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Ditches fediverse but still use Xitter?
On top of the trump apointee praise?
Sus 👀
That’s not sus, that’s what anyone ought to expect him to do, because it aligns with his bourgeois interests. Why would he stay on a non-corporate, federated social media platform when he and his bourgeois peers can’t control the narrative?
This is very disappointing.
They have a large following on Mastodon so this doesn't really make much sense. I'm inclined to believe that they left due to the hate they were getting because of the recent controversy.
Yeah. They can't get Mastodon moderators to suppress negative publicity like they can on Reddit and other platforms.
I think this is right on the money.
What is the recent controversy?
CEO is what I describe as a Right-wing Libertarian. Dude not only praised the trump FTC appointee, but also said "republicans are on the side of the 'little guy'". Andy Yen is one of the members of the Board of Trustees of Proton Foundation, the non-profit that owns a majority of Proton AG. He initially used his personal account, then later used the official account (so I'm assuming the other board members did not object to it), then later "apologized" for it and said he would use his personal accounts. The reddit account has a username with the number 88 in binary, which led some to speculate its a nazi (88 = HH = Heil H*tler) dogwhistle, to which Andy Yen says its his year of birth 1988. Kinda weird, but he could just be that clueless, who knows 🤷♂️.
From what I could gather from his public statements, including twitter: Andy Yen is also supportative of Ukraine and have donated to Ukraine, and is supportative of the Hong Kong protestors, and is against Russian censorship and against US red state's Age Verification laws.
My view is: Andy Yen is an idiot, and there shouldn't be any immediate threats, but its still not a bad idea to pre-emptively move, if you can, just in case he pulls a "Musk" and does the salute tomorrow.
He also used the word "triggered" in the Reddit comments in the way right wingers are wont to do, and then tried to play the "I'm not American, I don't understand how that word looks to you" card. Never mind that plenty of non-Americans know perfectly well how that looks.
No, it's far more likely he picked up that word and knew exactly how it was used because he's been hanging out in far right spaces.
The reddit account has a username with the number 88 in binary, which led some to speculate its a nazi (88 = HH = Heil H*tler) dogwhistle, to which Andy Yen says its his year of birth 1988. Kinda weird, but he could just be that clueless, who knows
I mean this part I give him a pass on. It was right for people reading him to raise an eyebrow, because political signalling like that does happen, especially in a context where he's making comments like he made. But in this case it was just a nothingburger.
It doesn't make his "wasn't intended to be a political comment" excuse any less gibberish though.
We unfortunately live in the world where saying "Trump is an idiot" and "Actually I was kidding. He's the second coming of Christ" might only be a day apart.
So Proton ditched Mastodon but is still on Twitter, aka the Nazi cesspool, and Reddit. Both US propaganda platforms with heavy censorship.
Bad, bad move.
I have been defending Andy Yen's idiotic comments because he's not American and doesn't understand the hyper-reactive nature between US Americans and US politics (because our government is literally run by nazis now), but this decision isn't helping; it will fuel and reinforce the negative image already held by those who have canceled their accounts and those who are on the fence.
I have been defending Andy Yen’s idiotic comments because he’s not American and doesn’t understand the hyper-reactive nature between US Americans and US politics
And I could see the point, kind of, even though it strained credulity on substance. He seemed more confused to me than die-hard partisan. But it's really hard to square what was effectively a blanket statement endorsing R's with his subsequent comment that it "was not intended to be a political statement" (paraphrase).
And then also the official proton account doubling down on it a day later.
Proton marketing itself on privacy while recently calling out the danger of tech oligarchs makes their decision to leave Mastodon and keep using Twitter very confusing. Lot of mixed signals.
I need to migrate away from Proton ASAP.
Makes it harder to defend with the statement the official Proton account made on reddit which they have since then removed and kept editing. Makes you wonder what do they actually believe and if this is their attempt to be apolitical how much are they self censoring their true views on the matter to seem more palatable.
And now I’ve ditched Proton. Andy Yen’s comments made me skeptical, but I was still confident that their mission was intact. This move, to a social media platform with a demonstrated willingness to censor non-corporatist views, confirms my fears that they are giving up their principles.
Exactly this. I left after the previous comments but still felt they had integrity. That’s also starting to change
I'm disappointed...I tried to not care about this CEO supporting Trump, but come on...now they ditch Mastodon, tomorrow they close source their clients...I'm losing trust to them, I used to think about them as knights in this capitalist world, but well. As someone once said "You either live and die as a legend, or live long enough to become evil". I don't want it to happen but yeah, I guess we all gotta find a good replacement for Proton services, sad but it is what it is.
I’m seriously starting to consider moving from proton to Fastmail. My renewal is coming up in May.
I switched after the whole CEO issue, but tbh I was annoyed at how limited proton mail was because of encryption. Super happy with Fastmail in comparison! Got 2 domains linked, multiple servers using it for SMTP, a bunch of aliases and masked emails. Calendar and contacts setup on android with DAVx5 to de-google some more. So good.
There's also Migadu which I currently use. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles that providers like Proton and Tuta have with their E2EE but they don't use any shady marketing or track you. Requires a custom domain though.
Of all the fuckin places to move to they chose reddit 😭
Because they can control the dialog on reddit
That's in line with being from Switzerland. Act cool, but be sure to stick with the richer people and do their interest. Never used Proton (I use Tuta instead) for that reason only. You are free to call me racist.
I am Swiss myself and I feel like things are changing since Trumps second term, at least my friends seek closer ties to Europe now.
Proton gives me a bad feeling in the stomach, I would encourage people to not trust it. The guy is either a big Trump fan or most of his customers are from that base. The best option for e-mail is selfhost + pgp, the second best option are the various small companies offering email all across Europe.
@ramenu .... proton recommending communication through reddit was not on my bingo card. 2025 has already been a wild ride... *looks at date*
fml
I so want to ditch Proton right now, but I have a lot of resumes out and have been using them for ~4 years, so all of my accounts are linked in a sense.
What to do what to do.. I know and fully agree that what's going on is sus, but I think I need to stick with it for a few more months until the job thing pans out.
Edit: I have a free Tuta account, I'll start weaning everything off, then cut free when I don't need to worry about missing an interview opportunity.
I recommend switching to a custom domain in the future so you can avoid situations like this from happening again, this way you won't be locked down onto a single provider.
Why
because their ceo came out as fascist and mastodon is calling them out.
Can someone recommend a good and privacy oriented alternative to Proton Drive.
It's sad that Proton bought SimpleLogin because I was and I'm currently using it before the acquisition.
people were using the vpn to evade reddit bans, but even reddit does not like vpn users anymore.
For real? Man, at this rate, I might have to switch away from their products, I really hope they get their act together really really soon...
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)