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.
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.
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.
What is wrong Proton and their marketing?
Don’t feed the trolls. This is an obvious attempt to divert the conversation.
It’s always interesting when someone claims something that goes against the norm on the internet, they might know something that I do not. That was not the case today, unfortunately.
It’s a tricky to maintain balance between openness to opposing views while avoiding susceptibility to disingenuous “just asking questions” diversion.
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.
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.
And isn’t that the point? I don’t have time nor do I want to learn about PGP and how to encrypt email. Someone sells that service, great. And it is not like I cannot send normal emails to anyone else. They are using the same standard, not some made up version of SMTP (when sending to other servers, I assume any email from client A to client B both being Proton customer never leave their server, so no need for a new protocol).
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
Proton themself provides a way to export emails in a decrypted format. It is even cross platform. https://proton.me/support/proton-mail-export-tool And all they do is open source, here is the code for their mail server: https://proton.me/support/proton-mail-export-tool. They seem to be using ordinary standards, but what do I know?
I cannot agree with you and I do not think your arguments holds, I would even go as far as to say that they are flawed (example being claiming “closed thing” while being fully open source using open standards). It seems to me that they have something that people are willing to pay money for. You are not one of them (nor am I).
I don’t personally use them as an email provider because of the limit on how many domains they allow as a standard.
I want to learn about PGP and how to encrypt email. Someone sells that service, great. And it is not like I cannot send normal emails to anyone else.
I don’t disagree with you, I believe it as well. PGP is it stands is cumbersome.
The thing is that could’ve still implemented a easy-to-use, “just login and send email” type of web client and abstracted the user from the PGP complexities while still delivering everything over IMAP/SMTP.
They are using the same standard, not some made up version of SMTP (when sending to other servers, I assume any email from client A to client B both being Proton customer never leave their server, so no need for a new protocol).
You assume correctly, but when your mail client is trying to send an email instead of using SMTP to submit to their server, you’re using a proprietary API in a proprietary format and the same goes for receiving email.
This is well documented and to prove it further if you want to configure Proton in a generic mail client like Thunderbird then you’re required to install a “birdge”, a piece of software that essentially simulates a local IMAP and SMPT server (that Thunderbird communicates with) and then will convert those requests into requests their proprietary API understands. There are various issues with this approach the most obvious one is that it is an extra step, there’s also the issue that in iOS for eg. you’re forced to use their mail app because you can’t run the bridge there.
The bridge is an afterthought to support generic email clients and generic protocols, only works how and where they say it should work and may be taken away at any point.
while being fully open source using open standards
Delivering your data over proprietary APIs doesn’t count as “open standards” - sorry.
https://proton.me/support/android
We don’t currently integrate Proton Mail with third-party email clients on Android. Third-party email clients for Android are not capable of the encryption and decryption processes Proton Mail performs.
https://proton.me/support/ios-iphone
Third-party email clients for iOS are not capable of the encryption and decryption processes Proton Mail performs to keep your data safe
They do lock you in on handheld devices but that seems to be a consequence of the fact that they are storing all emails encrypted on the server. After reading this link (“[…]Since IMAP can’t decrypt your emails[…]”), I agree that they are just implementing PGP with an extra steps and creating an unneeded layer (the bridge).
The reason I would not compare it to XMPP is because they are still using SMTP. It is when they stop using SMTP or force others to use something else that I would be very worried.
They do lock you in on handheld devices but that seems to be a consequence of the fact that they are storing all emails encrypted on the server. After reading this link (“[…]Since IMAP can’t decrypt your emails[…]”), I agree that they are just implementing PGP with an extra steps and creating an unneeded layer (the bridge).
Yes, that’s precisely the problem there. You can use PGP with any generic IMAP provider and that will work just fine with handheld devices. There are multiple mail clientes capable of doing and all your mail is still encrypted on the server. Proton just made an alternative implementation that forces you into proprietary systems because it’s more convenient for them.
Those kinds of setups with servers encrypting your mail and still delivering over IMAP are fairly easy to implement, here’s an example. They simply decided to go all proprietary.
The reason I would not compare it to XMPP is because they are still using SMTP. It is when they stop using SMTP or force others to use something e
On a generic mail system SMTP is used in two places: 1) from your mail client to your provider and 2) between your provider and other providers. Proton is NOT using SMPT for the first step, making it non-standard and much more closed.
