The term “Nazi” has been overused so much, especially in US [identity] politics, that it’s losing (or has already lost) its meaning. When are we going to start calling elevator farts “genocide” and “nazism”? 🤷🏻♂️
If the outrage is based on the screenshot of the comment above, I’d say that this is a typical example of “Swiss neutrality” with a touch of “I don’t give a flying f*ck about US politics because I don’t live in the US.” I don’t see how that makes you a nazi??
I suspect I may be missing something here…
You missed the start of all this: https://lemmy.ml/post/24811284
According to Andy’s logic, if Hitler were the president of some unfortunate country, we should differentiate the boss from his good nominees. Even using a company founded by an entire community to show a good evaluation made by one of its founders to give him a loving pat on the back and show the world that he is not completely bad as they think, but not meaning that the founder agrees with all his innocent actions, of course, such as disregarding the rights of many people around the world because they are just part of the democratic game.
le false equivalence totally validates my endorsement for the worst president elected in US history
So, to get this straight, for you it’s impossible to recognize that a pick for a position is a good pick in the Trump government, by definition, without consideration of the actual pick?
To me this is religion, not politics or ideology (which I both consider very good things). To be even more clear, I consider Andy’s position completely rational and legitimate in this case. I believe it’s absolutely legitimate to be happy Trump picked someone good for a position and at the same time not support the rest 98%. At most, the interesting debate is why that pick is not good, which is 100% opinable and worthy of a discussion.
But saying that any statement, in any context, whatever narrow and specific equal full support is completely insane to me.
Context matters. Why did you ignore it? We see so many CEOs kissing Trump’s feet these days. Here Andy is, doing the same… Of course I don’t know what’s in Andy’s head, but Trump loves groveling, and clearly Andy is riding that bandwagon on purpose.
That’s not context, that’s a superficial observation. Zuck kissed the ring by changing Facebook policy to align with trump/musk posture on “free speech”, Andy said he likes the antitrust pick. They are completely different things.
Right, Andy’s action was bad but not as bad. We agree. It’s not identical.
And when given the chance to explain how he felt about this situation, on how the bad timing is … purely accidental or something … he did a bad job of it. Which suggests our original conclusions were in fact correct.
Also, if you think observations about time, place, and manner are superfluous, that’s a peculiar thought. Maybe we disagree. Maybe I think basic elements of societal interaction and communication are important and informative.
This tweet happened right after trump picked for the antitrust position. The “time” is completely logical, the “place” is a tweet and the manner is a short statement supporting that pick. Also proton is a US company, so it doesn’t have the same reason to “bend the knee” as other US big tech are doing.
So it’s not that I am ignoring context, I genuinely don’t see relation. He praised something that he pushes for years, he did not suddenly switch to “free speech” like Zuck.
If all he said was literally “i approve of this pick for this position” you’d be correct.
What actually happened was he approved of the pick and also claimed the republicans are now actually the party that stands for the “little guy”.
Then followed up with a non apology that claimed what he said was not intended to be a “political statement”.
by all means, argue that you think there’s a fuss over nothing, but if you leave important context out seemingly because it doesn’t suit your narrative it weakens your argument substantially.
I know what happened, I followed quite thoroughly.
He thinks that republicans are now the ones with a higher chance to push antitrust cases against big tech (I.e., work for the little guy - EDIT: source). He thinks this based on the last few years and a few things that happened. He likes the nomination from Trump. How is this a full support to Trump? How believing that republicans will do better - in this area - equals being a Nazi?
Of course I believe that there is a fuss over nothing. The above statement has been inflated and I have already read “he applauded to Trump antitrans policies”, " posted Nazi symbols" and other complete fantasies.
Many people, who are on the internet on a perpetual witch hunt decided to interpret a clearly specific tweet (about antitrust and big tech) as a global political statement, and read that “little guy” as “common man” or - I have read it here on Lemmy - “working class”. Basically everyone tried to propose ideas about why that post was so awful, rather than first trying to understand what the hell he meant. I will agree the first tweet is ambiguous, but that’s because it’s a 200 characters tweet, he then explained his position quite clearly, and the summary above is what he actually meant.
