Glad I cancelled. If the CEO is this clueless and/or and/or ignorant and/or disingenuous do I really want them responsible for my private data?
I moved several years worth of emails off their platform and closed my subscription on Friday. Enough is enough. I’m not giving this guy another dime. I specifically pointed to andy88’s behaviour in the “why are you cancelling” dialogue. I feel for the good people who work at that company and don’t support this, but we all have choices to make.
Giorgio Galli … the born of Nazism and please stop to rant about Trump and Nazism … the Nazism did not born in Germany but in the civilized Vienna and in France, the young Hitler was having masters that did not seen a judge after the war and the heritage of them is still very much thriving in Bruxelles … and really I am not here to lecture but to explore the web iceberg with freemind and happiness … not to bother myself with these gross traces of ignorance ( very easy to be solved with 4-5 kilos of right books ).
The Suisse should return Andy to Taiwan and the ROC can ship his ass off to mainland China to enjoy life under a dictatorship.
Reddit…f that noise.
Brother we’ve been arming and supporting a full-on ethnic extermination and bombing anyone who tries to stop it for over a year now. We’re past flirting with fascism, we’ve bought a dog and moved onto a studio apartment with fascism.
Scratch under the surface of every for profit privacy / anonymity service, you find shitty libertarian cryptobros who probably post racist memes on 4chan while whining about feminism in the man-o-sphere. That doesn’t speak to the nature of people who care about privacy, it speaks to the nature of people who care about privacy and also want to do capitalism.
Just a reminder that democrats funded a genocide and police brutality. Democrats are no better than Republicans.
Now to reply to the post itself, I think this sums it up:
Though the sad truth is that almost every single product or service we use are owned and run by people with similar opinions, it is literally the nature of the capitalist beast, it’s how it function, and why it will always decay in to fascism - because those with the power and the money (not just those at the very very top, but several levels bellow them, too, like this guy) will always and forever care solely about maintaining it and creating more for themselves, that’s it. And to do that, they have to side with whichever dictator-du-jour benefits them the most.
Remember - there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and this is only one of the reasons why.
To an extent probably. But I use https://mullvad.net/ as my vpn, and they seem pretty great.
Probably where I’ll go next, I have until the end of February and then my business will be elsewhere.
Since I set up some family at the same time, I’ll be doing it for a few accounts.
I saw mullvad ads on the trams in my city yesterday, really nice to see something good like it being advertised like that.
A wise man once told me, don’t mess with politics. The moment you show stance (which usually isn’t beneficial), you cut off options from yourself and endanger customer relationship.
Proton should just do business as usual, without that single post things would probably be just fine.
The fight for privacy and digital freedom is inherently political.
They showed political stances all the time when it comes to privacy and antitrust, just look at their blog. Why wouldn’t they? What they do is also political, as a company.
I think that’s a different thing. That is a political stance but it’s not picking sides. People who want to organise Nazi rallys and people who need to communicate without getting attacked by Nazis both have reasons to use encrypted email. When you pick one over the other, you’ve cut the size of your userbase.
I would be perfectly happy with a VPN that was openly anti-nazi.
That’s not the point. A neutral stance VPN has all the anti-Nazis as customers, and all the Nazis. I would prefer anti-Nazi as well but I get that that a neutral stance means they can have more customers, something they need for economy of scale.
If they had stated their anti-trump stance then the freeze peach lemmy instances would probably have all their Nazis cancelling their proton subscriptions.
Honestly I hope all the cancellations on our side aren’t balanced by a bunch of Nazis signing up after seeing the comments.
He’s trying to have it both ways though. He wants to support trump and then be like “nooooo! What are you talking about? We’re *neutral!”
Yeah, with the same Swiss neutrality that doesn’t care whose teeth the gold came from.
I don’t think I quite get what the benefit is to them of supporting Trump’s pick. What was it he was hoping to gain, not from the pick but from his comment?
What benefit do all those who have kissed trump’s ring thus far get? All I know is that I’m not about to trust my privacy to someone with 88 in their username. I only signed up for proton last month because of trump. I’ll be leaving for another service for the same reason.
