Misinformation. OP is advocating that you shoot yourself in the foot.

The CEO said something silly on Twitter which revealed either that (a) he shares an exceedingly banal opinion with literally half of America or (b) he’s not above a bit of preemptive sycophancy to advance his (positive) anti-trust agenda.

There’s nothing particularly scandalous in the offending tweet:

• Implying that the Democrats are now “the party of big business” is arguably true (and very boring)
• Implying that the Republicans now “stand for the little guys” is dumb but also arguably true, unfortunately - the working classes swung to Trump in the recent election while the Democrats are fast becoming a party of high-earning elites (which is why they lost)
• Saying that the antitrust actions began under Trump I is, well, true

Proton is not owned Zuck-like by its CEO. It’s controlled by a foundation with other stakeholders on the board, including the inventor of the Web himself. In its niche it is still by far the best option. Ditching it for a nebulous non-existent alternative because the CEO expressed a dumb and extremely commonplace opinion is just silly and self-defeating.

PS: to be clear, OP is peddling misinformation because it’s not true that “Proton took the stance” of anything. It’s the personal opinion of the CEO that’s at issue. It’s a major distinction. I find it disappointing that people interested in privacy would have such little respect for a private individual’s right to have their own thoughts.

PPS: to be extra clear, my comments are about the post above, not stuff that people are reading elsewhere. But the substance stands. See discussion for detail.

Server locations: Riseup is in the US (Washington state), so keep that in mind. Disroot is in the Netherlands (part of the EU).

Governance: Riseup: Look at their “about us” page. Disroot: Look at their “about” page. The terms of service are more detailed. tl;dr: As far as I can tell, these are run by leftists.

Integrity/Transparency: I have no idea how to grade this.

Ease of Use: Subjective. Riseup VPN is just: install the client, turn it on or off. Disroot is much better with a mail client of some kind, so if you already use one, it’s probably a 10, otherwise, the webmail server isn’t that great. Disroot also requries manual encryption (I’m biased here because I use Kmail which makes PGP really easy to use).

Pricing and Links: Free https://riseup.net/en/vpn https://disroot.org/en/services/email

tl;dr: Use collective-run services, not corporate-run services

If they think Dollar Store Hitler is going to stand up for small businesses then they’re about to have a rude awakening.

You could look at infomaniak, but I didn’t have the best experience trying out (or even getting started with) their services. Finding a provider that has all of Proton’s apps is going to be tough (or at least it was from me while I was looking to escape from Tuta). Good luck, tho.

EDIT: Infomaniak is on F-Droid!

EDIT EDIT: Infomaniak is only available in Europe! Infomaniak is only available with a European phone number, so using a VPN won’t help! 🙁👎

I think I would wait for changes in their mission and policies before I start moving anything.

I just got settled for fuck’s sake

Truly unhinged that they decided to come out on this. Fellas, you are fucking Swiss why throw yourself under the bus for the US election

Sooo, can we not create and/or finance our own? Please be gentle…but…is there not enough of us paying for proton and other privacy apps to fund a floss or non-profit version? I mean there are tech nerds all over this place, along with law nerds and political nerds…etc…(meant with love btw) that would have an instant user base.

I pledge here to sub up to $15usd/month for any lemmy person that starts an entity that provides us with what we need with ethics and morality of lemmy common.

i wanted to move my google stuff to Proton this year as a Backup for my self hosted stuff. Shame, seems like I need to put a little more time into managing my self hosted stuff

Remember when businesses stayed the fuck out of politics so they didn’t alienate their customers because they like money? Pepperidge Farms remembers.

I use mailbox.org its pretty sweet

Lol dont be a child

If a car company in Germany complemented Hitler on his paintings, would it be still fine to buy their cars? And what if they were a really great car company and only mentioned how cool Hitler’s paintings were and nothing else?

I sort of feel like if I am cool with Proton’s statement, then I also am cool with trans people and Latino people and Gazan people being treated poorly, and I’m not actually cool with that.

It’s unfortunate, because despite Proton not accepting XMR and logging IPs when they promised they wouldn’t and doing other questionable practices, they have a lot of great services. But now, it’s like if I’m using their services, I’m sort of spitting on the grave of every trans person who ended their life out of shame, spitting on the grave of every dead Gazan who simply didn’t want to die, and being disrespectful to all the cool Latinos out there who have been degraded simply out of racism.

:-(

The CEO “apologized” this morning (after being duly chastised, I’m sure):

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.

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i2nz9v/on_politics_and_proton_a_message_from_andy/

Am I being paranoid when I notice that the binary at the end of his username translates to 88?

OK I think I will move to Posteo. Great security, privacy focussed, servers in Germany, running with 100% renewable energy. Prices are ok, too. Ticks all boxes.