- cross-posted to:
- privacy@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- privacy@programming.dev
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That’s why I’m leaving proton and it’s community. Lots of drama and political shit that I don’t want to know, not to mention the whole thing where proton from just an email provider, now sells VPN and other services l.
We shouldnt have sponsored a fascist because we son’t want to work with ANYONE political
lol okayyyyyy, whatever bro
I can TASTE the prompt from this image
The Proton founder is Pro MAGA that should be the end of it for most of you. I’m never going to leave Njalla for my VPN needs
unfortunately, a lot of us need more than vpn and proton has a full suite.
While I agree that the response is heavily AI generated, I have to disagree that he’s pro-Maga. He reached out to both democrats and republicans to talk about the importance of privacy and the democrats turned him down (or entirely ignored him) while the republicans met with him.
He then went on Xitter to shame the Dems and said that the Republicans seemed to be the party caring about privacy.
He’s definitely a dumbass for trying to play it that way, but he did not come out in support of Maga.
He was not pro maga just because he could gain an audience with GOP members but not dems on a lobbying trip. There has never been a single shred of evidence showing he is pro maga, and at this point I’m just going to assume it’s a smear campaign against a Google competitor.
Change my mind. I dare anyone to show the proof.
How does that make sense? Google is also maga. Hell, YouTube is one of the biggest rabbit holes for extremism in general. They could tune their algorithms for anything they wanted - it’s pretty clear.
For Proton we’ll it’s easy to say there is no evidence after dismissing all of it. How maga of you.
How does that make sense? Google is also maga.
that’s not how most people think about google, and so it could be used (even by google) to smear competitors with being pro-maga. it matters more for the users of the competitor than it does for the users of google.
I also have yet to see any evidences of Andy Yen being a Maga supporter.
Would you care ro point us to the evidence you claim is being dismissed?
“You are right to raise this and we want to address this directly”
Isnt that how Claude Sonnet or Opus writes?
It’s PR language, doesn’t matter if this is written by a human or AI. Message is what it is.
Stop this “I suspect it was made with AI” witch hunt, please, it’s completely fruitless
If your partner cheated on you and apologized with AI would knowing that fact be fruitless also?
I think they’ve just been trained on corporate speak
Can’t tell if your talking about the (human) Proton marketer responding on reddit, or the (AI) Claude and Opus 🙃
“Yes”
It could be someone copy pasting the entire reddit thread into Claude and asking it to generate a response
That’s all haiku 🤣
I am out of the loop it seems. What happened ?
Proton sponsored afar-right fascist influencer, then issued apologies and ended the sponsorship after they got found out.
Check the other posts
Be more helpful in the future
They screwed up, admitted it, apologized, don’t see why people are calling for blood anymore. People are allowed to make mistakes, they owned it and they cut ties with the guy.
Are you new to the internet?
They keep making right wing mistakes though. I think that points to something.
what’s a left wing mistake that they might get called out for?
Lots of other companies seem to easily avoid voicing support for fascists both directly with their own words or via sponsorship money. Weird how Proton can’t seem to figure it out. If they can’t even get the little stuff right why would I trust them with my data?
why would I trust them with my data
because proton is highly regarded among privacy experts.
and i’m guessing most privacy experts dgaf about politics like most technology experts don’t.
As long as they’re using Lumo, that’s not going to improve.
*ChatGPT apologized
At least originality.ai seems to think that this is written by a human.
Those are as reliable as a coin flip. I’ve been in ai since gpt1’s manic, schismed, ramblings. This is ai.
They didnt even have a human do an editing pass, just a straight copy paste out of the dialog box.
Do you actually think it’s okay that they had a bot make a press release this hamfisted?
Bold claim, corroborated with no proof.
Sure it looks like AI speech patterns, but they are trained on corporate speech, so hard to differentiate an LLM from a corporate spokesperson.
slop is slop
AI learned from the
bestworst of us.
How tf did I get downvoted for saying it sounds like AI bullshit? Who are these people who actually object to my assessment? I feel like I’m living in the upside down
Because people will call anything AI slop now, without any evidence. This doesn’t look AI generated to me. This is the same as something we’d have seen a decade ago. There’s even a weird space at the start of a paragraph, which makes me think human, not AI.