The reality is that being “anti-Nazi” is also a neutral stand. This is in the terms of service of Proton:
Unauthorized activities include, but are not limited to:
[…] 4. Harassing, abusing, insulting, harming, defaming, slandering, disparaging, intimidating or discriminating against someone based on gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, race, age, nationality or disability;
I don’t think they picked in this case either. Like they didn’t when they cooperated with dem senators in the past. They are cooperating or praising whichever side advances policies that can ultimately help privacy.
That was probably their thought too. However, they have misjudged the Lemmy (and I think reddit) population on this, and I would argue that worse than the initial comment is the absolute lack of recognition (in follow up comments) that what they said could be taken as an endorsement of a government that is trying to actively harm a significant portion of the US Proton users.
I think he actually acknowledged that fact in later comments. Anyway, this is a far smaller sin than all the stuff people are creatively accusing him of.
Apparently now he is a Nazi, and I think this case was the last nail in the coffin for me to think that political discourse can exist.
If it helps, most people don’t follow politics at all. And their votes are based on very little knowledge of what they are voting for.
I’m still a believer that if you put people in a room together instead of online, you’d get both sides of the aisle agreeing on 95% of things, once each side had a chance to explain their viewpoint (and made sure google was available to settle most disputes).
Wait, the proton ceo is a trump supporter? What the fuck, he’s the last person I thought would do that
No, I would not describe him as a trump supporter. I would say that he’s a right-wing “Libertarian” tech-bro that has no clue about American politics, just spewing his uneducated bs because he thinks he’s some genius. He might be a CERN scientist, but he’s a dumbass when it comes to American politics.
(But it is concerning to have such an idiot on the board of the Proton Foundation)
He’s a money supporter.
No he had plenty of time to educate himself but instead doubled and tripled down. Also his username ends in 88 which has been the most unsubtle Nazi dog whistle since the invention of usernames and the internet.
If you look a bit around in this thread, someone linked an article that mentions he was born in 1988.
How convenient.
He didn’t have to put it in his username.
Neither do the other thousands or millions of people who do so, but it’s not a particularly uncommon thing and it’s likely enough that (birthdate) is the reason it’s there. I’ve got my birth year (not '88) in my username for some sites because the bare username was already taken
Where’s the 88?
1011000 is binary for 88
Ohhhh. Drag thought it was the ASCII code for X
Isn’t 88 considered extremely lucky in Chinese culture?
You honestly think that’s what he was going for? Someone who grew up in a culture pretty heavily insulated from that but steeped in “former” Nazi ties?
Not only is 88 considered suspicious in his native culture, he was also born in 1988. Normally, yes, be wary of the 88 dog whistle, but without further evidence it looks like a nothing-burger in this case.
I think he’s more likely fascist than a Nazi, given the differentiator being the racial purity part. He lives and works in Switzerland, but was born in Taiwan and educated in the US.
Considering how he runs a business whose goal is to capture the privacy crowd and how a large portion of the privacy crowd is made up of those “Libertarian” tech-bro types, it might be more than just “no clue about American politics”, especially since he’s also doing stuff like promoting Bitcoin through Proton Wallet which is also popular among “Libertarian” tech-bro types, and the article used for marketing that both-sidesed the problems the “left” vs “right” experience and equated the Democrats with the “left”, which is popular among “Libertarian” tech-bro types as well. The 88 in his Reddit username is also suspect regardless of him claiming that it’s there because it’s his birth year. People who know how to operate a business usually aren’t doing it out of stupidity, so I’m not going to give him the benefit of the doubt on this, especially since the entire platform depends on trusting that they aren’t doing anything shady.
How do you explain the 88 in his username? That’s not an American thing.
My guess is that it’s a neo-Nazi thing, so his promoting right-wing American politics (his largest userbase) is probably intentional and not just him being stupid
Don’t like it, move out.
This needs to be pinned at the top: only a Nazi goes out of their way to put an 88 in their username. He thinks he’s clever by putting it in binary so people don’t immediately call him out. Nazis get off on that kind of “clever” dogwhistle.
