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Proton has respond on reddit (europe.pub)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/privacy@programming.dev
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[–] 63 points 4 months ago (13 children)

It's a good PR statement.

But first the trump thing, and now this. They should have been WAY more cautious about this kind of thing.

But they weren't. For some reason. Maybe it's standard corporate neglect. Maybe it's that they're trying to support the far right without looking like it. Maybe 100 other things.

I'm not inclined to give Andy Yen a pass because that was egregious, but this seems like they may have allowed people to request sponsorship without enough vetting.

It's still two strikes.

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  • [–] 11 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    I was looking at VPNs to use and liked how proton had the email and other features. Them supporting someone from Trump's cabinet a few months back sort of killed that. This sealed it. Three strikes are not necessary.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    I bailed on them the minute they made that mistake. I had been very content with their service though less so with all of the new things they were rolling out like the crypto wallet, etc. I miss the convenience of everything in one place but it sounds like I ditched them at a good time.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    what are you using now? My wife and I struggle to find reasonably priced alternatives. We really only use it for email and password management.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    For a VPN? I use AirVPN but I think Mullvad and IVPN are generally considered best in class for privacy, all of which get down to $5/month depending on the plan you choose.

    For password manager I use Bitwarden, but they went through their own controversy a couple weeks ago, so.

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    • [–] 62 points 4 months ago (10 children)

    "You’re right to raise this..."

    "... and that's on us."

    Has the same kind of simpering tone you'd get out of an LLM.

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  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago* (4 children)

    Just curious, what could they have possibly done instead that would satisfy you?

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    ... not used an LLM to write their apology?

    I mean, I'm satisfied. This indicates to me they don't care. That's all I need to hear.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    There is no proof they used an LLM. Plus, LLMs are trained on human text anyway, who actually talk like this... it's not like LLMs invented their own way of speaking.

    Would you have preferred no apology at all?

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    • [–] 40 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    If you see something like this again, tell us. We rely on your feedback and vigilance.

    Or ... you could ensure something like this doesn't happen again yourselves. It's not our job to police your social media purchases.

    Plus, it seems like you were notified and got feedback - just that it happened way more publicly than you wanted. Which again, isn't our problem to deal with.

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  • [–] 13 points 4 months ago

    Not worded the best, but they did say they were going to rework how they evaluated where they are marketing. I read that as a last resort when they make a mistake they're willing to listen.

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    • [–] 36 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    My first reaction was it looks AI generated, but TBH I've seen plenty of corporate CYA pieces like this before GAI existed, so it could just be that's where AI got it from...

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    • [–] 23 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    This reads like chatgpt.

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  • [–] 11 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    "Write an apology to placate the angry nerds on the internet"

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    • [–] 21 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Responded to what

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    [–] 16 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    I believe them when they say this was an error of vetting because they'd have to be naive to think this wouldn't be discovered and that a lot of their customers would have an issue with it. But that in itself is troubling. Proton are not some small-fry company with staff numbers in the single digits. Something like this speaks to their lack of planning, organisation and error-checking which are very bad traits for a privacy-centered set of software developers to have.

    I've always been slightly suspicious of Proton without really knowing why but this and the previous Trump thing have made those suspicions more hardened. Everyone makes mistakes but to not even do basic checking and to lack the organisation and judgement to implement it is not something that inspires trust in the software they develop.

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    • [–] 14 points 4 months ago (23 children)

    I'm out of the loop here, what's this drama about?

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  • [–] 17 points 4 months ago (22 children)

    Proton is currently sponsoring the far-right French YouTuber Vincent Lapierre.

    https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Lapierre

    It’s not just an affiliate link, but a partnership announced in the description and through an entire 2min 20s segment embedded in the video.

    Vincent Lapierre’s Wikipedia page is quite explicit about his far-right positioning and includes numerous sources. He worked for several years for a far-right organization founded by Alain Soral, which promotes anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying, conspiracist, sexist, masculinist, transphobic, and homophobic ideas, and who fled to Russia to escape justice.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/degoogle/comments/1tzbizh/proton_is_funding_the_french_far_right_on_youtube/

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  • [–] 14 points 4 months ago* (21 children)

    It's not a partnership. It's a normal sponsor segment. Leave it to a right winger to lie about their affiliations.

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  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago* (20 children)

    Vincent and his audience might disagree...

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  • [+] 25 points 4 months ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (18 children)
    [deleted]
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    • [–] 6 points 4 months ago

    Whenever you see something like this, a wizard did it.

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