This “context” added doesn’t move my post a centimeter IMO.
See, now that’s a more thorough explanation of your position.
I disagree with pretty much all of your assertions (though the witch hunt stuff can be true sometimes) , but at least i know I’m disagreeing with an opinion formed using the whole of the information provided.
This “context” added doesn’t move my post a centimeter IMO.
It shows you read the initial information in it’s entirety and still came to the conclusion you did.
That removes the possibility of responses such as “Did you even read the initial tweet?”.
Well… it should remove that possibility, in practice it just means you can safely ignore those responses because clearly the people making those responses haven’t read your response in it’s entirety.
While it’s certainly true that some of the people who are angry at him for that tweet are saying things in their anger that are overboard, I think only pointing out the most ridiculous things that people who disagree with you have ever said in their anger is a really terrible way of engaging honestly on the subject.
It’s important to remember that an authoritarian that always figured out what the right thing to do was and did the opposite of that would be a really bad authoritarian. Republicans at the state level have been increasing state surveillance to hunt down and punish people for choices they make with their own bodies. For a lot of people in America, Trump is the head of the organization that they want privacy to protect themselves from, and the current largest threat to privacy in America.
For the CEO of a company that is supposedly about protecting our privacy to completely unprompted start publicly praising decisions made by the very threat we’re supposed to trust them to protect us from, and then to double down on their praise when called out, is deeply concerning.
Yes. It’s true that not every single thing Trump does will be the worst possible thing, but his goals are fundamentally opposed to ours. When I say I want big tech to be broken up it’s because I want their to be less concentration of power. When Trump wants to break up big tech it’s because he wants to eliminate the competition to his concentration of power. That is not worthy of my praise, even if in any one particular instance the thing he is doing is similar to what I would do, and the fact that the CEO of Proton either doesn’t understand this or doesn’t care is deeply concerning. I do not trust them after this, and I doubt they can ever get that trust back.
He praised one thing, and motivated that praise. It’s 100% possible to disagree, but I don’t find it concerning at all. I find it reasonable, because proton can better protect the privacy of users if more people can choose freely privacy oriented tools (like proton). Hence, if Trump does or says something that can help moving in that direction, it can be labeled as a good thing. Not every sentence is a collective or global assessment of all things considered.
When Trump wants to break up big tech it’s because he wants to eliminate the competition to his concentration of power.
- this is something US citizens should concern themselves
- it is only tangentially irrelevant
- if by breaking up monopolies people will be able to choose more privacy-preserving services, what you think is Trump’s goal will fail anyway. More privacy and less data is also a way to limit the amount of demographic targeting he uses so well in his campaigns.
So I am good with him doing the right thing for the wrong reason, and I wish him a swift failure afterwards.
doesn’t understand this or doesn’t care is deeply concerning
Have you considered that he might not agree with what is just your opinion? Obviously you are free to draw any conclusion you want and not use them.
“People forget I don’t live in China. Just because I praise Mao for wanting to shed the yoke of cultural tradition, doesn’t mean I necessary support everything he’s doing…” -Andy, if this was 1966
Careful saying that around these tankie parts.
Honestly I find his attitude to be quite commendable and I think that speaks much louder than whatever it is you disagree with.
Maybe he should have just left Trump’s name out of it entirely as that seems to be what really pushed people’s buttons.
People are going to twist things around no matter what is said though. Don’t forget hindsight makes everyone look guilty.
Maybe he should have just left Trump’s name out of it entirely as that seems to be what really pushed people’s buttons.
It probably didn’t help, but no, I don’t think that was it. I think it was his sweeping generalizations about dems/republicans as a whole, along with the insinuation that dems were bought, republicans are “looking out for the little guys”, and the election undermined the will of the people:
Dems had a choice between the progressive wing (Bernie Sanders, etc), versus corporate Dems, but in the end money won and constituents lost. Until corporate Dems are thrown out, the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.
