this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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What happened with Proton?
Proton CEO endorsed Trump. Proton's stance has always been against Big Tech and how Big Tech is bad and that's all well and good. But, it's contradicting when you praise or endorse an administration that's more than likely going to let Big Tech roll over everyone.
Even that's a bit of a stretch. He approved one thing Trump did. It wasn't blanket praise for everything Trump has done. He also didn't condemn everything Democratic, just one thing.
I don't see why approval of one thing someone did constitutes automatic approval of everything. What if Trump has an amazing recipe for a ham and cheese toastie? Would liking that recipe make me a Putin sympathiser? Of course not.
You're going down a slippery slope fallacy.
First off, endorsing means that you have a public approval of or support of so it doesn't mean what you twisted it up as. So when I say he endorsed Trump, I am saying that he supported or approved something he did, not saying that he's a MAGA voter. Contexts and learning what words are used in them is kind of important. Maybe you ought to learn that sometime.
Secondly, I don't give a flying fuck if Trump ever made some recipe, the old bastard is going around doing too much shit that outweighs any positive thing he's done. Any positive thing he's done, we would've much have rather it be someone else and not him, because of the amount of stigma that surrounds him because of the shit he's done that has affected millions.
That's literally saying and I really hate beating this dead horse, but it's saying Hitler actually did make some good art pieces, so we should ignore the fact that he was the executor of a grand scale war that costed millions of lives and hosted a death march on those he didn't like.
Then you are misinformed about what it means to endorse someone. Or just intentionally twisting the definition to allow for ragebait. Contexts and learning what words are used in them is kind of important. Maybe you ought to learn that sometime.
They didn't ask if you cared about a recipe. You're tossing aside the point of their comment and getting on your pedestal to rant.
Saying "Hitler made good art pieces" would also not be an endorsement.
I already mentioned this elsewhere, but he did praise Trump and platform him, then he praised the Republican party saying they are the party of "the little guys" (small business), which is just flat out wrong. He does not acknowledge that there are an abundance of things Trump is doing that is fucking awful and disgusting. At best it's an extremely tone-deaf tweet. What that does do, though, is paint Trump and the Republican party in a very good light. That's effectively an endorsement without saying it in exact words.
Also, it's so very obvious that anyone associated with Trump absolutely needs to abide by Trump's every whim or else he will replace you. So, the point he was trying to make is entirely moot in the first place.
There is just no way to praise Trump or the Republican party without showing your ignorance or alignment with them. Just like you can't just have a little bit of shit in your food. Once you've got even a little bit of shit in your food, then you've got shit-food.
Was out of the loop on that so I just did the most cursory search. What do you think of this take on it?
It's even worse. I can't really see how someone can find anything positive to say about Republicans. I'm sorry but Non-Americans do not really know how bad Republicans really are here, until they're faced with a party governing their country that behaves similarly to them.
Oh by the way, Net Neutrality got killed again when the BIden Administration tried appealing for it to be restored. Can you guess which party or affiliation was probably behind it? If you guessed Republican, you'd be right.
I'm just waiting for the gotcha moment to come around and Proton will one day, truly see that Republicans are not on their side.
Poor article with it attempting to be a character fluff piece that completely ignores that after working at the FTC, Slater become the vice-president for legal and regulatory policy for the Internet Association lobby group. Which was founded by "small business" like Google, Amazon, eBay and Facebook.
And involved in trying to infringe upon privacy rights. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/09/lawmakers-must-not-let-internet-association-weaken-california-consumer-privacy-act
Could this be an attempt to clean the proton name? I think it's difficult to say anything when it comes from a source I know nothing about.
I never saw anyone try to claim that he was MAGA. Even if he doesn't necessarily support Trump, the tweet is still beyond tone-deaf as it's still painting Trump in a positive light while Trump is trampling on our rights and the constitution.
Edit -
It should also be mentioned that Trump is also actively making things worse for privacy everywhere else, so why even bother cherry-picking that one nomination? It's obvious that the way Trump works is that if you don't follow his word he will just fire you. Even if this nomination may have a past that might show they would do some good things for privacy, if you're not a pawn under Trump's control then you will just be replaced. So the whole point is moot.
Additionally, look at the tweet in question "Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned." There is zero excuse for praising the Republican party and somehow not supporting Trump. They are directly connected and the two concepts cannot be divorced. Supporting the Republican party in any way literally means supporting Trump. Full stop.

He also conveniently ignored that after working at the FTC, Slater become the vice-president for legal and regulatory policy for the Internet Association lobby group. Which was founded by "small business" like Google, Amazon, eBay and Facebook.
And involved in trying to infringe upon privacy rights. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/09/lawmakers-must-not-let-internet-association-weaken-california-consumer-privacy-act
So yeah, proton founder cherry picked information that tried to make it seem like it was acceptable to praise the pick when reality is the past is too murky to endorse in any manner. And that medium article that gets floated around ignores Internet Association too, so wouldn't be shocking if it was from proton attempting to do PR damage fixating on identity politics with intentional omission of Internet Association involvement.
This is a blatant lie. That never happened.
Not a blatant lie, but somewhat of an exaggeration. He praised Trump, then praised the Republican party while denigrating the Democrats in the same sentence.
He did not "praise Trump", he praised a single appointment that he made. This is the kind of tribal toxic bullshit that stifles any sort of progress. If Trump does something right (not that he did), you need to be allowed to say that without being accused of being a nazi or someone claiming that you "endorsed" him.
You're literally in denial of the definition of words.
Trump is a felon, a rapist, and a liar among other things. If you don't acknowledge that he's a scumbag while you give him an expression of approval then it makes it seem you approve of the person overall. If there was something Trump did right and people wanted to talk about that, then it would be pretty simple to say something like "Trump sucks, but..." That's not a crazy expectation and that's not "tribal toxic bullshit".
Imagine if someone was saying something like "It's nice that John Wayne Gacy participated in fundraisers and entertained the children" or "Thanks to Jeffery Dahmer for his military service" without acknowledging the horrible things they did.