Comment on Proton Mail Suspended Journalist Accounts at Request of Cybersecurity Agency

• dubyakay@lemmy.ca ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Does no one read beyond the headline any more?

  “10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned.”

  This statement quickly went viral, leading to further controversy when Proton’s official Reddit account reinforced Yen’s sentiment. The now-deleted post suggested that Republicans were more inclined to take on Big Tech monopolies than corporate-aligned Democrats. However, within hours, Proton removed all traces of these remarks from its social media platforms.

  Despite claiming political neutrality, Proton later issued a statement reiterating its support for stronger antitrust measures, particularly against Big Tech. The company noted that regardless of broader political views on the Republican platform, the appointment of Gail Slater as head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division under Donald Trump was a positive step.

  Proton further argued that major tech companies were attempting to align with Trump because his administration posed an “unprecedented challenge to their monopolistic dominance.” This statement only fueled concerns that Proton was leaning politically despite its claims of neutrality.

  Looks to me like the CEO is not aligning with the orange, but rather with the choice of a department head, in particular one that’s supposed to fight big tech monopolies at the DoJ. We have yet to see how effective this choice will be though, with all the ass kissers at the felon’s dining table.

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  • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Image

    This praise is, itself, ass-kissing the orange, likely in the hopes of getting in the good graces of the administration.

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    • dubyakay@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I see nothing of sorts.

      Instead what I see is this perpetuated crap about Proton being untrustworthy (they are not) and the CEO being a trump bootlicker (they are not). So this makes me think there’s a dissuasion campaign going on.

      Nothing against what you are writing and pointing to. But look at the grander picture.

      1. The CEO makes a statement against big tech.
      2. Proton has been a thorn in the eye of big tech by eating into their margins (they don’t sell data and take customers away)
      3. Proton regularly fights against handing over data and doesn’t provide a back door to govt.

      They don’t play along. They disrupt the market and modus operandi of stronger entities. Of course there’s going to be incitement against them.

      The “That’s it, I’m not going to use them anymore and you shouldn’t either; here’s an alternative” seemed to spawn from a much lesser “charge” than many of the other usual suspects. Like a knee jerk reaction.

      Is Proton perfect? No. Are they doing what they claim to do? Yes. Is it good value for money? Debatable. But they are not what people claim them to be on these posts.

      Disclaimer: I have a free tier proton account that I log in to once a year, because I’ve moved on to Disroot for my email and mullvad for VPN.

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    • atrielienz@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      His statements on reddit were also edited after the fact after several people in the comments came with receipts and he doubled down.

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    • artyom@piefed.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Or, possibly because he legitimately thought it was a good choice? Is that not a possibility?

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      • Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that Yen is this naive.

        As a Proton subscriber not from the US (but who has lived in the US); I find it difficult to believe that anyone could seriously claim that any of the two major US political parties have any interest in real competition and anti-trust.

        One has to remember the Microsoft case from the 90s. I still don’t understand what the “legal excuse” was for not breaking up Microsoft.

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      • Passerby6497@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Or, possibly because he legitimately thought it was a good choice? Even if misguided. Is that not a possibility?

        It still comes down to him being malicious or very stupid and incurious. Either way, it’s a bad look and proton keeps getting own goals, so at a certain point the difference is meaningless in practice.

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      • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        The Proton CEO thought that the party taking bribe after bribe from oil companies to Tech-bros, and which removed the FTC chairwoman that was bringing anti-trust cases against amazon and publicly criticized Google’s monopoly, would somehow install a good, pro-competitive and consumer rights advocate?

        If he genuinely believed that, then he’s either wildly out of the loop in one of his company’s largest markets (which I’ll grant as possible, CEOs can be pretty out of touch with reality), or a fool.

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