You are right about the generalization on parties, but the “little guy” he meant are small tech companies opposed to big tech. It was clear to me in the context, and to clear any doubt, he explicitly said that in a reddit comment.
I want to specify because this has been stretched on here as far as “he said republicans care for the working class”.
the “little guy” he meant are small tech companies
That changes nothing.
Added for completeness. Lots of people got pissed because they assumed he meant that in general republicans stand with the little guy, prompting comments such as “what about trans/immigrants/etc.”.
You did not do that, of course, but you can see how your comment could reinforce this opinion in people who didn’t read the actual tweet and discussion and were just looking for reasons to get angry.
It would be one thing if Trump was actually anti-trust…but he isn’t.
He’s anti companies which don’t prostrate themselves in front of him and bow to his whims. They’re bad, terrible, anti American companies. The ones that do are great, wonderful, beautiful companies. The bad ones need to be broken up and given to the big ones.
He’s so transparent it’s painful. If someone says good things about Trump or give him money, they’re good. If they don’t, they’re bad. It’s absurdly obvious.
If that motivation still leads to work against tech monopolies, good. Can’t wait for people to do the right thing for the right reason. If that won’t happen it will be criticized as a lack of action.
Ultimately the benefit for the population is having as much freedom and fair competition in the tech space as possible. If that comes from Trump hallucinations, from a dream or from something else, who cares…?
If that motivation still leads to work against tech monopolies
It doesn’t, never did, never will.
I can’t believe we have to argue in 2025 about this.
The whole project 2025 is about breaking bad regulations, antitrust won’t survive. You just have to kiss the ring, and do whatever.
OK, but it’s a speculation as much as the other position. I also think it won’t happen, but it’s besides the point. Does it matter IF trump does it for a good or a bad reason? If it happens, can we be happy about it?
How can anyone possibly think that Trump is against tech monopolies when Bezos, Musk, and Zuckerberg are going to be sitting behind him shoulder to shoulder at the inauguration?
He should have just stayed the fuck out of Americans politics being a provider of a secure service that many Americans of all political persuasions use.
He is an idiot who cost his company business. The only spin is trying to downplay it at this point. The consequences are lost profits.
Let’s be real. You mean he should have stayed out of it if he was going to voice an opinion that doesn’t match yours. People don’t want apolitical, they want an echo chamber.
No, he should stay out of either side because business is about making money. I don’t want to know what politics you support. I don’t care for politicizing everything. It is a fucking turn off.
You want my money, do your job, sell me your product, give me you service, but don’t talk to me about your hot takes on politics. Also religion as well. I and many many other people don’t want to hear it.
Your comment might hold a valid argument, if your previous comments hadn’t made it perfectly clear you take issue with the fact he praised something a politician you don’t like has done.
Whether you agree with my character or not what I said was accurate for any business person/enterprise. It is really not beneficial and increases risk unnecessarily.
Better that they tell us imo. If someone thinks that the people I care about don’t deserve to exist for reasons no one can control, I’d rather know and avoid giving them money than to help them quietly gain influence and power until they can eradicate these people themselves.
There is a certain logic to this. I tend to agree that I would like to know. I also think I would probably find out I would have to be self sufficient if I truly did not want to give to bad actors.
You say it doesn’t match that other users opinion, but doesn’t it not match the vast majority of proton users opinions? Authoritarians aren’t usually big on personal privacy. So praising one when you run a company based upon privacy is a dumb idea. It would be like running a vegan food company and praising people who like Slaughter cattle. It’s a stupid fucking mindset. Which says a lot of things to me about his capacity as a CEO frankly. If he’s this dumb why should people trust them to run a business they frequent?
Wow, the comments on that Reddit post. Ok.
What is this about?
All he had to do was keep his mouth shut & show his support on another account
He’s kind of right on the money and kind of being completely dumb.
The fact of it is that Republicans don’t want to help privacy or take down big tech’s abuses, they want to make it worse. All of the reasonable things Andy has said have taken place past that, so in a way the entire conversation is talking past the point.
