On Politics and Proton - a message from Andy
On Politics and Proton - a message from Andy
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.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them
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.
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.
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.
"Thought policing" is when you coerce someone to change their thoughts against their will. It is not boycotting a service because one does not agree with the service owner's thoughts. That is not thought policing. That is a purely voluntary transaction on both sides, and that is one's right as a consumer of said service. He is not entitled to customers.
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.
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
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.
By cherry picking a few Republican priorities designed to spite big tech and totally ignoring the big enforcement efforts that the Biden administration has pursued through the FTC and the DOJ Antitrust Division, in both tech and non-tech industries.
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)
This makes sense to me from a framing perspective. As an American myself, despite my best efforts, I still fall into the same trap of sort of assuming everything is much more American centric than it actually is, including other people's opinions on American politics from outside America.
His post does come off as wildly tone deaf, but seeing how he would have perceived it, it makes a lot of sense. He endorses policy by a party that shared his values, and then gets pushback for it from people who support his values. I'd probably be as confused as him if I was in his shoes.
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
He should not have @'d Trump. By doing this he is explicitly calling for the incoming administration's attention and signalling he's willing to play ball and bend the knee. Also nice try at obfuscation saying the tweet was from last year, jackass.
Additionally the company account doubled down on his messaging. I think dems suck too, but both sides are not the same. What kind of Swiss crack are they smoking to be able to pretend that the administration that created permanent tax cuts for the ultra wealthy, that I subsidize with my tax dollars, is a friend of the little guy? Or how about the administration that seated the court that bulldozed the right to privacy, while state courts pass censorship laws under the guise of child protections?
The guy is talking out both sides of his face and he's an asshole. While I don't think this is indicative of Proton's services per se I am no longer a paying customer.
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 should accept to support a bill strengthening privacy even if it may come from a political party we generally do not support.
Nobody on the left, afaik, rejects bills out of hand, purely because of which party promulgates it... The problem is, while the American Reich talks a lot about worker's issues, the bills they propose are just oligarch hand outs, cloaked in socialist or populist ideas. ie, The PATRIOT Act was the least patriotic bill ever put forth, but NOBODY was allowed to be unPATRIOTic and vote against it. The left, opposed it. Same with the 1993 Crime Bill, put forth by Dems... Can't be "anti-crime" now can we?
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
You're confusing proton with our stance as a community which cares about privacy.
As a community the question is, will we shun anyone who cares about furthering our rights to privacy, because they have other stances on other issues?
Doing so is only isolating us and prevents us from making our issues heard and gathering more support across the political spectrum.
You can fight alongside someone you don't agree with on other topics. It is not an endorsement for all they stand for.
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.
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"
“we refused pressure to deplatform both Jewish student groups and National Socialist student groups”
They are a Swiss company, yes.
Went to the replies to say this. You got here before me
I think that's the entire point of the comment. They are impartial even to evil. They respect privacy.
i agree with you, but the company has now invited scrutiny openly by allowing a) andy to make this tweet (personal accout or no) and b) andy to make a follow up statement using the proton reddit account. people have a distaste now, so expect to see everything you say and do to be overanalyised.
If an employee did this and there was this much backlash that said employee would be promptly fired....
In the US maybe, in the EU? Only if you want to get sued and then forced to re-hire them.
He isn't an employee tho, he's a member of a board of trustees of the non-profit organization who owns Proton AG. The other board members could say that he's veering off-couse from the mission of the non-profit and remove him. (But then this move could also angers the right-wing "libertarian" tech-bro types of people that use Proton. So this political debacle was gonna fuck up the trust in Proton either way, Andy should've just STFU to begin with.)
I'm not sure about that. There are a lot of right wingers who also use proton (ya know, like the right wing "libertarian" tech-bro types). If they remove Andy from the board, there no doubt Proton is getting labeled as "woke", they lose either way. Honestly, making political comments in the first place, is just a no-win scenario for a privacy-focused mission, which wasn't even that left-right partisan to begin with. He should have just STFU, and everything would be fine.
Why does his username have "88" in binary 🧐
Because of fucking course it does. 🤦♂️😮💨
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
He replied to a comment on reddit that it's his birth year.
https://old.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i2nz9v/on_politics_and_proton_a_message_from_andy/m7g9jo0/?context=10000
88 was my favorite number for a long time until I found out that Nazis were using it. Bummer. I’m weirdly still sad about it.
I can’t even tell you why it was my favorite number. I think as a kid, I always heard people pick 7 and I just wanted to be different so I leaned into 8s. Idk.
Now, I struggles because I like 8s but I don’t want to be a Nazi. F’ing Nazis ruin everything.
Guess I could just like 8 or 888, haha.
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.!<
So, we just believe that Proton, being buddy-buddy with Trump, isn't going to turn around, and stab us in the backs?
Call me "skeptical".
"Here at Proton, we believe that all life is sacred, thats why we gave the IP addresses of pregnant teens who are planning to get an abortion"
(even compiling the user client yourself won't protect against IP logging, also, external emails arrive at proton servers in plain text)
Maybe I missed something, but I haven't seen anything to indicate that Andy/Proton likes Trump?
They said they agreed with one decision the republican party made, and pointed out how the democrats have been prioritising corporate interests.But what do I know, I'm not American, so I'm not incapable of understanding nuance like most Americans on the internet seem to be.
Andy Yen might be a CERN scientist, but he's conpletely ignorant of US politics. I think hes just spewing his uneducated political opinions, not necessary being pro-trump. It's kinda concerning tho, I don't really like a privacy service being run by an idiot (on the topic of politics, at least), not gonna switch overnight, but definitly start looking into alternatives in case he or the board goes full elon mode.
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.
Stepping down would be a step in the right direction.
👆
The lines between fact (...) and opinion can be blurry at times
Are they though?
Andy Yen, perched on ivory tower: “Why yes, they are a bit blurry up here.”
Fact: People make statements on social media they later regret.
Given the context, what is your opinion of that fact? Untimely? Biased? It's still true. Facts are facts
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.
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.
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.
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.
Words are nothing, Andy should step away from proton.
are you basing this on previous words he used ?
Thank you for the chuckle! lol
Touché
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!
IDC as long as they are not bending their knees to European countries that the EU hasn't yet kicked out. But mainly I don't care because I'm not American.
Those calfs are looking amazing right now!!!
proton is cia
proton is ciait's modern crypto AG
Honestly all that noise was coming from Americans anyway, not a big deal They're drama-queens. Never take Americans seriously on politics & economy (& also healthcare)
Am American. Can confirm that we are hyper reactionary. I read the tweet and shrugged it off, and rolled my eyes at the people claiming that Proton was now “dead” to them for bending the knee to Trump and were seeking out alternatives.
All of our American healthcare horror stories are true. Never take medical systems advice from us; our system is so evil and broken that our only possible recourse is “deposing” CEOs.
You are one of those exceptional ones
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.
Folks, don't take this obvious bait.
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 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.