Well, I say it like this because I don’t get the feeling that we’re having this discussion solely because it’s political. I get the feeling that people don’t like discussing any problems with a company that aren’t solely technical in nature, which I don’t think is good.
There are a lot of things besides the technical workings of a product that I think at least some people are interested in discussing, so comments like this one I don’t find very helpful, that’s all I’m saying.
We are discussing it because of the flashy title and the polarizing nature of a CEO being on the side of 50% of people in the form of a political party. Furthermore, having bad opinions must not be equated to bad actions like one comment here attempted by equating it to a murderer in response to the post you linked.
What proton did is at worst unprofessional and not what you would expect of a company their size, but large companies can do wrong as we saw with burger king trying and failing at making a statement about women in the kitchen.
If Andy was just happy with the nomination of Gail Slater I could understand that. Its the whole Republicans are now the party of “standing up for the little guy” sentiment that he happily ignored when trying to backtrack that irks me.
Although from what I can tell, Gail Slater isn’t really a pick for the “little guy”
She was a lawyer at the Internet Association, a now-defunct trade association with members that included Google and Meta. She has also worked for tech company Roku and the media company Fox Corp.
Exactly, and Burger King deserved much ridicule for that, just as Proton deserves ridicule for how they’ve made a mountain out of a molehill here lol —it’s alright to point out companies making completely unforced errors.
Ultimately, I think Proton will survive this, just as Burger King did and just as Brave, GOS, SimpleX, Signal that @Anon47486929 mentioned all survived similar dumb moves. And we do have plenty of discussion here on the forum about Signal, SimpleX, etc. when they made mistakes or acted strangely that were fine too, so I don’t see this as much different.
I agree with this and they should be discussed. We can’t separate politics from the discussions, politics is everywhere all the time. If Proton’s CEO says something supporting a topic that is sensitive we have the right to hear, discuss it and the option to opt out to support their service if is the case.
I mean all things aside, you don’t have to be a very smart person to leave your political views at home and not share them because you will piss off the other group. It’s just that this title pushes in a certain direction which is not true and the reddit thread is full of people calling everyone they know, friends, family and businesses to stop using proton which imo is very bad as proton is generally a company we should want around…
This is very sad. We already had people insisting on others not using GrapheneOS or anything from Brave. That also came with harassment against both projects. I guess Proton will now experience pretty much the same, with some people telling everyone not to use it and harassing/trolling the company and its supporters.
It would be best for everyone if companies learned that no one cares about their opinions and that sharing them will by their very nature upset people. If people feel strongly about what proton said, I think it makes sense to share it with their friends and family to vote with their wallets. At the end of the day we will have forgotten about this incident within a week or two and the next company will do something stupid to laugh at (looking at you, Apple Intelligence)
What does this matter? Serious question. This has no bearing on their privacy.
I think his take wasn’t wrong for multiple reasons, at the same time it probably was without thinking that this would mean (indirect) approval of Trump, and his other policies (eg anti-LGBT, deportation, etc).
BTW, here is the original Dec 5 Tweet https://xcancel.com/andyyen/status/1864436449942110660#m
Of course, people can decide for themselves what they do. I’m just done with the cancel culture. I’m just laughing at all the people who are going out of their way to archive the comment made by the guy, like literally who cares it has nothing to do with the product and saying it does is just being ignorant. They sell privacy and security, they are open source, once they stop delivering what they promise, we leave.
Sadly privacy and security are both highly reliant on trust, if people don’t trust them for any reason it is fair to leave and call them out.
Like I said, people are free to do whatever they want. Except share an opinion (which is taken completely out of context) redditors don’t agree with, then you get cancelled and a call to action to all drop proton is created😂
When and where did that happen? 
Just go through the comment section of the reddit post
What I see on Reddit & Mastodon is that people (in this case “leftists”) love to exaggerate things. I understand their concerns (like Project 2025), but to link what Andy said to all of Trump’s actions is just… not that logical in my opinion.
I’ve seen a lot of people saying they are leaving Proton themselves, which is different than what you’re describing.
I think what @mountainofmeat just said above and in particular the “for any reason” part is very true. We can’t and shouldn’t decide what every person’s individual criteria for trust in a product/person/company is, that is a personal decision everyone should make for themselves.
Generally speaking nuance is quickly lost in (online) discussion.
See what I did there 
Even if proton was ran by murderous maniacs, this would still have no bearing on the technical aspects.
Do you not see that saying nobody should leave Proton because of their political viewpoints is equally as ridiculous as saying everyone should leave Proton because of their political viewpoints.
Encouraging other people to leave Proton over this and getting mad that people are angry at Proton because of this are both bad takes, IMO.