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Thanks for the link, that’s a lot more context than the usual reactionary “Andy Yen said one nice thing about a Republican therefore he’s fascist pro-Trump MAGA” takes I’ve been seeing. Not only does it more or less disprove that narrative, it makes me question how much of the hate against him lately is genuine and how much of it has been seeded and signal-boosted by nation-state actors who don’t want people to use encrypted communications.
Yen is clearly trying to be nonpartisan and praise what he sees as good for privacy while pointing out abuses of power, regardless of who has the power at the moment. He sees this as his way of adding weight to the scale in favor of better privacy and tearing down big tech. I know many in my country and on the web are hyper-polarized and addicted to anger, to the point that if someone says anything even slightly positive about their perceived political enemy, it’s seen as legitimizing and aligning with that enemy, but I don’t believe that’s a healthy or productive mindset to have. I believe that kind of divisive attitude is preventing us from uniting with those who should be agreeable to our cause, and that’s exactly what the oligarchs want. It’s making us weak.
I’ve been on the fence for a while since this whole thing started, because I do use a paid Proton email, and it sounded bad, but I kept getting this nagging feeling I wasn’t seeing the full picture. That’s gone now - Andy may be politically and/or socially inept, and he may have a different perspective on what it means to support privacy and democracy, but I think it’s clear his heart is in the right place, and the work he and Proton are continuing to do for tech privacy is helping to erode authoritarian power structures, including Trump’s.
I am inclided to agree with you that Andy Yen is just an idiot and that Proton is doing it’s best to stay natural and make the most of the situation. However their communications team is pretty lackluster.
On another note, the article I linked is an opinion, so while it is laid out pretty well it is probably not telling the entire story. I have a custom domain on my Proton account so I can Switch if it ever goes to hell. I would advice you to do the same.
Yeah I looked further into the article and it indeed does not seem to paint the entire picture. Especially with the omission that after leaving the FTC, Gail Slater became vice-president for legal and regulatory policy for the Internet Association which is a lobbying group for companies like Google, Amazon, eBay, and Facebook.
And The Internet Association had been covered by EFF before highlighting some things they didn’t agree with.
The Internet Association—a trade group for big technology companies such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon—spent nearly $176,000 to lobby the California legislature last quarter, according to the Washington Post. It is now running misleading ads on social media asking Sacramento lawmakers to weaken the law.
The group claims that surveillance-based advertising technology, which slurps up and broadly spreads consumers’ personal data without their knowledge, should be exempted from the CCPA. In truth, surveillance-based adtech is one of the worst privacy hazards that the law was designed to stop. It also provides little benefit to online publishers, and erodes trust between companies and their consumers.
So medium article just glossing over who Gail started working for after leaving the FTC makes the omission a sign of incompetence or intentional with the knowledge it might weaken their argument. And who even is ovenplayer? We got no idea who this random person is so not covering the whole details makes me wonder why this medium article keeps being posted. Rather funny actually that the Trump tweet provided in the medium article omits this part too.
Thanks for the link, that’s a lot more context than the usual reactionary “Andy Yen said one nice thing about a Republican therefore he’s fascist pro-Trump MAGA” takes I’ve been seeing. Not only does it more or less disprove that narrative, it makes me question how much of the hate against him lately is genuine and how much of it has been seeded and signal-boosted by nation-state actors who don’t want people to use encrypted communications.
Yen is clearly trying to be nonpartisan and praise what he sees as good for privacy while pointing out abuses of power, regardless of who has the power at the moment. He sees this as his way of adding weight to the scale in favor of better privacy and tearing down big tech. I know many in my country and on the web are hyper-polarized and addicted to anger, to the point that if someone says anything even slightly positive about their perceived political enemy, it’s seen as legitimizing and aligning with that enemy, but I don’t believe that’s a healthy or productive mindset to have. I believe that kind of divisive attitude is preventing us from uniting with those who should be agreeable to our cause, and that’s exactly what the oligarchs want. It’s making us weak.
I’ve been on the fence for a while since this whole thing started, because I do use a paid Proton email, and it sounded bad, but I kept getting this nagging feeling I wasn’t seeing the full picture. That’s gone now - Andy may be politically and/or socially inept, and he may have a different perspective on what it means to support privacy and democracy, but I think it’s clear his heart is in the right place, and the work he and Proton are continuing to do for tech privacy is helping to erode authoritarian power structures, including Trump’s.
I am inclided to agree with you that Andy Yen is just an idiot and that Proton is doing it’s best to stay natural and make the most of the situation. However their communications team is pretty lackluster.
On another note, the article I linked is an opinion, so while it is laid out pretty well it is probably not telling the entire story. I have a custom domain on my Proton account so I can Switch if it ever goes to hell. I would advice you to do the same.
Yeah I looked further into the article and it indeed does not seem to paint the entire picture. Especially with the omission that after leaving the FTC, Gail Slater became vice-president for legal and regulatory policy for the Internet Association which is a lobbying group for companies like Google, Amazon, eBay, and Facebook.
And The Internet Association had been covered by EFF before highlighting some things they didn’t agree with.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/09/lawmakers-must-not-let-internet-association-weaken-california-consumer-privacy-act
So medium article just glossing over who Gail started working for after leaving the FTC makes the omission a sign of incompetence or intentional with the knowledge it might weaken their argument. And who even is ovenplayer? We got no idea who this random person is so not covering the whole details makes me wonder why this medium article keeps being posted. Rather funny actually that the Trump tweet provided in the medium article omits this part too.