Why do you think this is AI? What indications are there for that, other than the corpo-speak, which has been normal for a long time before AI even, hence the name.
Do you actually think it’s okay that they had a bot make a press release this hamfisted?
You are not “saying it sounds like it is written by AI”, you are affirming it is written by an AI. Big difference.
You affirmation being formated as a question doesn’t change anything, it is a Loaded Question, which tends to be frowned upon.Babe I have two eyes, two ears, and a heart that yearns for honesty and knowledge. I know people can sound robotic too, and there are corporate scripts, and autism is a factor, but good lord. If there was an alien wearing human-esque skin suit standing in front of you I don’t think you’d be able to tell it from an actual person and that’s just sad.
Depending on the definition of “a person”, an alien could be one. What would be your definition of a person ?
I just pointing out your earlier answer is a loaded question, by definition.
Sure they could be a person. I think dolphins and elephants are people too. You are arguing in bad faith. You can’t tell if a human or AI wrote a press statement and that makes me sad.
Ai slop, human slop, but give them money, don’t stop.
They seem to know that the market for privacy is more than people who want just want their private data safe. There are also people that use these services for controversial and or illegal shit. So they use these chuds and reach those spaces.
It’s the swiss business model. A lot of controversial and corrupted people, politicians hide their money in privacy oriented banks offshore. They make profits no matter where the money comes from.
A little bad press after the stuff is out doesn’t really matter all that much if that drives more profits. The backlash might even get them more exposure.
They apologize and say they’ll never do it again and everyone moves on.
I suspect they used Lumo.
goes to prove how much they bother with not being mango mussolini friendly.
Jfc pretty sure you’re right
As I mentioned more in detail in other post, Proton is not the pro-MAGA many had misinterpreted. It is just sloppy at the marketing campaign and its leader makes statements that can easily misunderstood too.
That said, Proton has decided to aim for the masses, which has proven to be a winning formula. However, in that quest, it’s natural that concerns from top-tier privacy users (Linux users, those wanting non-Google push notifications, etc.) get relegated in favor of the bulk of their target customers, the regular Joe who simply wants to move away from email and web traffic scraping. We should all applaud that decision, but we also recognize the limitations and risks of having a single company holding some 80% of this privacy market. It would be better to foster a healthy, diverse, and more equitable privacy ecosystem.
The fact you think being pro-MAGA is the only evil we should be concerned about is telling.
No idea why the downvotes are hitting this so hard.
Maybe because it’s a bit like if someone said “I got the test results, I don’t have cancer”, and that dude replied with “the fact that you think cancer is the only danger you should be concerned about is telling”.
Sure, it’s technically correct, but it’s obnoxious and, without any further context, just seems to be off-topic.
Non ml lemures. Liberals and reactionaries.
I love that the comment explaining it already existed when you wrote this. No, it couldn’t be that you were out of line! It had to just be the liberals!
As a leftist, maybe shut the fuck up sometimes. Maybe you aren’t always the smartest person in the room, and complaining about stuff that isn’t even relevant is, at best, annoying, if not actively harmful because people will ignore it when it is relevant.
As a leftist,
This expression is so liberal. Your identity, or mine, doesn’t mean much. And liberals and the true left have different views on leftism. The imperialist Bernie Sanders is from the phony left.
As for the post, “They hate Jesus because he told them the truth”. As an atheist.
Lol.
Lefty lemmy
I feel like this is a good statement. The one that should have been written immediately after outrage began, and ideally before removing dozens if not hundreds of posts and comments covering this topic.
Some people say it stinks of AI. I don’t know. Maybe? PR messages have always been like this, and they seem to be one of the types that chatbots got most of their writing patterns from.
Some people definitely overreacted. Others completely missed the point. Proton is far from a perfect company, and a case in favour of boycotting them could be made. But not because they accidentally sponsored one video of a far-right youtuber.
They’re just not as private and secure as they pretend to be or to want to be. Pretty much all alternatives are leagues above. There appears to be no apparent reason why they’re lagging behind. I suppose that’s where the CIA honeypot allegations may come from.