The question is, how can somebody so influential at a major privacy company not have such a pre-school understanding of major world figures’ relationships to his core business?
That question is now irrelevant. He doesn’t and so his company cannot be trusted. He showed his hand and its a straight flush, suited ignorance.
andy88, if he cares about proton, should have resigned yesterday
Isn’t 88 neo-Nazi code for “heil Hitler”? And isn’t putting it in binary to disguise it evidence that he knows full well what it means?
The number 8 is considered the luckiest number in China, and is associated with wealth. The year 1988 also happens to be his birth year.
He knows what he’s doing.
Being Asian? Way to put yourself as a racist.
What? You OK?
As much as I’m not terribly fond of the guy, IIRC he’s 36, which makes ‘88’ likely short for 1988, the year he was born.
8 is also a lucky number in Chinese culture. I’ve seen a lot of "88"s in Chinese social media just because of that.
It always sucks when shitbags co-opt innocent symbols and language.
Oh OK, that makes sense. Still, an unfortunate choice of username that could add to the confusion.
You are crazy.
Our license plates look like this: 2/3-letter city identifier - 1/2 letters you can choose - a 1-4 digit number you can choose. A friend of mine has the initials A.H. and was born in 1988. He wanted CITY - AH - 88. Registration did not allow it as it’s nazi dog whistling.
Dog whistling is very common to find like-minded fascists and nazis. Kind of a sad, pathetic life if you think about it.
Hey that guy is thinking about stuff! They must got brainrot!
I’m just aware of how these people signal to each other. I don’t know anything about the Proton CEO’s politics, numbers like 14 and 88 in usernames are common dogwhistles.
What does 14 mean?
It stands for “the 14 words”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words
That’s correct, he was asked about it on Reddit too and confirmed it was just his birth year.
Since it’s a common dog whistle though I do think it’s always worth questioning. Particularly when it’s tied to someone licking Trump’s boots.
A lot of Nazis were supposedly born in 1988…
But in this specific case, i believe him.
Cool story bro.
Even if he is born in 1988, he could have picked a non-Nazi suffix for his username.
This is dumb lol
Hey,
This was my first thought, as it’s a very common username addon. I was unaware of all the other stuff.
While yes adding your birth year to your username is common (but terrible OpSec), adding 88 or HH or other Nazi symbolism is also common among their community. Especially in an open setting.
It serves as a shibboleth for the alt-right that you are one of them.
And explain this!!
He’s from Asia where the number 8 have a good luck meaning, so is likely is not related to the 88 neo nazis uses.
I’d buy that if he didn’t start his statement with “I live in Switzerland.” 8 may be a lucky number for him, but he absolutely knows what 88 means.
He can be both from Asia and still live in Switzerland
On the flip side, do you think a Swiss person living in Asia would be ignorant that 8 is a lucky number?
I think all the Westerners in this thread that are shocked that Asia has culture they didn’t consult them on would imply yes to your question.
Sadly, “Asia” doesn’t mean “ignorance of Hitler.”
#Looking for link to Nazi store in …
Edit: first link I found. Not endorsement. https://qz.com/928440/asias-disturbing-embrace-of-nazi-chic-is-prompting-a-nonprofit-to-teach-holocaust-history
same reasoning would justify the use of swastika for an indian living in Germany
good luck working that out
To be fair, it’s easier to be ignorant of neo-Nazi numerology than of their use of the swastika.
It absolutely justifies Indians using the swastika. They didn’t agree to the nazis stealing their culture, that had existed for thousands of years, to use as their logo. Don’t be racist.
looks like it’s even more complicated than i did assume ☞ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika_(Germanic_Iron_Age)
this has nothing to do with race, i was making an analogy. I’m neither in/from Germany, nor in/from India. I just happen to know this:
The German and Austrian postwar criminal code makes the public showing of the swastika, the sig rune, the Celtic cross (specifically the variations used by white power activists), the wolfsangel, the odal rune and the Totenkopf skull illegal, except for certain enumerated exemptions.
Thanks for pointing that out. I didn’t know about that good luck meaning.