This is at the same time:
- a novax level conspiracy
- a completely idotic assumption that not only doesn’t stand Occam’s razor, but not even basic common sense.
- racist and showing a colonial mindset, clearly prioritising what is relevant in YOUR culture (superior, more important), compared to what is relevant in that person’s culture.
Please can someone tell me how this attitude is fundamentally different from people who are in other cults (maga, novax, etc.)?
only a Nazi goes out of their way to put an 88 in their username
Yeah, I’m gonna need a citation for that. I was born in 1988.
For limited people, maybe.
88 is:
-
important for people born in 1988
-
amateur radio romantic message (apparently older than Nazis, don’t ask me how I know, but it has to do with being used in that, and not HH, meaning in one Nazi song ; felt strange for me, until I’ve just read that it was a telegraph thing before radio)
-
two eternity symbols turned (not those wheely ones)
-
as people have mentioned, common as a lucky number in certain parts of the globe
-
people can also be born on 8 August
-
had that number on some item memorable for him (I had 72 in plenty of my nicknames, I can promise you it’s not about 72 virgins or 72 names of god and I’m not Muslim, I just had a yellow t-shirt with that number when I was a kid).
The funny part is that points #2 and #4 are probably known to him, tech company and all.
Why are you so knowledgeable of plausible deniabilities for a Nazi symbology?
-
When was he born? Not everyone knows all the “secret” signs for stuff. How 18 is A.H or how 81 is H.A (Hells Angels) 1% biker clubs have surprisingly much of such codes. 8 is also the number of Khorne in the Warhammer fantasy/sci-fi setting. And before we start with that there are surprisingly few Nazis who play, but the few are very vocal.
Years ago I saw a guy in a crocery store in Norway wearing a “Combat18 Böhmen” hoodie. Buying ingredients for tex-mex taco incidentally. And when I pointed him out to my wife, she said that you are probably the only one in here to know this, and spot him for what he is.
So if Andy was born in 1988 I hope it’s why he has 88 in his username.
When was he born? Not everyone knows all the “secret” signs for stuff.
I don’t care when he was born. Who puts their birth year in their username? “Here, internet. Here’s one less piece of information you need to steal my identity!”
No. “ItS mY bIrF YeEr” is just what nazi shit says when they get called out on being nazi shit.
Yes, a public figure, whose data can be discovered in few minutes, considers his birth year a secret. Also nobody ever used the birth year in their username on the internet.
Also ANDY = 1 + 14 + 4 + 25 = 44, which is half of 88 and contains 14, another nazy symbol. He is trying to pass it off as his name, but who uses their name on the internet? I will check the cabala now, because I am sure there is more.
God, I hope Nick Fury is already grouping the avengers, because Hydra is really making a move here.
If you don’t want people to think you’re a nazi, don’t say good things about trump with 88 sitting right there for everyone to see in your username.
The account is 2 days old. He knew what he was doing.
If trump did a good thing in a very narrow context you can’t say it, otherwise you are a Nazi? OK, this is madness. Also, it’s not “sitting there for everyone to see” because it’s binary. You also realize that people have different cultural references right? Maybe it’s not your responsibility to compute the cabala horoscope for everything you do, and assume that people will be able to use at least the 2% of the brain and for example distinguish from a bold Nazi supporter with 88 tattooed and a guy born in 88 who appends 88 to his username (in a nerd way). But apparently not.
He created an account to speak personally and not from the proton account he uses before. Anyway, “he knew what he was doing” is conspiracy theory again.
Also, it’s not “sitting there for everyone to see” because it’s binary.
Yes, obfuscating it makes it better!
Maybe it’s not your responsibility to compute the cabala horoscope for everything you do, and assume that people will be able to use at least the 2% of the brain and for example distinguish from a bold Nazi supporter with 88 tattooed and a guy born in 88 who appends 88 to his username (in a nerd way). But apparently not.
He supported trump with 88 in his username.
He created an account to speak personally and not from the proton account he uses before.
