Copied from the reddit post:
Hi all, last night, a post from last year from my personal X account suddenly became a topic of discussion here on Reddit. I want to share a few thoughts on this to provide clarity to the community on what is Proton’s policy on politics going forward.
First, while the X post was not intended to be a political statement, I can understand how it can be interpreted as such, and it therefore should not have been made. While we will not prohibit all employees from expressing personal political opinions publicly, it is something I will personally avoid in the future. I lean left on some issues, and right on other issues, but it doesn’t serve our mission to publicly debate this. It should be obvious, but I will say that it is a false equivalence to say that agreeing with Republicans on one specific issue (antitrust enforcement to protect small companies) is equal to endorsing the entire Republican party platform.
Second, officially Proton must always be politically neutral, and while we may share facts and analysis, our policy going forward will be to share no opinions of a political nature. The line between facts, analysis, and opinions can be blurry at times, but we will seek to better clarify this over time through your feedback and input.
The exception to these rules is on the topics of privacy, security, and freedom. These are necessarily political topics, where influencing public policy to defend these values, often requires engaging politically.
The operations of Proton have always reflected our neutrality. For example, recently we refused pressure to deplatform both Palestinian student groups and Zionist student groups, not because we necessarily agreed with their views, but because we believe more strongly in their right to have their own views.
It is also a legal guarantee under Swiss law, which explicitly prohibits us from assisting foreign governments or agencies, and allows us no discretion to show favoritism as Swiss law and Swiss courts have the final say.
The promise we make is that no matter your politics, you will always be welcome at Proton (subject of course to adherence to our terms and conditions). When it comes to defending your right to privacy, Proton will show no favoritism or bias, and will unconditionally defend it irrespective of the opinions you may hold.
This is because both Proton as a company, and Proton as a community, is highly diverse, with people that hold a wide range of opinions and perspectives. It’s important that we not lose sight of nuance. Agreeing/disagreeing with somebody on one point, rarely means you agree/disagree with them on every other point.
I would like to believe that as a community there is more that unites us than divides us, and that privacy and freedom are universal values that we can all agree upon. This continues to be the mission of the non-profit Proton Foundation, and we will strive to carry it out as neutrally as possible.
Going forward, I will be posting via u/andy1011000. Thank you for your feedback and inputs so far, and we look forward to continuing the conversation.
Words are nothing, Andy should step away from proton.
Trouble is Andy, we now know what you privately think and all the follow up statements in the world can’t put that genie back in the bottle.
Proton is an org that exists in an industry whose customers do not trust easily. Publicly aligning with someone utterly untrustable, either as an individual or as a board, has tainted Proton and adversely affected peoples ability to trust. How can we ever know when Proton will find it acceptable again to respond positively to a Trumpian decision or how it might affect our privacy?
Literal thought policing (“what you privately think”) and quasi-religious purity logic (“has tainted Proton”). This nicely reveals the kind of busybodying inquisitorial mindset that keeps losing elections for US progressives and thus landing the rest of the world with Trump.
There’s an easy solution to the pseudo-problem you raise: judge Proton by its actions rather than the (utterly commonplace) opinions of one of its directors.
Hey bud, when you blurt out what you think “privately”, it’s no longer private, and people not liking what was said publicly isn’t “thought policing”.
Secondly, Protons actions include supporting this wackjob’s “private” thoughts.. Even by your asinine rubric, they’re allowed to be judged on that.
He should not have @'d Trump. By doing this he is explicitly calling for the incoming administration’s attention and signalling he’s willing to play ball and bend the knee. Also nice try at obfuscation saying the tweet was from last year, jackass.
Additionally the company account doubled down on his messaging. I think dems suck too, but both sides are not the same. What kind of Swiss crack are they smoking to be able to pretend that the administration that created permanent tax cuts for the ultra wealthy, that I subsidize with my tax dollars, is a friend of the little guy? Or how about the administration that seated the court that bulldozed the right to privacy, while state courts pass censorship laws under the guise of child protections?
The guy is talking out both sides of his face and he’s an asshole. While I don’t think this is indicative of Proton’s services per se I am no longer a paying customer.
I’m personally satisfied with the statement, position and reflection on the issue.
It was a fuck-up to publicly respond to donaldtrump in what could be seen as an endorsement. This was acknowledged and remedied.
The no politics stance is probably unavoidable, as mentioned but they should never focus on political parties, but on defending the values, this is what is clarified and that’s best. We should accept to support a bill strengthening privacy even if it may come from a political party we generally do not support. Denying our support to such a bill would not strengthen the core value we defend. And as individuals we may still criticize all other activities of such a political party if we disagree with others of their activities.
As a community, I hope we can come together, and resist the temptation of purity tests, and acknowledge that we are all fighting for the same cause, no matter our perspective on other issues. We need the support of everyone.
we are all fighting for the same cause
Catering to the “Libertarian” neo-Nazi crowd so they buy your product vs wanting to defend minorities against these sort of people is not the same cause
This comment is not the original. He changed it.
His main point is outright wrong though. Republicans are not better at anti-trust, they’re the big money. Thinking Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos will protect small tech companies is laughable.
Why does his username have “88” in binary 🧐
The number 8 is lucky to Chinese people. Source: I am Chinese
Is it normal to double it up?
Yes, doubling characters or numbers is common in Chinese to insist on the item.
At weddings, you will see lots of double happiness characters for example.
“Everybody” is literally the character for people that is repeated, so “yan yan”.
Honestly all that noise was coming from Americans anyway, not a big deal They’re drama-queens. Never take Americans seriously on politics & economy (& also healthcare)
a post from last year from my personal X account suddenly became a topic of discussion here on Reddit.
You mean last month right.
