Don't they realize that more privacy conscious people, which are their customer base, are more probable to be on the fediverse than Reddit? Especially in the current social media and political context.
this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2025
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So it came as a surprise last month when Proton CEO Andy Yen praised the Republican Party in a post on X, declaring that “10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned.” When the tweet went viral, Proton’s official Reddit account posted a now-deleted comment stating that “Until corporate Dems are thrown out, the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.”
No. No they don't realize that.
And as for Proton, they can get fsckd. For the people that work there, I'm sorry and I hope you can split off and work on a real privacy company that doesn't slurp fascist knob.
No, their customer base is now American Libertarians, not FOSS and privacy-centric people.
There is a mild overlap, but the actual target demographic has been made much clearer recently.
Yeah and people like us are the most likely to recommend alternatives to Gmail to regular users who likely don't go out of their way searching for other options.
All that matters for decisions like this is the quantity of customers (actual or potential).
In that context it makes sense.
I read another comment saying that the Trump tweet thing blew up in their face on Mastodon and they don't have any moderation over who posts what. Unlike Reddit.
Remember when Reddit explicitly banned companies from moderating their own subreddits? The original point was that the subs should be for the community, but having a corporate moderator would only serve to suppress public dissent. Reddit eventually pulled a hard 180, and now it’s the expectation that a company moderates their sub.
For instance, if a sub was created for a specific TV show, the TV network wasn’t allowed to moderate it. They could have official accounts, but they wouldn’t be mods. Because if fans didn’t like something in a show, they had the ability to voice those opinions. But now there’s a heavy incentive for corporate mods to keep the company image clean, by scrubbing criticism.
Yeah. But hey, Reddit became a profit making machine run by a psychopath. Like every fucking tech company in the U.S. So of course they switched to allow for more income.
that's a good point, too. they would have that moderation control over an official lemmy community, too. But obviously not on any unofficial communities.
I didn’t think they were ever here?
is either an official account or impersonating an official account.
Seems like it might be official and just joined to tell us they’re totally not worshipping authoritarians
Yeah I agree. Can't look more official than that.
AFAIK this is not an official channel. But to be fair, I just checked and I don't think it says so anywhere.
Oops that's a bit embarrassing, but I really think the description should include "not an official Proton channel" or something in that case.
It is listed in their community page which adds to the confusion.
I checked since I wondered if there was some other place they are active on other than reddit and Twitter, and if they had their own forum.
After the stunt they pulled, praising Trump and the Republican party, I seriously think Proton is just a wolf in sheep's clothing. They are like Apple: telling people what they want to hear about privacy, and we all swallowed the pill.
Unfortunately Tutanota, the only other free, privacy aware service, really just locks you in and is thus worse as a choice.
I don't even know why they care so much about US politics as a swiss company. Just do your business.
Exactly! Just STFU and do your job. Giving people reasons not to pick you is just dumb.
Proton did not praise Trump. Their CEO praised a choice Trump made. You're obviously free to consider Yen's word equal to Proton's word but this isn't true for everybody.
They are like Apple: telling people what they want to hear about privacy, and we all swallowed the pill.
Unlike Apple, Proton's software being open source (and by extension their promises) can be vetted by anybody with the skills.
Yens words were then published on the official proton blog and taken down after backlash as a "mistaken communication". Believe what you want.
Also, their servers are closed source. Having an open source client is cute though 👍
As encryption happens client side I think its a little bit more than cute.
It's disappointing that they prefer X, Bluesky and Threads over something like Mastodon.
The math clearly shows that Mastodon is the one to cut
I agree the optics of this aren't great, but the real question is if this higher follower count on Mastodon translates to post engagement...
My brother once bought me followers on Instagram as some kind of joke and that did exactly squat for reach as far as i could tell. Not saying Proton bought followers on Mastodon, but I am saying followers don't necessarily mean anything.
Mastodon peaked a couple of times but then usage dwindled because people started using Bluesky or returning to bigtech platforms because their buddies didn't move over. I suspect a fair amount of these mastodon subscribers are stale accounts and the Proton team just aren't seeing the engagement they have on the other platforms.
They don't make exactly the same posts between the accounts, but comparing similar posts around the same time
https://mastodon.social/@protonprivacy/113679615854243807
31 comments 156 boosts 254 favorites
https://www.threads.net/@protonprivacy/post/DDpVjPooFxM
2 comments 2 boosts 45 likes
https://bsky.app/profile/proton.me/post/3ldnvyof5zk2u
60 comments 159 boosts 729 likes
While their bluesky is significantly higher, it's important to note they elected to keep their threads account which has a small fraction of the interactions of either
This is a fair assessment, though isn't all the meta crap connected?
With which I mean don't Facebook posts sync to threads and such? I know my Instagram posts synced with Facebook when I still had Facebook.
From what I can tell they don't have a Facebook page, I don't believe posts sync between threads and other meta products regardless
I really don't understand what's so hard about this. Most companies post the most basic stuff that it would be trivial to script repeaters for.
i wish I didn't lose my og tuta email