And he didn’t need to put 88 in there, or obfuscate it. And I’m increasingly certain that you’re freaking out and defending him for it because you’re happy that your political party is represented.
He supported Trump’s pick. I know reality makes little difference for you, but still. Also yes, he put 88 in his username, which is not a crime, especially for a Taiwanese guy born in 88 lmao.
The sole fact we are even discussing this is just absurd. Absurd. It’s 5g gives cancer absurd. It’s vaccine give autism absurd.
And I’m increasingly certain that you’re freaking out and defending him for it because you’re happy that your political party is represented.
Correct, because as non US citizen communist republicans are my party. In fact, anybody who disagrees with you is secretly a republican, and even more secret a Nazi, there is no other reason to disagree with you, absolutely. In fact, sudneo has “south” in it, and “o” at the end, what do you get it you put “o” south of “o”? 8, and that’s half of 88. Considering there is also “n” in it, and that’s 14, I think it’s quite clear that I am also a Nazi, trying to cover my Nazi colleague Andy. Heil Hydra.
You are just a maga with slightly different moral values. Still a cultist fanatic on a witch hunt that threw reason and reality out of the window.
Look, I can’t comment on the significance of binary 88 in this instance with any confidence, but a lot of people use their birth year in their username.
Is it stupid? Absolutely, alongside demonstrating a total lack of any creativity whatsoever. But it’s 100% a thing.
Edit: Lol, will also note the first ‘people also search’ suggestion coming up when Googling Andy Yen is “When was Andy Yen born”, and in the 5 seconds of drunken searching I still haven’t seen a birth date.
Look, I can’t comment on the significance of binary 88 in this instance with any confidence, but a lot of people use their birth year in their username.
A lot of people who like trump were coincidentally totally born in 1988.
To be clear, I’m not arguing that people don’t put 88 as a clear dog whistle to white supremacists/general Nazi bullshit. This is more to the comment “who puts their birth year in their username?” bit specifically. The answer is a lot of people.
I also am not excusing Yen for his pro-Trump comments - that was fucking bullshit and I’m deeply disappointed - I’m just saying the YOB thing is a thing, but also coincidentally I also can’t seem to find a source to prove if he’s also doing the YOB thing or something else.
Note to self: Limit Lemmy to 3 beers max, particularly where Trumpian bullshit is involved. And thank god for autocorrect. Apologies, I really should not be interneting right now.
To be clear, I’m not arguing that people don’t put 88 as a clear dog whistle to white supremacists/general Nazi bullshit.
To be clear, anyone who supports trump is already nazi-adjacent enough to get no benefit of the doubt, and I don’t buy the “It’s my birth year” shit from any of them. Even if they were born in 1988, that’s not the reason 88 is in their username.
I also don’t believe that someone whose entire personality centers around cannabis has “420” in their username because they were born on April 20th. I don’t believe that some fratboy who is constantly making horny comments has “69” in his username because he was born on June 9th, either.
88 is so much worse that I wouldn’t even compare then to the anodyne 420 & 69 examples.
If I were born in 1988 I would not put an encoded “88” in my username. I wouldn’t want people to think I was dogwhistling.
Who puts their birth year in their username?
You are not very old, right?
Maybe now, in our stupid time, folks use phone numbers for identity, some stupid handle (or just their actual name) and then post a lot of text, photos and such, totally less harmful for their privacy than their birth year. And no birth year
But in the olden days it was the main solution to “such user already exists” problem, combined with things like ‘xXx’ and ‘+0+’ on both sides or something.
You are not very old, right?
You’re not getting my birth year this way, either.
But in the olden days it was the main solution to “such user already exists” problem,
The account in question is two days old. And it’s from the CEO of a VPN service. This isn’t him signing up for baby’s first AOL account back in 1994.
He’s my generation. That’s what we did in the dawn of the internet when web email was new and shit. Everybody has “coolname87” “dogshit89”, “hipguy88” as their username. It’s not such a wild idea.
He’s younger than me, but there was a broad age range that all caught the internet around the same time. I’m aware that this is how it was once done. Usernames are longer now, allowing for greater creativity.
