Summary
Proton Mail, known for its privacy-first email services, faced backlash after CEO Andy Yen praised the Republican Party and its antitrust stance.
The company initially posted and deleted a statement supporting Yen’s comments, later claiming an “internal miscommunication” and reiterating its political neutrality.
Critics question Proton’s impartiality, particularly as it cooperates with Swiss authorities on legal data requests.
Privacy advocates warn that political alignments could undermine trust, especially for Proton’s users—journalists and activists wary of government surveillance under administrations like Trump’s.
Okay, I feel like the part that people are skipping over is the “cooperating with authorities on legal data requests” part. No. As a privacy company; You DO NOT save and store ANY information apart from what is crucially and imminently necessary to run your service. Anything beyond that is a blatant conflict of interests and should not be trusted. Corruption and data sharing that CAN happen, WILL happen when it comes to data security based companies. Full stop.
Imagine being so fucking brainwashed you believe Republicans are for “the little guy”
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.
Correction; the CEO posted a rather tone deaf message. while this is incredibly dumb, it should be little reason to burn the company to the ground
Having said that, people should start looking at email again how it was designed to be: have thousands of open providers instead of the tiny fee enormous ones we got now
Yeah Proton already burned that bridge. “Politically Neutral” is no longer an option for them.
When I first saw the headline, I thought it sounded like one of those stories about how many Nazis are at the table or at the bar.
When you exist in a 2-party system, and one of those parties are mask-off fascists, and people suspect you of supporting them, saying you’re neutral isn’t a good look.
I already switched from Proton Mail to Tuta. No regrets
I’ve been with tutan for two years now. The service is ok, but they still have some limitations that bother me a bit. Before this issue with Trump, I’d have considered move to Proton, but I guess I’ll stick with Tuta.
I’m considering switching. Would you mind sharing what bothers you?
Any good alternatives for ProtonVPN when visiting China? ProtonShield looks pretty promising and with 10 devices for 9,99€ a month my whole family (8 people) would get it for our trip
nice advertisement.
Maybe just don’t worry about connecting home and getting mail / news while you’re vacationing.
Shadowsocks is free and what most people there use.
Search engine: what Vpn’s work in china 2025
There’s no limit of reputable alternatives.
More theater do to this today:
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 am currently entrenched in Google. Slowly digging my way out so I could transfer to proton. I was probably within about a month maybe two or pulling the trigger. Zero chance that happens now. I don’t like Google But I know what they’re going to do. If I’m going to put the effort into move that critical data it’s got to be with some place I can trust or I’m going to have to host it myself.
I’m researching the suggestions that people have made here: tuta, bitwarden, and mullvad.
Main downside of Mullvad is no port forwarding anymore
Personally going with option 2 on an old PC, learning a lot about docker lol
Sure hope their praises don’t include giving your data to their heroes
They would hand over your liver for an atta-boy and a small government contract.
The thing is, he raises a lot of very accurate points about the Democratic party. Dems are captured by corporations; they’re unwilling to do what the people want, and what is in the best interests of the people, because that hurts their flow of money. And yes, tech companies are kissing Trump’s ass because he’s volatile enough that he could very well regulate them out of business if they aren’t sucking his dick. Additionally, prior to his MAGA phase, Vance does appear to have been much more populist in his approach to corporations; he was saying some of the right things, even if his social policies were trash.
he was saying some of the right things, even
Vance consistently talks about of both sides of his mouth. He will tell whomever he is talking to what they/their viewers want to hear.
His autobiography is verified fiction.
He’s not this kinda getting it but confused figure, that’s the costume he wears to try to gather votes from the left.
A lot of the dems are truly “captured” by corps. But that’s not what he said, he said the Republicans, who are 100% managed by corps, are better. That’s insane. And don’t start with Vance misinformation, he is owned and run by Peter Thiel.
The Swiss just can’t help themselves
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.
Aside from the political stuff, I’m also concerned about proton from a technological standpoint. You can’t use a standard mail client with proton, you have to use their own. So, if they wanted to, they could push out a single malicious update which would render all of the end-to-end encryption stuff pointless. You could argue that using Thunderbird + GPG + Gmail is more secure/private.
Excluding Switzerland from the equation, most in the US don’t have + or - for Switzerland unless it’s banking.
You can never trust any company to put your needs first. A good moral company has at least its founders, private funders, employees, and vendors to look after before they worry about your wants and needs.
Proton was kinda small. 500 employees for a communications company isn’t bad.
Good start.
Proton made a name for itself. WE ARE PRIVACY FIRST and they mostly delivered on that in technical capabilities.
So far, so good.
Then they doxed someone’s IP (french?) due to a remote government order.
Not great, but anyone would do that. There have to be limits. That said, they now clearly play ball with governments.
All the other providers would do the same. They’re now on par with most, but less likely to sell all my data down the river. But my needs are to keep my secrets state secret level. (or so I think)
Then he crawls up Trumps ass.
Now, I’m doing nothing illegal. Nothing immoral. Nothing questionable by the previous administrations standards, but what happens If I start to protest? If I subscribe to democratic news sources, is this jackass going to train an AI on my and hand my name address and phone number to the neo facists running my country now?
We put our eggs wherever we think they can best be served conveniently and for the best price.
You can also choose to not put your eggs anywhere. You can secure your email but not sending any.
we were trying to choose price+convenience+security.
knock one of those legs out, it’s not a table anymore.
This comment needs more upvotes inmho. This is exactly right. It’s how I followed this history myself. They built on Privacy first. Now there are red flags which were not clear before.
On the hacker news thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42837181
They discuss the topic and there is only a single reply from ProtonPrivacy, saying it’s miscommunication and blah blah.
It was not enough to dispel my sense of unease and concern and a single comment isn’t exactly ‘fighting to set the record straight’.
My 2¢.
What’s the alternative in your opinion? Google, or something else, and why?
Tuta has been good for me.
I just set up a bunch of purelymail addresses on a couple domains I own. I bought into proton for 2 years just a couple months ago. So I’ll transition away slowly.
Yep and if you look at some corrupt sports bosses like Sepp Blatter, Gianni Infantino and Rene Fasel, all are Swiss.
Thank you! I was also very confused how all these privacy-conscious people warned against big corporations, and then starting using a product… By a big corporation. Just because they say they’re privacy conscious and nice and safe and whatever doesn’t mean it’s true. I mean, they might be substantially better, but there’s no proof of that. Every company always makes promises, at first. I guess people really like to believe in an underdog.
It’s like if someone warned you against eating sweets because they’re unhealthy, but then pulls out their own bag of sweets saying “oh no, these sweets are fine because the company that makes them promised they’re healthy”.
They’re not big. 500 people at a communications company that develops their own stuff is relatively tiny.
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…
Ok Trumper.
they’re Swiss
Yes, I know, I’m also not from the USA from a “neutral” state (Austria)…
Actually, especially if you’re European, even the democrats are more right-leaning, i.e. comparable with the conservative parties here.
No one is actually politically neutral…
Is this the story from a week or so ago re-reported or has he said something else?
