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Just when I'm done migrating all my email shit to Proton, the CEO turns out to be a nazi. A classic.

Yeah this is a masks off moment for them and people better be paying attention!

"If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."

-Desmond Tutu

I migrated literally everything from Gmail around 2021. Gotta tell ya, I feel just about dumb as shit right now. I kind of understand people with those "I bought this before he sieg heiled" bumper stickers on their Teslas.

Swiss company says "Nazi's aren't so bad."

The more things change the more they stay the same.

When they say they're "neutral" lets not forget what "neutral" meant during World War II. It meant making a fucking shitload of money at the expense of the rest of Europe.

Also, the geography of Switzerland is how they were able to convince Germany to not invade. A few US Nukes dropped from the sky make their geography a moot fucking point this time around.

Yep, I moved to tuta the day Andy decided to out himself as a MAGA dipshit. The only way I’d go back is if he resigns or gets forced out. At the absolute minimum Andy Yen has shown extremely poor judgement in claiming Republicans are the party concerned with people’s digital rights. That tells me he fundamentally does not know what he’s talking about, and I do not trust Proton under his leadership anymore.

As a side note, If anyone’s looking for a VPN alternative, I highly recommend Mullvad.

The sort of Swiss neutrality that doesn't care whose teeth the gold is from.

Wow. There's a whole lot of people here reacting to the headline, and not actually reading the story. That's important, because the journalist's headline is (shocker) a huge overstatement.

I was concerned as I'm a Proton user and have been for years, and hard left politically, and despise Trump. But maybe lets just read it before reacting?

Here's what the CEO posted on Xitter:

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

Yep. That's a bad look. Doesn't make a lot of sense either because the Republicans are very much the party of big business and corporate handouts and deregulation in oil, gas, energy, mining, manufacture, industrial farming etc.

Then here's what Proton's team said on Reddit as an explanation and expansion of the CEO's post (and then later deleted):

Here is our official response, also available on the Mastodon post in the screenshot:

Corporate capture of Dems is real. In 2022, we campaigned extensively in the US for anti-trust legislation.

Two bills were ready, with bipartisan support. Chuck Schumer (who coincidentally 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.

By working on the front lines of many policy issues, we have seen the shift between Dems and Republicans over the past decade first hand.

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.

First off, I feel like I've read from hundreds of Lemmy users total agreement that the Democratic party is captured by corporate interests, so I really doubt any disagreement with that section of Proton's post. My reaction to the remainder is that it's not at all praise for the Republican party, just the factual statement of the sad reality that Republicans with their very hard-on-Silicon-Valley rhetoric are more likely to actually reign in the big tech companies than the Democratic party - and Proton is in a good position to have seen this first hand. Zero of the statement praises Trump or praises Republicans, and there is in fact lament that the Democrats didn't stick harder with their left-wing candidates, even highlighting Bernie. I can see why they deleted it though, it's office chatter than never should have left the cubicle.

TL;DR: storm in a teacup, I'll be keeping my Proton mail account.

p.s. yes this is my first Lemmy post. I'm a longtime lurker though. I felt strongly enough about this to make an account to post, as nobody seemed to be actually posting the content of the article - just reacting. Edit: typos & formatting of the quote.

My renewal of proton VPN is entirely dependent on who the ceo is when it's time for me to renew.

If fuckface is still there, I'll move on.

I'm fickle that way.

Yeah Proton already burned that bridge. "Politically Neutral" is no longer an option for them.

Good news for them, I’m “financially neutral”

Curious how so many people decided to ditch them and switch (vocally on Lemmy at least) and now they back pedal/clarify/whatever. Turns out we have power and using it works. Sorry not sorry. Edited: pedal instead of petal.

I think at this point in the USA it's very clear:

If you're "politically neutral", you're Republican.

I (and very many others) may not agree with the democrats, but since we only got two parties there, it's damage-control. And any sane person (that would like to have a non-dystopian future) votes against Trump...

Okay, can someone help me, a tech illiterate, choose a new vpn, email provider, and password manager? I'd really prefer open source.

Imagine being so fucking brainwashed you believe Republicans are for "the little guy"

I already switched from Proton Mail to Tuta. No regrets

I really don't understand why smart people put their eggs in the proton basket.

Big (shady) money rule Switzerland. A Swiss server or company isn't safer or more trustworthy. Quite the opposite.

My stance on Proton is my stance on GrapheneOS: just because the creator is bad doesn't mean the software is bad. As long as the software is better compared to the alternatives then I seen no reason to stop using it.

Note: better can mean more privacy-friendly, cost-friendly, sustainable, nice to use, open, etc.

Oddly enough, I found the opposite to be true with companies like Nestle: the news of them killing children makes me dislike their chocolates.

I just cancelled my subscription and moved everything to Tuta. Tuta also seems to have a political stance much more aligned with my own: diversity, privacy oriented, and eco friendly.

gonna quickly post here, since I don't know quite where else would be good, but I noticed sometime last year that the website, https://standardnotes.com/ (a product owned by proton) seems to use a massive amount of AI generated imagery.

also: I thought I was a fool for not getting lifetime visionary when I could, now a little less so :)

Already started migrating away. Canceled my paid plan.

I cannot fathom being that stupid to believe that Republicans are anti-monoploy when they give huge corporation massive tax breaks and removes barriers for mega mergers

I was considering signing up, any alternatives?

Again privacy oriented companies that bend to demagogues and desperate profiteers cannot be trusted to handle sensitive data.

Switched from ProtonVPN to Mullvad and ProtonMail to Posteo. Wiped my ProtonDrive. I sleep pretty soundly at night.