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.

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.

Fron your link: "This is not a paywall."

Don't care, bypassing it anyway

https://vger.to/lemmy.ml/comment/26101269

And they are sponsoring the far right grandson of a military dictator in Brazil who has pushed coup attempts.

The strikes just keep adding up.

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.

This reads like chatgpt.

No way in hell this wasn't shat out by an LLM.

There's a LOT of corporate CYA bullshit to train from.

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

No the fascist ones are fine. Just need to placate the angry wokes again.

I don't know very many fascists that fall into the nerdy category though

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.

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.

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...

Responded to what

https://lemmy.world/post/47908059

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

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/

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

Vincent and his audience might disagree...

You Really Think Someone Would Do That? Just Go On the Internet and Tell Lies?

why did you type it like a title?

I copy pasted it from know your meme lol

Feyd, can you explain to me whether you believe this man is actually lying and defaming Proton, or that it's no big deal what he's telling his followers? It can't be both, and I find it difficult to parse your sarcasm.

I find it all to be very strange.

Proton pays Vincent money for a sponsorship.

According to you, Vincent defames Proton.

Proton doesn't seem all that worried about the defamation.

I think it is easily believable that it was a single sponsorship and Vincent used the word partnership without even thinking about it, and I also find it easily believable that the sponsorship is something that slipped through the cracks rather than having any meaning, and I find the response from Proton to be acceptable. I just don't think it is as big a deal as you're wanting it to be ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Do you genuinely believe Proton has done enough, and that it's no big deal? Because according to you, Vincent lied about Proton, and those lies are still up.

(Or was it just a whoopsie from a man whose profession is using words to convince people of things? You seem to have softened on Vincent. Odd.)

If I was a company catering to activists under authoritarian regimes, I would not be content with an authoritarian extremist taking my money and then defaming me.

So proton acts according to one's political views... Well...

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