Proton Mail Says It’s “Politically Neutral” While Praising Republican Party
theintercept.com
The “privacy-first” company surprised its user base when CEO Andy Yen lauded Trump on social media.

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.

  • sudneo@lemm.ee
    1·
    4 hours ago

    I disagree. I for sure will keep using the service, this has nothing to do with it.

    I genuinely can’t see any issue with his statements, I read them in context and - while I don’t have an opinion on the subject - I think they are totally reasonable personal opinions.

    Also lumping together “tech CEOs” is another (in my opinion) completely wrong generalization.

    • proton is a company with a healthy business model that doesn’t harm users
    • the CEO decided to give control of the company to a nonprofit to ensure the values will be followed with no pressure.
    • the company is not a social media nor a company that controls what you can see, which is a big difference because alignment with one or other political view can have a huge impact in those cases (which is why zuck alignment is a much much bigger deal than Andy Yen supposed alignment).
    • the company is not american, it’s not part of big tech.

    So yeah, I disagree even with this part of your interpretation of the situation.

    I don’t think there is any way to find a common ground. Personally I find your interpretation really forced and therefore exaggerated. Context, track record and most importantly the words of this guy do not seem to point out at all to a “mask off situation” in my opinion.

    Edit: I really dislike meta-comments. I am commenting based on what interests me, whether other people do other stuff is not something I can do anything about. Please refrain to use the “people like you…” type of statements. You have no idea who I am or what I think besides this conversation.

    • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      2 hours ago

      Then by all means, continue using Proton. But if you can’t understand why people are pissed about what Andy Yen, then there is nothing more to say.

      The context and the message are pretty simple and clear and you try to make it nuanced for whatever reason. The guy sucked it up to Trump and people told him to get fucked.

      CEO all over the world have been fucking people over for a dollar more and it is not hard to see why Andy Yen’s message was received as it was.

      My interpretation is reading the tweet from Andy Yen as it was written. It wasn’t a nuanced position, it wasn’t a long text with many points and the context is pretty straightforward. But you try to make it seems like it was an intricate and nuanced position.

      The post on Reddit following the backlash is simple damage control 101 as we see every week when a CEO does a dumb thing.