Summary
Proton Mail, known for its privacy-first email services, faced backlash after CEO Andy Yen praised the Republican Party and its antitrust stance.
The company initially posted and deleted a statement supporting Yen’s comments, later claiming an “internal miscommunication” and reiterating its political neutrality.
Critics question Proton’s impartiality, particularly as it cooperates with Swiss authorities on legal data requests.
Privacy advocates warn that political alignments could undermine trust, especially for Proton’s users—journalists and activists wary of government surveillance under administrations like Trump’s.
Wow. There’s a whole lot of people here reacting to the headline, and not actually reading the story. That’s important, because the journalist’s headline is (shocker) a huge overstatement.
I was concerned as I’m a Proton user and have been for years, and hard left politically, and despise Trump. But maybe lets just read it before reacting?
Here’s what the CEO posted on Xitter:
Yep. That’s a bad look. Doesn’t make a lot of sense either because the Republicans are very much the party of big business and corporate handouts and deregulation in oil, gas, energy, mining, manufacture, industrial farming etc.
Then here’s what Proton’s team said on Reddit as an explanation and expansion of the CEO’s post (and then later deleted):
First off, I feel like I’ve read from hundreds of Lemmy users total agreement that the Democratic party is captured by corporate interests, so I really doubt any disagreement with that section of Proton’s post. My reaction to the remainder is that it’s not at all praise for the Republican party, just the factual statement of the sad reality that Republicans with their very hard-on-Silicon-Valley rhetoric are more likely to actually reign in the big tech companies than the Democratic party - and Proton is in a good position to have seen this first hand. Zero of the statement praises Trump or praises Republicans, and there is in fact lament that the Democrats didn’t stick harder with their left-wing candidates, even highlighting Bernie. I can see why they deleted it though, it’s office chatter than never should have left the cubicle.
TL;DR: storm in a teacup, I’ll be keeping my Proton mail account.
p.s. yes this is my first Lemmy post. I’m a longtime lurker though. I felt strongly enough about this to make an account to post, as nobody seemed to be actually posting the content of the article - just reacting. Edit: typos & formatting of the quote.
Yep, a complete drama over nothing that got many people start a witch hunt. We already reached the point in which the guy is now a Nazi for having chosen a username with 88 in it, despite the fact that he is Taiwanese AND born in that year. Basically this is the well-meaning, internet vigilantes version of “bill gates injects 5g microchips with vaccines”.
It’s what happens when politics becomes faith.
Good first post
Good catch. Someone else here in the comments detected a hint of astroturfing… perhaps they were onto something
Edit: they opened a Lemmy acct to make that post, fwiw
Same for me. Was it kind of stupid what the CEO said? Yes, sure, but who the fuck does not do that from time to time?
I also hate this mentality, that if you agree with a decision a party / person made, then that means you agree with everything they stand for. Bitch, no!
Nicely said.
I had my doubts, I mailed Proton and they responded with a statement Yen his opinion isn’t that of Proton, his comment while using the Proton account was a mistake which has been deleted and Proton changed to a foundation so no one, including a CEO like Yen, can change what Proton stands for.
Due respect, your take is obtuse at best or you’re a shill. The company, with current leadership in place, just cannot come back from the first statement, it illustrates a fundamental detachment from objective reality, to the point that you’ve lost any and all credibility, permanently.
In a business based on trust, this is just so clear. Poop