And this goober still uses his first name and an obfuscated 2 digit number? Yeah, he didn’t choose it because it’s his birth year.
We all choose to believe what we choose to believe. 👍
Yup. I believe this is untrustworthy behavior and I regret signing up for proton mail.
Tbf I’ve put my birth year in my username before when I was a kid who knew next to nothing about privacy. I’ve seen other people do this too. So it’s not totally implausible. But yeah it is a bad look for Andy regardless.
Tbf I’ve put my birth year in my username before when I was a kid who knew next to nothing about privacy. I’ve seen other people do this too. So it’s not totally implausible.
It’s one thing when you’re a naive kid or a clueless boomer. It’s quite another when you’re the ceo of a privacy-focused company.
He’s apparently said he was born in 1988. In another thread others mentioned that would make him 21 when he started his PhD, which checks out.
So he can dogwhistle with impunity. Lucky guy.
Here’s all I could find about his age in a few minutes:
He was actually born in 1988, according to the author’s article. If anyone can find a more reliable resource, please, post it here🙏
Yeah, birth years are super common in usernames (and password, don’t use it there). Bob Smith finds his preferred username is taken so becomes BobSmith79 or BobSmith88 or whatever because it’s easy an easy enough variation to remember.
You can find patterns/relations in almost anything if you reach for something, kinda like the “six degrees of separation” thing even if there’s a more reasonable answer
Holy shit. That is indeed 88 in binary…
How did we all miss that 😮
He was born in 1988…
That doesn’t mean he needed to put it in his username.
looks at own username
It’s a bit more plausible when it’s all 4 digits.
Fair, but I have other variants with just “88”.
Maybe you shouldn’t be doing that. Maybe your birthday is not so special that you should use it when it’s a well and widely known symbol of Nazism. Frankly it’s a little hard for me to buy these days.
Keep in mind that the number 8 is auspicious and lucky in many parts of Asia. Any time I see a bunch of 8s in a username I think it’s for luck.
I promise you this restaurant (and the hundreds of others with 88 in the name) are not dogwhistling for anything other than luck.
Can’t speak for how this reflects on Andy Yen as I’m not familiar with him, but I just want y’all to know you can’t assume 88 = HH in every case.
But that’s how dogwhistles work: they can hide behind a veil of plausible deniability.
If it’s really plausible, then you’ve got no way to tell it’s a dogwhistle.
Your comment is equivalent to “I can’t prove that Jews rule the world, but that’s because they’ve worked for plausible deniability, I know they do”.
But he is swiss, and here we know that 88 is for prising Hitler
He is from Taiwan, studies in US and then moved to Switzerland.
andy88, if he cares about proton, should have resigned yesterday
Isn’t 88 neo-Nazi code for “heil Hitler”? And isn’t putting it in binary to disguise it evidence that he knows full well what it means?
As much as I’m not terribly fond of the guy, IIRC he’s 36, which makes ‘88’ likely short for 1988, the year he was born.
This was my first thought, as it’s a very common username addon. I was unaware of all the other stuff.
While yes adding your birth year to your username is common (but terrible OpSec), adding 88 or HH or other Nazi symbolism is also common among their community. Especially in an open setting.
It serves as a shibboleth for the alt-right that you are one of them.
Oh OK, that makes sense. Still, an unfortunate choice of username that could add to the confusion.
You are crazy.
Hey that guy is thinking about stuff! They must got brainrot!
Our license plates look like this: 2/3-letter city identifier - 1/2 letters you can choose - a 1-4 digit number you can choose. A friend of mine has the initials A.H. and was born in 1988. He wanted CITY - AH - 88. Registration did not allow it as it’s nazi dog whistling.
Dog whistling is very common to find like-minded fascists and nazis. Kind of a sad, pathetic life if you think about it.
I’m just aware of how these people signal to each other. I don’t know anything about the Proton CEO’s politics, numbers like 14 and 88 in usernames are common dogwhistles.
What does 14 mean?