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.
I understand the fear of the bridge being burned down. I also see how that would make Proton like WhatsApp, which has its own protocol and locks its users in. Would it be inaccurate to say that your fear is that Proton pulls an “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” move?
In any case, it’s worthwhile looking at your claims. You mention that Proton is “actively trying to turn open protocols into more closed stuff”.
- Why can I use PGP as the encryption protocol in Proton Mail? Is that a closed protocol?
- Why could I download an archive of all of my emails last December both through IMAP and through MBOX? Are those two “closed stuff”? In fact, I could’ve downloaded my archive as EML; is that a closed protocol?
- Why could I download a copy of my contacts as VCF? Is that a closed protocol?
- Why can I export my Proton Pass passwords as JSON or CSV? Are those closed protocols?
- Is it really tenable to argue that Proton is pulling an “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” move when they support PGP, IMAP, SMTP, MBOX, EML, VCF, JSON, and CSV?
You could argue that it’s simply a matter of time until they pull the rug and close their protocols. Let’s elide the whole discussion regarding the probability of the rug pull happening and instead focus on the present reality: as of December 2024, I could download an archive of everything I have on Proton without a hitch. They do not have the whole Meta thing of “Please give us four working days for us to create an archive of your data”. At least that wasn’t my experience. I could download an archive quickly.
- If users have the capability of downloading open protocol archives of everything they have on Proton, are they really stopping them from going elsewhere?
Would it be inaccurate to say that your fear is that Proton pulls an “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” move?
No, it isn’t. But they never “embraced” as there was never direct IMAP to their servers, instead it’s a proprietary API serving data in a proprietary format.
I also see how that would make Proton like WhatsApp, which has its own protocol and locks its users in.
The problem isn’t that taking down the bridge would make Proton like WhatsApp. It’s the other way around, when they decided to build their internals with proprietary protocols and solutions instead eg. IMAP+SMTP they became the WhatsApp. Those things shouldn’t be addons or an afterthought, they should be bult into the core.
This clearly shows that making open solutions ranks very low their company and engineering priority list. If it was at the top they would’ve built it around IMAP instead.
I could download an archive of everything I have on Proton without a hitch.
Yes you can, but the data will come in more property formats hard to upload to anywhere else - at least for some of the data. They’ve improved this situation but it’s still less than ideal. In the beginning they would export contacts and calendars in some JSON format, I see they moved to vCard and iCal now.
Folks, don’t take this obvious bait.
a hobbyist after mine own heart
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
There are no specific policies of the GOP, Trump, or the American Reich that are positive for anyone but oligarchs.
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.
that doesn’t really help your point seeing as we are talking about a fascist presiding over one of those colonies that was part of the alliance against Hitler.
You need to understand the Republican party is a fascist one. Giving anything to them is a mistake.
Whole cognitive dissonance thing is stronger in American than Russia at this point Putin’s won. Can’t even like a single policy idea that’s good and talk about it being good. I’m confused why this is even a big deal and I fucking hate trump. I think half the morons on the Internet forget the way to manipulate trump is to praise him and then you can convince him to do good or bad. Or whatever. Hes worse than Joe Rogan. He just parrots the last person who stroked his ego.
There are no single policies of the GOP that are “good” for anyone but oligarchs. Reich Wingers aren’t your friends. And, if you believe them to be, you’ll be one of the firsts in the Night of the Long Knives.
Jezus fucking christ, do people not read history anymore?
Oh, Putin’s still a loser. The US is just following him into incompetence and cruelty for cruelty’s sake. Nobody wins here.
Yeah. Agreed. I was just bitching lol
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 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.
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
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.!<
proton is cia
proton is ciait’s modern crypto AG
If an employee did this and there was this much backlash that said employee would be promptly fired…
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.
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.)
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.
Almost without fail, every service that touches creeptocurrencies goes into a decline.
Don’t expect Proton to make virtuous ethical choices anytime soon, especially now that Trump joined the cult. Once the greed bug has bitten, making a profit supersedes delivering a good product as the primary objective.
