Boycott USA Flyer
Boycott USA Flyer
By gekko513
Boycott USA Flyer
By gekko513
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L for Proton mention.
CEO is fascist loving boot licker
Edit: company rescinded statement Andy Ten Yen made
Fastmail is a good non US alternative. Based in Australia.
For those that don’t know about Proton. Proton CEO said “10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned.” The company then doubled down on a Reddit post which it eventually deleted.
You have to be blind or a liar to look at what the Republicans have done in the last 10 years and think they pro little guy.
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.
So they don’t care how bad the government is as long as it helps them. So not a Nazi but willing to support them if they can get something out of it. Furthermore it is also not true. The US under Trump has threatened Europe multiple times to defend big Tech.
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.
They don’t seem to understand what politically neutral is. Also if you wanted a president that went after big tech, Biden did way more than Trump:
Under President Biden, the DOJ and FTC have taken a more aggressive approach to antitrust enforcement.
The Justice Department filed another suit against Google over its dominance in the advertising technology space and sued Apple for allegedly monopolizing the smartphone market.
Biden’s FTC also sued Amazon for antitrust violations, accusing the e-commerce giant of engaging in anticompetitive behavior to dominate the online retail space.
Proton also lied about logging user data.
In 2021, Proton Mail admitted to handing over a user’s IP address to Swiss authorities following a request from French law enforcement via Europol. This revelation contradicted Proton’s earlier claims that it did not log user data.
Yikes that's worse than I thought
You seem to simply disagree with him on "going after big tech" when it comes to antitrust. The guy also mentioned why he thinks democrats are a lost cause in the antitrust space.
So they don’t care how bad the government is as long as it helps them
This is a complete non sequitur from the previous paragraph. The reasonable conclusion is that they (or better, HE) don't care if it's a republican or a Democrat pushing for antitrust enforcement. They didn't endorse the government, they didn't campaign for them, they praised that pick, and if it is a good pick why shouldn't them? Everyone benefits from big tech monopolies being broken up.
Now, we might disagree with his opinion, I personally think it was naive and overly optimistic, but having an opinion like that is completely legitimate.
Proton also lied about logging user data.
False. What they did was 100% expected by any company. They have been forced to log that particular user data, because complying with laws is a requirement to run a business. Not logging data is not a control that cannot be implemented in a way that can't be reverted. They had to be forced to log user data because they didn't, which proves exactly the opposite of what you are claiming.
If you want to take it up with someone here, take it up with governments who abuse antiterrorism laws. Any company in any jurisdiction could be forced to do the same.
Same for the case where they handed out the recovery email address of that user. 100% expected and a great proof of how little data they have about users.
Edit: For completeness here is an article from someone who went through past history (words and actions) for Proton https://medium.com/@ovenplayer/does-proton-really-support-trump-a-deeper-analysis-and-surprising-findings-aed4fee4305e
We can argue about the nuances of the reasoning; but the crux of the matter is that the CEO posted a statement that praised Trump and criticized the Democrats; and the followed up with an "official Proton position" which doubled down - again praising the Republican party and criticizing the Democrats.
This cannot be described as 'politically neutral', regardless of what reasoning or opinions underpin it.
They have never been politically neutral when it comes to antitrust and privacy (well, antitrust has direct implication for privacy). They spell that out as the exception quite clearly, an thankfully they are not. In this context, praising Trump and/or criticizing democrats in this context is A-okay for me. I did not have a problem even with that being their official position, TBH, but I can agree that it was a poor decision.
They did similar posts in the past, see https://proton.me/blog/trump-controls-nsa-fbi or even similarly political content like this. Additionally, most of the orgs they donate to are clearly politically aligned.
So I genuinely don't see the problem in them having a clear position on antitrust, even if it happens to praise trump or republicans.
I am still waiting for anyone to give actual evidence for that. Stating on twitter that the Democrats were unwilling to even listen to their concerns, while the Republicans were willing to meet, seems to be quite far from bootlicking imo.
The whole outrage seemed to be engineered in the same way there were people claiming Proton would be a CIA assets, but never providing any lead, not even some obscure untrustworthy website making such a claim.
Looks like the company officially recinded the statement Andy Yen made. Posted text to avoid Xitter link