Not even a little in this situation. Maybe take your head out of your ass and stop spreading lies. He literally addressed this head on.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i2nz9v/comment/m7nr5ym/
His reply in text form:
It’s the year I was born, and also a lucky number in Taiwan where I am from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/88_(number)#%3A~%3Atext=Number+88+symbolizes+fortune+and%2Csupermarkets+often+contain+many+8s.
Americans are not flirting with Nazism. They dated it, married it and had many children with it.
Now to reply to the post itself, I think this sums it up:
Though the sad truth is that almost every single product or service we use are owned and run by people with similar opinions, it is literally the nature of the capitalist beast, it’s how it function, and why it will always decay in to fascism - because those with the power and the money (not just those at the very very top, but several levels bellow them, too, like this guy) will always and forever care solely about maintaining it and creating more for themselves, that’s it. And to do that, they have to side with whichever dictator-du-jour benefits them the most.
Remember - there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and this is only one of the reasons why.
To an extent probably. But I use https://mullvad.net/ as my vpn, and they seem pretty great.
Probably where I’ll go next, I have until the end of February and then my business will be elsewhere.
Since I set up some family at the same time, I’ll be doing it for a few accounts.
I saw mullvad ads on the trams in my city yesterday, really nice to see something good like it being advertised like that.
Ridiculous.
He specifically started talking about American party politics, unprompted, making sweeping statements about both Democrats and Republicans. NOW he wants to blame us for…being concerned with his views on American party politics? Dude. Get real.
Saying stupid shit now and then is forgivable, but not if you take it in as the new nucleus of your public image. Why do so many public figures have this compulsion to double down combatively?
Business owners should not touch politics, thats just alienates 50% of the user base no matter his views
I seem to remember that Switzerland has a history of profiting from their relationships with Nazi’s. Thus they might not be a good source of advice as to what to do about Nazi’s.
It’s dumb to call Trump a nazi and the populist wing of the Republican party nazis.
It’s not even clever at this point, maybe it was edgy and transgressive like 7 years ago.
The reason it’s dumb is that you are wasting all of your powerful language and you will have no more if things get worse. Boy who cried wolf. Just like people did to racist which used to carry great power and now is basically meaningless as a powerful descriptor.
I’m sorry but what? This is really weird logic as language and words aren’t required to follow some linear path of severity. People call the GOP, Trump and the like Nazis because… they fit the definition of Nazis, actual card carrying Nazis support them by a significant majority. (Yeah yeah I know there is the odd one here or there that doesn’t)
If it walks like a Nazi, talks like a Nazi and engages in Nazi tactics, behaviors etc. Then it can be called a Nazi. You don’t reserve your language so that you have some end point to progress to.
It’s also very weird to use the boy who cried wolf when the whole point of that story is that you don’t call something that which it isn’t for fear that when the real thing comes along no one will believe you as that would imply that they are in fact not Nazis. Which would only be true in the most technical of sense (As in they are not of the Nazi party of Germany) but by most dictionary definition the word fits.
Lastly, what the hell are you even talking about “edgy”? Do you think people are calling them Nazis to be edgy? Because that’s ridiculous and quite frankly your entire comment screams of someone trying to defend them through deflection.
What’s more important, winning the fight over what label to put on those assholes or actually fighting what they do? It’s the same as people arguing about whether the Gaza situation is technically a genocide or not. Endless debate on the technicalities while nothing changes. Calling Trump and by extension all his followers “Nazis” just reinforces their belief that the “left” is their unrelenting enemy.
Why in your view is it mutually exclusive? To address any problem one first has to identify that there is in fact a problem. Calling it out where it exists IS that identification. It isn’t about “labels” it’s about identifying what needs to be dealt with and make no mistake there are a lot of people who don’t want to acknowledge the problem and if anything what you’re doing is exactly the shit the fascists do by forcing the side wanting to fight fascism to moderate its language on the belief that if we use that language against the fascists the fascists will dig into their fascism… as if they aren’t doing that anyway.
