this post was submitted on 16 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.

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 37 minutes ago

If an employee did this and there was this much backlash that said employee would be promptly fired....

[–] slug 30 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

agreeing with Republicans on one specific issue (antitrust enforcement to protect small companies)

Where is he getting this bullshit from that republicans actually want to do antitrust lol

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 hour ago

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

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. 

Chuck Schumer is democrat, JD Vance is republic. Would guess opinion based on personal experience with few people.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Why does his username have "88" in binary 🧐

[–] CatsGoMOW 16 points 3 hours ago

Because of fucking course it does. 🤦‍♂️😮‍💨

[–] piyuv 9 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

He might be born on 1988, although I could not verify this. He started his PhD on 2009, that’d make him 21 at that time, which is not unusual

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 hour ago

21 is quite young for a doctorate degree. Most people only have a bachelor’s degree by 22.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Full context here for everyone.

Personally, that answer does not seem nearly enough and I believe he should step down if he truly cared about the Proton project as a whole.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago
[–] Aedis 21 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

The lines between fact (...) and opinion can be blurry at times

Are they though?

[–] CatZoomies 2 points 1 hour ago

Andy Yen, perched on ivory tower: “Why yes, they are a bit blurry up here.”

[–] [email protected] 52 points 6 hours ago (3 children)

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.

[–] piyuv 13 points 3 hours ago

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.

[–] atrielienz 14 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

This comment is not the original. He changed it.

https://archive.ph/quYyb

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

They seem to be two separate things. One is a comment, the other is a post.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Either way, if he believes this:

Until corporate Dems are thrown out, the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.

he's fucking dumb as a hammer

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

He's not wrong. There's a reason all tech billionaires switched to the Republican party when it became clear their dem donations wouldn't help them any more.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 27 minutes ago

When's the last time the gop did something to prevent an abuse of any kind?

[–] [email protected] -4 points 5 hours ago

Yep, I especially appreciate the lack of apologies. An easy cop out would be to say he’s sorry but what would he be sorry for when he didn’t say anything wrong? This is a great response, and the only possible one. And still people will call it damage control.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Words are nothing, Andy should step away from proton.

[–] mEEGal 11 points 5 hours ago

are you basing this on previous words he used ?