have to self host if you use synching

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Implying that the Democrats are now "the party of big business" is arguably true (and very boring)

While true in some scenarios, in anti-trust Lina khan's ftc has done significantly more than trump ever did. Biden keeping her over the protest of countless business execs and daily articles in the wall street journal on how she's ruining America shows some commitment to prosecuting big tech.

Meanwhile, trump's anti-trust moves were mostly based off petty issues he had with the ceos or the platforms having a "liberal bias". Now that every big tech ceo has fallen in line and given him $1 million for his inauguration I doubt we'll see much movement on that front.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 hours ago

From what I remember pre-election news was saying wealthy dems/dem donors wanted Biden (and Kamala in some report I saw) gone primarily because they didn’t like what Lina Khan was doing. There were also questions about whether Kamala would continue to support Lina Khan after receiving donations from wealthy donors. JD Vance praised her work and it sounds like the Trump nomination is going to continue similarly.

I don’t like Trump at all and I know how petty and sycophantic he can be, but this may end up being one case where I end up preferring the result on this one specific issue over what we may have had if the dems had won without Kamala or if she flipped and agreed to drop Khan. I won’t really know how I feel about this selection until I see the result.

(Quick search turned these examples up that I’ve only skimmed, but I need to log off: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/24/kamala-harris-lina-khan-00185345 https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/kamala-harris-rich-donors-lina-khan/)

[–] JubilantJaguar 5 points 9 hours ago

Completely agree on all that.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

Nothing that OP said is false, so we can’t characterize this post as “misinformation.” The CEO of Proton is, as a matter of empirical fact, dangerously delusional. The Republican Party is not interested in antitrust issues let alone protecting “the little guy.” They’re interested in corporate subservience, the paradigm of all fascist regimes. I’m not sure why you would feel comfortable with a service whose CEO is this childishly naive.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

Not American, but there is this regarding the third point: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i1zjgn/comment/m7b1wib/

Any thoughts here?

To me this whole demonizing proton ceo thing seems a bit overblown. Sucking up is actually pathetic and funny

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[–] [email protected] -4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Nailed it, Americans get so offended and divided on these issues that they just throw reason and logic out the window

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

You are extremely ignorant. We have people marching through the streets with police protection chanting ‘Jews will not replace us".

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

That sounds like throwing reason and logic out the window, what's the context?

[–] [email protected] -4 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (4 children)

I find it disappointing that people interested in privacy would have such little respect for a private individual’s right to have their own thoughts.

Ding ding ding.

It seems the vast majority of people do NOT want to allow speech they don't like, no matter the consequences. That requires too much forward thinking. Excuse me while I watch history repeat itself...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 hours ago

Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. Nobody here is silencing speech, we are just exercising our right to free association by not doing business with Nazi sympathizers.

[–] JustAnotherKay 4 points 3 hours ago

I don't wanna give money to people who would hate me for who I am

Then you don't really like free speech!

Ok bud. I'm not gonna weigh in with my actual opinion on the matter being discussed, I just wanted to point out that you've taken a few too many steps with that assumption lol

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 hours ago

Oh I want him to be allowed to speak his mind. I just don't want to give a Trumpet any money, and especially not after their annoucement of a crypto wallet and ventures into AI crap.

Free speech doesn't mean I should spend my money there.

[–] JubilantJaguar -1 points 7 hours ago

Yes I tend to share your analysis.

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