In fact letting the right-wing control the narrative no matter what happens is in large part why we are where we are and why this shit needs to be called out, identified, labelled and opposed at every point with whatever means are necessary.
Wasting your time explaining nuance and facts to literal retards, which are the majority of lemmings.
Gee. Which side has all the people marching with nazi flags?
Which side never kicks them out when they do?
Now now. Many MAGA are in fact documented nazis, and Trump’s record is bad but it quite as explicit as that. If you’re afraid of the term being bandied about, I recommend therapy.
Far right is not mutually exclusive to Nazism
They don’t kick their nazi buddies out of their events.
I recommend therapy.
Poe’s law detector fail
It’s not even clever at this point, maybe it was edgy and transgressive like 7 years ago.
Are you really this childish that you genuinely think the only reason people might suggest Trump is a fascist is because it was “edgy and transgressive”? Not the fascist rhetoric, increasingly fascist policy and the various fascists he’s willing to work with and support?
Nazism is a very small subset of fascism, they are not equivalent. Nazi also carries VERY heavy baggage which is inapplicable to Trump. Use the right terms.
Nazism is a very small subset of fascism, they are not equivalent. Nazi also carries VERY heavy baggage which is inapplicable to Trump. Use the right terms.
Can’t tell if you’re defending trump or gatekeeping nazism.
Hey guys, look at this dipshit, drawing irrelevant distinctions and pointlessly trying to police other peoples language because they think the only reason others would use those terms is because they’re “edgy and transgressive”.
Tell me, where on the fascism to nazism meter is mass deportations, muslim bans, endorsing far right militias, supporting running over protestors, palling around with white supremacists, and seeking to eradicate trans people from public life? Are we at .49? or is it more like .76? My readings seems to be off. Just so I know I’m not using the incorrect terms so some moron from .world doesn’t get mad and try to incessantly police terms on the internet.
chill
“Chill, I was just drawing a meaningless distinction between my party and another part of my party with identical views!”
Totally in good faith. A post from last year? Yea, suck my dick andy. Deleting my account asap.
Holy shit he’s still arguing with people about this today?
He’s well on his way to reaching Muskian levels of failure to shut the hell up.
I’d say he’s already a foot over the line.
He’s backally saying, “We Americans don’t get it. He did nothing wrong because both sides are the same.”
Rather than remorse, he’s doubled down.
Wait, the proton ceo is a trump supporter? What the fuck, he’s the last person I thought would do that
No, I would not describe him as a trump supporter. I would say that he’s a right-wing “Libertarian” tech-bro that has no clue about American politics, just spewing his uneducated bs because he thinks he’s some genius. He might be a CERN scientist, but he’s a dumbass when it comes to American politics.
(But it is concerning to have such an idiot on the board of the Proton Foundation)
Considering how he runs a business whose goal is to capture the privacy crowd and how a large portion of the privacy crowd is made up of those “Libertarian” tech-bro types, it might be more than just “no clue about American politics”, especially since he’s also doing stuff like promoting Bitcoin through Proton Wallet which is also popular among “Libertarian” tech-bro types, and the article used for marketing that both-sidesed the problems the “left” vs “right” experience and equated the Democrats with the “left”, which is popular among “Libertarian” tech-bro types as well. The 88 in his Reddit username is also suspect regardless of him claiming that it’s there because it’s his birth year. People who know how to operate a business usually aren’t doing it out of stupidity, so I’m not going to give him the benefit of the doubt on this, especially since the entire platform depends on trusting that they aren’t doing anything shady.
How do you explain the 88 in his username? That’s not an American thing.
My guess is that it’s a neo-Nazi thing, so his promoting right-wing American politics (his largest userbase) is probably intentional and not just him being stupid
No he had plenty of time to educate himself but instead doubled and tripled down. Also his username ends in 88 which has been the most unsubtle Nazi dog whistle since the invention of usernames and the internet.
If you look a bit around in this thread, someone linked an article that mentions he was born in 1988.
He didn’t have to put it in his username.
