Change Proposal on Privacy Guides Recommended VPN Providers Page

[ignoramous]

@anon82422799

The points that promises of “no-logs” and similar should not simply be blindly accepted with authenticity also hold true, which furthers my concern about false clarity. If we presently accept with mutual agreement that these assertions are nuanced and not absolute, then binary delisting itself doesn’t solve the communication issues, but shifts it elsewhere.

The point is, PG is not in the business of selling VPNs (and from what I can tell, also not in the business of “access journalism”). It should have no obligation to market VPNs as something they are not (recommended VPNs not meeting the minimum criteria, to the generally non-neutral wording / linking to first-party sources & (some) factually incorrect/misleading statements in the VPN knowledge base / perceived lack of critical / independent checks), it is doing exactly that.

@anon82422799

In reality, VPNs across providers, platforms, jurisdictions, and laws are unfortunately not that

If PG is selling anything but “reality”, it is not different than all those loathsome “content creator types”^[1] I keep hearing about from the “staff”^[1:1] and the “team” here.^[2]

@anon82422799

Privacy Guides team (Jonah and Co.) conclusively determine that binary-style recommendations are the only user-friendly way to keep confusion to a minimum, I will respect that as a valid philosophy.

Whatever the philosophy, brand loyalty can’t certainly be the way.

@JG

PG team reads these threads as not poorly thought out criticisms but with the eyes of seeing the passion the community has when it comes to wanting VPN companies to do better, PG recommendations/info to be better

To me, if they hold themselves to the policies and standards and criteria they themselves set, that’ll be refreshing.

I mean, they seem to like replying to kids^[3] and trolls in hours…

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1. “I’ve noticed a pattern where they claim “YouTubers” and other “content creators” don’t have their hearts in the right place … all the while being engaged knee-deep in content creation themselves with TWIP & whatever long blog posts they published every other week.” THE HATED ONE: We need to talk... about the Proton ecosystem - #7 by KevPham ↩︎ ↩︎

2. “I find it pretty challenging to take YouTubers seriously these days when we do what they do + we do written work + we self-host everything from the ground up in addition to meeting people where they are on big tech platforms + we foster this community for other members to do the same. Unfortunately, “content creator” types have been far less willing to work with us compared to serious organizations like Tor or EFF, so to me that speaks volumes about how serious YouTubers are about advancing privacy vs. their own brand.” THE HATED ONE: We need to talk... about the Proton ecosystem - #41 by jonah ↩︎

3. I mean, I have seen posts flagged and deleted for less. ↩︎