Proton Mail @protonprivacy claims to be “politically neutral” while praising the Republican Party https://theintercept.com/2025/01/28/proton-mail-andy-yen-trump-republicans/
Can somebody point to the exact part of their commentary I'm meant to be outraged about?
Their official response is a pretty perfect summary of how little Democrats actually did on the issues of anti-trust... and although I have no faith in Republicans to be better in practice, I don't think the comparison on the surface level is a bad one.
"Until corporate Dems are thrown out, the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses."
Dems sucked, but this is obviously nonsense right-wing propaganda considering that all of Big Tech is on team MAGA, and they fired Lina Khan, the only hope for actual anti-trust reform.
Also, promising to be "politically neutral" and praising the fascist party while fascism is on the rise is pretty bad.
@feld @DroidPort this is entirely true. It doesn't make Proton praising the fascist party as being the party of anti-trust any better.
@feld @DroidPort uh, why would having someone meet with a fascist VC tech bro with Peter Thiel backing have been a good thing for anti-trust?
Because he was the candidate for VP... and was likely a powerful force on the issue regardless of the outcome of the 2024 election.
How did writing him off as a fascist, tech bro, unworthy of talking to work out for Dems?
It seems like it worked out pretty well for him and the Republicans.
*Please don't interpret any of this as support... I'm just sick of the attitudes of "Fuck all these people" and then having nothing to show for it when they end up in power.
@DroidPort @feld talking with Vance would have been worthless. The tech billionaires are not going to regulate tech. The problem with the Dems isn't that they didn't talk to Vance, it's that they don't have spines or any real convictions. Still better than fascism though
Guess we can never know... but
Trump's 1st term did more on Anti-Trust than Biden did... so... we will see what happens from here.
Dems failed to even try, and now the terms gets to be dictated by "Facsist, Tech Bro's" as you called them.
I don't have a problem with Proton's official response at all. I think that the majority of people's comments on your post are along the lines of "I guess I'll be leaving Proton" and that attitude IMO is worthless though.
Trump won't break them up while they can provide a transactional benefit to him. Hence, they are all dying to be his best friend.
But the moment that relationship stops helping him... I could see the levers of Anti-Trust getting pulled again. Something the Democrats were too useless to try.
"It's OK to acknowledge when people you absolutely loathe do something good. It doesn't erase their sins."
This is what so much of the Left (which I am firmly a part of on basically every issue) don't seem to grapple with.
It's the reason the right "Big-Tent" Politics translates to election victories and the Left's version translates to in-fighting.
@DroidPort @feld sorry, what are you referring to? Do you have examples of e.g. Trump acknowledging that immigrants or trans people have done good for US?
The Right's big tent politics is based around shared hatred of LGBTQ people, immigrants, diversity initiatives, "elites", etc. It's based on lies and disinformation. They never acknowledge anything good about their enemies.
I'm not saying they are the same Big Tents.
They are firmly different voters with different priorities in each
What I mean is that the Republicans can fit Anti-Vaxxers, Racists, Transphobes, Gun Nuts, etc... who care about different things while not concerning themselves in what they differ on.
The left spends more time arguing about the minutia of what they don't agree with... which results in less time focused on the macro they agree on.
I am talking in broad strokes here...
Ezra Klein did a good run of podcasts that touched on this late last year and addressed it much better than I can in Mastodon form if you are interested.
https://pca.st/r87o97r7
https://pca.st/bpn6d8bb
https://pca.st/uyn1vxxz
Patrick Ruffuni (interviewed in the 2024 election analysis episode above) sums it up very well in his book below.
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Party-of-the-People/Patrick-Ruffini/9781982198626
I don't see much praise mentioned in any of the official posts from Proton... the CEO's comments were a little tone-deaf in the current climate, but I'm not losing sleep over them.
I think "Republicans seem more willing to act on Anti-Trust" is the crux of their commentary... and as I said, on the surface, I am inclined to agree. In practice, I don't see this actually happening, though.