It stands for “the 14 words”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words
That’s correct, he was asked about it on Reddit too and confirmed it was just his birth year.
Since it’s a common dog whistle though I do think it’s always worth questioning. Particularly when it’s tied to someone licking Trump’s boots.
A lot of Nazis were supposedly born in 1988…
But in this specific case, i believe him.
Even if he is born in 1988, he could have picked a non-Nazi suffix for his username.
This is dumb lol
Hey,
Cool story bro.
8 is also a lucky number in Chinese culture. I’ve seen a lot of "88"s in Chinese social media just because of that.
It always sucks when shitbags co-opt innocent symbols and language.
And explain this!!
He’s from Asia where the number 8 have a good luck meaning, so is likely is not related to the 88 neo nazis uses.
I’d buy that if he didn’t start his statement with “I live in Switzerland.” 8 may be a lucky number for him, but he absolutely knows what 88 means.
He can be both from Asia and still live in Switzerland
On the flip side, do you think a Swiss person living in Asia would be ignorant that 8 is a lucky number?
I think all the Westerners in this thread that are shocked that Asia has culture they didn’t consult them on would imply yes to your question.
same reasoning would justify the use of swastika for an indian living in Germany
good luck working that out
To be fair, it’s easier to be ignorant of neo-Nazi numerology than of their use of the swastika.
It absolutely justifies Indians using the swastika. They didn’t agree to the nazis stealing their culture, that had existed for thousands of years, to use as their logo. Don’t be racist.
looks like it’s even more complicated than i did assume ☞ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika_(Germanic_Iron_Age)
this has nothing to do with race, i was making an analogy. I’m neither in/from Germany, nor in/from India. I just happen to know this:
The German and Austrian postwar criminal code makes the public showing of the swastika, the sig rune, the Celtic cross (specifically the variations used by white power activists), the wolfsangel, the odal rune and the Totenkopf skull illegal, except for certain enumerated exemptions.
Thanks for pointing that out. I didn’t know about that good luck meaning.
Sadly, “Asia” doesn’t mean “ignorance of Hitler.”
#Looking for link to Nazi store in …
Edit: first link I found. Not endorsement. https://qz.com/928440/asias-disturbing-embrace-of-nazi-chic-is-prompting-a-nonprofit-to-teach-holocaust-history
The number 8 is considered the luckiest number in China, and is associated with wealth. The year 1988 also happens to be his birth year.
He knows what he’s doing.
Being Asian? Way to put yourself as a racist.
What? You OK?
Not even a little in this situation. Maybe take your head out of your ass and stop spreading lies. He literally addressed this head on.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i2nz9v/comment/m7nr5ym/
His reply in text form:
It’s the year I was born, and also a lucky number in Taiwan where I am from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/88_(number)#%3A~%3Atext=Number+88+symbolizes+fortune+and%2Csupermarkets+often+contain+many+8s.
Lmao that onyx guys comment is at -18
And protons reply:
I believe this is a false equivalence. Supporting a nominee for antitrust, is not the same as endorsing everything else Trump may or may not believe in or flirting with Nazism as you put it. It goes too far to draw that conclusion about Proton or myself.
They just dont get it
What the echo chamber of reddit doesnt have critical thinking? Well I never…
Looks like Lemmy is just as bad. I wish the mods would get in here and temp ban some folks who dont understand lemmyquite
Lemmy.world is the worst offender I have come across personally. Lemmy.ml is reddit like too, but it’s mostly okay for discussion and it hosts a lot of posts so I don’t really want to block it.
I’d recommend looking at the instance those folks are coming from. You may notice some similarity with those users.
Always nice to be linked back to Reddit and reminded that it is a terrible place.
Ridiculous.
He specifically started talking about American party politics, unprompted, making sweeping statements about both Democrats and Republicans. NOW he wants to blame us for…being concerned with his views on American party politics? Dude. Get real.
Saying stupid shit now and then is forgivable, but not if you take it in as the new nucleus of your public image. Why do so many public figures have this compulsion to double down combatively?
Business owners should not touch politics, thats just alienates 50% of the user base no matter his views
