Summary
Proton Mail, known for its privacy-first email services, faced backlash after CEO Andy Yen praised the Republican Party and its antitrust stance.
The company initially posted and deleted a statement supporting Yen’s comments, later claiming an “internal miscommunication” and reiterating its political neutrality.
Critics question Proton’s impartiality, particularly as it cooperates with Swiss authorities on legal data requests.
Privacy advocates warn that political alignments could undermine trust, especially for Proton’s users—journalists and activists wary of government surveillance under administrations like Trump’s.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i2nz9v/on_politics_and_proton_a_message_from_andy/m7hfhdh/
I will quote his own words:
I know we are in the internet in 2025, and nobody has the right to clarify their opinion anymore, one strike and you are out, but still.
To me it was obvious from the context to be honest, without even needing his own explanation (that you call backpedaling because good faith is never assumed). But then again, I was not looking for reasons to be outraged.
It’s hilarious though that reporting the authors own thoughts you call misinformation. Instead drawing your own conclusions that are explicitly denied by that person is supposedly objective. If there are no more rules of logic then everything goes.
Also this is not bootlicking, it’s just a timid defense of rationality in the face of people building castles in the air.
Yeah because cozying up buddy buddy with Trump is a castle in the air.
It’s not like the guy was cooked on the spot and spouted an incohenrent sentence.
The guy took the time to tag Donald Trump to show him how he’s not like the other girls , wrote out his message and thought that this was good enough to press send.
There is a lot of deliberate actions that leads to this and takebacksies are a lot more difficult to justify.
In that case, there is a little space for interpretation and Andy Yen is clearly in damage control.
It is not little joe from Arkansas owning a potato farm tweeting that shit, it’s the CEO of a supposedly “neutral” company, that deals in privacy, tagging his buddy Trump. Shit like that can’t get a pass.
Lucky for him, there are enlightened people like you that loves the smell of fresh polish directly from the boot.
Oh no, he tagged trump (did he? Or did he reply to the tweet in which trump announced the antitrust pick?). This 1 second action changes everything. I am glad we have already moved the goalpost. Why tagging trump would change the context of his message it’s really a mystery to me.
Look, for me it’s simple. He has expressed himself in a way that was easy to misinterpret. He clarified his thoughts, I judge him for his thoughts.
You want to judge him for what you think he meant? By no means, go ahead. Just don’t pretend it’s a fact, because it’s literally an opinion. A legitimate one, but still an opinion. The fact is that he said something and clarified that he meant something. Whether he is sincere or not is an opinion, but it doesn’t change the fact.
For the rest I don’t care to convince you or anybody else, I don’t care of Andy Yen either. What I do care is people damaging one of the very few tech companies out there that are positive exceptions to a shitty industry. I think this is way worse than a tweet - even if it praised republicans in a general sense.
Besides this, I also hate this aesthetic of purity. MacCartysm in modern sauce.
Absolutely not. There wasn’t a nuance hard to grasp in Andy Yen’s message. It is a pretty straightforward message.
Look if you want to continue using the service, by all means do, but stop acting like other people telling Proton and Andy Yen to get fucked that they are exaggerating.
Corporations are fucking us over and being outright evil, and when one of their CEO comes out and spout absolute dogshit takes, people like you come out of the woodwork to tell people that it’s fine and people are overreacting. You gain nothing from sucking up to millionaire CEOs that don’t give two shit about you.
What’s the saying, “When someone shows you who they are, trust them the first time”?
Andy Yen showed us who he was and lots of people told him to get fucked.
I disagree. I for sure will keep using the service, this has nothing to do with it.
I genuinely can’t see any issue with his statements, I read them in context and - while I don’t have an opinion on the subject - I think they are totally reasonable personal opinions.
Also lumping together “tech CEOs” is another (in my opinion) completely wrong generalization.
So yeah, I disagree even with this part of your interpretation of the situation.
I don’t think there is any way to find a common ground. Personally I find your interpretation really forced and therefore exaggerated. Context, track record and most importantly the words of this guy do not seem to point out at all to a “mask off situation” in my opinion.
Edit: I really dislike meta-comments. I am commenting based on what interests me, whether other people do other stuff is not something I can do anything about. Please refrain to use the “people like you…” type of statements. You have no idea who I am or what I think besides this conversation.
Then by all means, continue using Proton. But if you can’t understand why people are pissed about what Andy Yen, then there is nothing more to say.
The context and the message are pretty simple and clear and you try to make it nuanced for whatever reason. The guy sucked it up to Trump and people told him to get fucked.
CEO all over the world have been fucking people over for a dollar more and it is not hard to see why Andy Yen’s message was received as it was.
My interpretation is reading the tweet from Andy Yen as it was written. It wasn’t a nuanced position, it wasn’t a long text with many points and the context is pretty straightforward. But you try to make it seems like it was an intricate and nuanced position.
The post on Reddit following the backlash is simple damage control 101 as we see every week when a CEO does a dumb thing.
No, I integrate it with the thoughts he expressed. He didn’t back down from his opinion (on reddit), he simply elaborated more. Quite common for a tweet that due to the idiotic limitation on characters is very easy to write in ways that don’t fully express what you want to say.
I understand why some people are pissed. But some people see politics in the same way football fans see the sport. So even a tiny, indirect praise for an action that Trump does that might be actually positive (even for the wrong reason) is seen as a capital sin, because you can’t be nuanced, you can’t have specific opinions, either you are against or you are a supporter, like in football. And I fully, wholeheartedly, disagree with this attitude, at least for external observers (in this case, non US citizens), and especially once the elections are over (my judgment on this tweet would have been different if the election didn’t happen yet).