Neither do the other thousands or millions of people who do so, but it’s not a particularly uncommon thing and it’s likely enough that (birthdate) is the reason it’s there. I’ve got my birth year (not '88) in my username for some sites because the bare username was already taken
How convenient.
Isn’t 88 considered extremely lucky in Chinese culture?
You honestly think that’s what he was going for? Someone who grew up in a culture pretty heavily insulated from that but steeped in “former” Nazi ties?
I think he’s more likely fascist than a Nazi, given the differentiator being the racial purity part. He lives and works in Switzerland, but was born in Taiwan and educated in the US.
Not only is 88 considered suspicious in his native culture, he was also born in 1988. Normally, yes, be wary of the 88 dog whistle, but without further evidence it looks like a nothing-burger in this case.
Where’s the 88?
1011000 is binary for 88
Ohhhh. Drag thought it was the ASCII code for X
He’s a money supporter.
Brother we’ve been arming and supporting a full-on ethnic extermination and bombing anyone who tries to stop it for over a year now. We’re past flirting with fascism, we’ve bought a dog and moved onto a studio apartment with fascism.
A wise man once told me, don’t mess with politics. The moment you show stance (which usually isn’t beneficial), you cut off options from yourself and endanger customer relationship.
Proton should just do business as usual, without that single post things would probably be just fine.
The fight for privacy and digital freedom is inherently political.
They showed political stances all the time when it comes to privacy and antitrust, just look at their blog. Why wouldn’t they? What they do is also political, as a company.
I think that’s a different thing. That is a political stance but it’s not picking sides. People who want to organise Nazi rallys and people who need to communicate without getting attacked by Nazis both have reasons to use encrypted email. When you pick one over the other, you’ve cut the size of your userbase.
I would be perfectly happy with a VPN that was openly anti-nazi.
That’s not the point. A neutral stance VPN has all the anti-Nazis as customers, and all the Nazis. I would prefer anti-Nazi as well but I get that that a neutral stance means they can have more customers, something they need for economy of scale.
If they had stated their anti-trump stance then the freeze peach lemmy instances would probably have all their Nazis cancelling their proton subscriptions.
Honestly I hope all the cancellations on our side aren’t balanced by a bunch of Nazis signing up after seeing the comments.
He’s trying to have it both ways though. He wants to support trump and then be like “nooooo! What are you talking about? We’re *neutral!”
Yeah, with the same Swiss neutrality that doesn’t care whose teeth the gold came from.
I don’t think I quite get what the benefit is to them of supporting Trump’s pick. What was it he was hoping to gain, not from the pick but from his comment?
What benefit do all those who have kissed trump’s ring thus far get? All I know is that I’m not about to trust my privacy to someone with 88 in their username. I only signed up for proton last month because of trump. I’ll be leaving for another service for the same reason.
The reality is that being “anti-Nazi” is also a neutral stand. This is in the terms of service of Proton:
Unauthorized activities include, but are not limited to:
[…] 4. Harassing, abusing, insulting, harming, defaming, slandering, disparaging, intimidating or discriminating against someone based on gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, race, age, nationality or disability;
I don’t think they picked in this case either. Like they didn’t when they cooperated with dem senators in the past. They are cooperating or praising whichever side advances policies that can ultimately help privacy.
That was probably their thought too. However, they have misjudged the Lemmy (and I think reddit) population on this, and I would argue that worse than the initial comment is the absolute lack of recognition (in follow up comments) that what they said could be taken as an endorsement of a government that is trying to actively harm a significant portion of the US Proton users.
I think he actually acknowledged that fact in later comments. Anyway, this is a far smaller sin than all the stuff people are creatively accusing him of.
Apparently now he is a Nazi, and I think this case was the last nail in the coffin for me to think that political discourse can exist.
If it helps, most people don’t follow politics at all. And their votes are based on very little knowledge of what they are voting for.
I’m still a believer that if you put people in a room together instead of online, you’d get both sides of the aisle agreeing on 95% of things, once each side had a chance to explain their viewpoint (and made sure google was available to settle most disputes).