Crypto Cult Science
“Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely. Disregarding all of bitcoin’s shortcomings, a financial instrument that brings out the worst in people—greed—won’t change the world for the better.” —https://www.arscyni.cc/file/crypto_cult_science.htmlhttps://fosstodon.org/@stardust/112404108681755769
The only crypto to trust is XMR. Its blockchain is very opaque in contrast to Bitcoin.
I mean, I’m all for crypto, but proton posting about holding BTC is cringe
I don’t agree with your first sentence though. There is some logic to using crypto, but solely using it as « haha numbers go up, profit, profit! » is stupid
There is some logic to using crypto, but solely using it as « haha numbers go up, profit, profit! » is stupid
I heavily agree with this. I see too much blanket anti-crypto sentiment regardless of the possible use case.
When I pay for my VPN, paying in XMR means they can’t tie my real-world name and address from my card to my account. That’s objectively beneficial compared to my VPN knowing my exact name and address in conjunction with my browsing activity.
If I want to donate to a creative in a different country but they can’t use traditional banking rails that connect to my country, how else do I send them money online?
Sure, there’s a ton of issues with crypto not just in practice, but even in concept, but as you said, there is some logic to using crypto.
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!
Full context here for everyone.
Personally, that answer does not seem nearly enough and I believe he should stand down if he truly cared about the Proton project as a whole.
👆
Stepping down would be a step in the right direction.
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.
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?
This comment is not the original. He changed it.
They seem to be two separate things. One is a comment, the other is a post.
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
Removed by mod
When’s the last time the gop did something to prevent an abuse of any kind?
Removed by mod
This article goes into some details that I’ll just recklessly post a big section of here:
Then, after he won the election, Biden committed to the cause like no other president had in modern times. He appointed one of the movement’s brightest and most aggressive reformers, Lina Khan, to run the FTC, as well as other fierce critics of corporate concentration in key posts, including Jonathan Kanter, who took over the antitrust division of the DOJ, and Tim Wu, who became a key economic adviser inside the White House. Six months after taking office, Biden issued a whole-of-government executive order that called on 17 different government agencies to take 72 actions to foster competition and protect consumers against monopolies. As a result, agencies like the FTC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Food and Drug Administration have cracked down on public scourges like price gouging, noncompete contracts, and banking-related junk fees, and created new rules to make consolidated industries like the hearing aid market more competitive.
Under Kanter and Khan, the DOJ and FTC have also filed far more ambitious antitrust investigations than any administration in decades. Last summer, an investigation into several food production conglomerates over wage suppression and collusion resulted in an $85 million settlement, one of several successful DOJ investigations into no-poach and wage-fixing schemes across the economy. In December, the FTC successfully blocked the medical data firm IQVIA’s attempt to monopolize the business of advertising to doctors through the purchase of an ad tech company called DeepIntent. And in January, a judge sided with the DOJ in its suit against a JetBlue-Spirit merger, the first successful prosecution of an airline merger in 40 years.
The effect of a more aggressive posture from regulators goes beyond favorable court rulings: Under the threat of litigation, Amazon, Lockheed Martin, Berkshire Hathaway, and the chipmaker Nvidia were some of the companies to back off multibillion-dollar acquisitions of smaller firms. Biden’s regulators filed a record 50 antitrust enforcement actions last year, and mergers dropped to a 10-year low.
These actions don’t get media attention because the media treats the government like some reality TV bullshit
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?
Yeah because Trump will run it like musk runs Twitter. Bezos lost a huge contract last time he refused to bend the knee to Trump.
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.
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.
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.
will we shun anyone who cares about furthering our rights to privacy, because they have other stances on other issues?
The Reich Wing doesn’t want to further your rights to privacy. Their “other stances” are that some humans are sub-human, and deserve to be extinct.
So, yes, you shun the people who think some humans are sub-human.
Perhaps I need to review my thoughts and either see how I really feel about this topic or find another way to express them.
Either way, you are making a compelling argument and I am not in disagreement.
I don’t value privacy for the sake of privacy, I value it because it’s useful for defending against capitalists and fascists who want an unequal society that commits genocides and incarcerates people for immutable characteristics. Fascists don’t value privacy for the sake of privacy either, for them it’s a tool to further their goals of creating the worst society possible. It comes down to a left vs right issue, I picked one side, and Proton picked to promote the other.
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
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.
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.
