Proton CEO Andy Yen Interview

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No indeed.

But supporting an administration (in any medium) whose inauguration included a Nazi salute does, in fact, make you a fascist.

And no: it doesn't matter if you previously did something good.

It's really not that complicated,

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Tbf, the nazi salute happened after he did that tweet

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Proton has a business model where they want the user to put their eggs all in one basket. If you want that kind of userbase you need to leave your personal politics out of it. The problem isn't that the CEO is right wing. It's that he is very publicly right wing. Supports a known huckster. And lastly could be vying for a role in the administration. All of this calls into question just for how long Proton will be secure before they are selling user info to the state.

Politics are very fucking important in terms of security when you're a whistleblower or dissident.

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Fair point. But no adult who is paying attention needed the salute to understand the contempt that Musk has for the rule of law.

He marshalled an attack on the capital. No non-fascist does that.

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Quit letting politics ruin our collective ability to drive by suggesting to people that Volkswagen is now an evil company. They support Hitler because they think his business policies will benefit their company. True or false as that may be their company is still great at making cars and we shouldn't be infighting about that.

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The tweet he commented on was indeed a nice idea, but a CEO should have more foresight that the things Trump stated in it would not be true.
When you look at it now, it looks like it was more or less a threat that led to a closer relationship between "tech bros" and the current administration instead of the "take down" of them.

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Trump isn't the politician I most loathe. He's just the only politician that I've ever feared might kill or imprison me purely for who I am.

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He marshalled an attack on the capital. No non-fascist does that.

uh, you sure about that?

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+1 for tuta and bitwarden.

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I think the "he" there was @[email protected], not the CEO of Proton.

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Yes. We all saw it on national television.

Then he pardoned the offenders.

GTFO with your stupid pretend skepticism and gas lighting.

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I’m reminded of this Nate Silver quote from the election:

Democrats, however — and here, I’m not referring so much Silver Bulletin subscribers but in the broader universe online — often get angry with you when you only halfway agree with them. And I really think this difference in personality profiles tells you a little something about why Trump won: Trump was happy to take on all comers, whereas with Democrats, disagreement on any hot-button topic (say, COVID school closures or Biden’s age) will have you cast out as a heretic. That’s not a good way to build a majority, and now Democrats no longer have one.

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The question was whether you are sure that only fascists marsh on capitals

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Martin Luther King marched on the capital.

But if you think I'm using a definition that makes Martin Luther King a fascist then I'm going to conclude you're not discussing the issue in good faith.

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Praising the pick wasn't so bad. The issues really arose when he was called out on it and chose to use Proton's official accounts to affirm his view and went on to state:

the republican party is now the party of the people and most likely to crack down on big tech
The democrats have effectively betrayed their voters in favour of corporate donations
This was Proton's official stance

It was insane boot licking and incredibly poorly thought through. It's fine for him to have an opinion but completely inappropriate to use their official accounts to spew such drivel and to state it was the official stance should have resulted in him being fired for damaging their reputation.

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Ah, well that's not so good then . . .

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Not defending democrats at all, but didn't Nate Silvers polling engine consistently favor democrats polls? I would say Democrats are loosing because they have created an echo-chamber (of which Nate is a part), in which alternatives are not allowed even if those alternatives are; we shouldn't do a genocide in gaza or hey, actually the most accurate polls have consistently showed Harris losing. If they could actually listen to what their constituents want for once, maybe they could have a majority, but also if Nate Silver could stop inflating their polling they could get a realistic idea of how they are doing with their strategy of telling the proles how they should feel about the perfect, infallible Biden econony and potebtially readjust that strategy or run more popular candidates.

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I think everybody is focusing too much on the word betrayal and not enough on the being a syccophant to a would be fascist. If you don't think thats a problem because, "business," that makes you also a fascism enabler. Just because they are good at the privacy part, doesn't mean a company that cow tows to fascism can ever be seen as safe for antifascists. Currently there is a good alternative; tuta. So why contribute to a company like this. There is massive potential to betray users if they are ideologically opposed to things that proton is coming to represent. If there is the option to divert resources away from projects that express fascist sympathies, its probably wise to do so.

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No, a single dumb tweet doesn't make you a fascist. Running a company that people are supposed to trust with their privacy and security and doubling down on praise for a political party that has been using state surveillance to hunt down people for choices they make with their own bodies as the party of the "little guy" does mean I'm never going to trust you again, though.

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This specific comment thread is focused on that because that was the topic started by the use of words of the first comment.

Nobody has even said that it's not a problem, what was said is that this is not something surprising. This is as silly as thinking that Zuckerberg has betrayed their users because of the changes in moderation policy, as if Facebook was somehow on the side of any particular political ideology other than their own interests. What makes you think tuta is gonna oppose all and every Trump policy including the ones that benefit their stated goal of digital privacy?

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Proton CEO Andy Yen Interview