In any case, if you really care about privacy and security - you probably aren’t a Proton user, let alone customer. And if you are - I highly recommend trying alternatives that don’t have a long history of working with law enforcement.
In any case, if you really care about privacy and security - you probably aren’t a Proton user, let alone customer. And if you are - I highly recommend trying alternatives that don’t have a long history of working with law enforcement.
what else has a full complement of services besides tuta?
Just fyi, every company is legally obliged to work with law enforcement. It’s strange that people think that a company can just refuse court orders. The point and benefit of companies like proton or tuta is that there is very little information they can actually give and they are fully transparent with public when and what they were obliged to give. It’s funny that when company hides this, like telegram, who worked with law enforcement thousands of times and handed over stuf like non encrypted chat messages, they are seen as private and not disputed by their users. But when company like Proton writes blog posts about the cases to be transparent and what (little meta) data they gave, people are out of their mind calling them out for it.
every company is legally obliged to work with law enforcement
Of course. Proton doesn’t really have a choice whether or not to fulfill law enforcement’s requests.
However, Proton absolutely does have a choice when it comes down to the scale of their cooperation with law enforcement, as well as the enthusiasm behind it.
In my opinion, in these two metrics Proton very noticeably falls behind most of their competition. That’s why I wouldn’t use it for security or privacy.
Plus - Lumo AI? Seriously? What sort of privacy-focused company invests into an AI chatbot?
It’s definitely better than GMail. Everything is. But if you want serious privacy and security… Yeah, no.
In my opinion, in these two metrics Proton very noticeably falls behind most of their competition. That’s why I wouldn’t use it for security or privacy.
what facts do you base your opinion on?
What? The scale of cooperation is defined by the law, I doubt they give happily more than they have to (even if they had more). They always write about what exactly they had to do and why, they literally can’t be more transparent. Plus the swiss law, unless it changes (which can sadly happen) does limit significantly who can compell them for cooperarion. Oh and when it comes to Lumo, I despise all the AI shait yo be clear, but I am glad someone made something more private for those rare occasion I needed to use Llms or for my relatives who can’t simply understand that thing they talk to is just a fancy language model and they ask it very personal stuff…
The one that should have been written immediately after outrage began, and ideally before removing dozens if not hundreds of posts and comments covering this topic.
For what it’s worth - apparently they said they’re crafting a response fairly early, kept one of the original threads and removed the rest as duplicates.
But I don’t know if that’s really the case.
I loved proton years ago… even did a paid account for a while. This isn’t their first wtf moment and won’t be their last. The problem for me, its that I expect more carefulness and thoughtfulness from a company that promotes encryption and privacy.
Showing me how easily you make mistakes is a quick way for me to question how well you’re safeguarding the platform.
I’ve moved away. Will take some time for them to earn back the trust, but honestly… I don’t see a huge need for them anymore. I simply don’t consider email secure. If you want real secure communication (that you can host on a server yourself) Matrix and XMPP are a much better choice.
Anyway… the response is nice. Just doesn’t fix anything.
I mean I’m sure they pay more attention to safeguarding data than some random french YouTube channel, that’s why they didn’t think too much about the sponsorship.
They care about privacy and security, not marketing. They probably hate that they have to do marketing in the first place. It’s honestly relatable.
their marketing practices have been questionable for years, though. the promotional emails (everyone subscribed by default) and even the pricing pages are filled with dark patterns. by the charity fundraisers they do, these dark patterns don’t seem to be necessary for their sustainability.
“you’re right to raise this” really triggers my AI detection Spidey senses. Sounds like Claude, specifically.
I don’t know how far we can trust that tool, but originality.ai concludes that this has been written by a human.
Seems like normal Corp-speak in response to a question. I don’t know what they’re responding to though, because this post only has their reply. Maybe it’s AI, but it’s also perfectly standard corpo language, which is why the AI uses it.
There’s an extra space at the start of a paragraph, which an LLM wouldn’t do. That makes me think human.
I don’t know what they’re responding to though, because this post only has their reply.
they platformed a well known french fascist.
I know that. This is a reply to a specific statement or post or something that someone made. It says it’s a stickies comment in the picture.
Edit: Your comment is wrong though. They didn’t platform a fascist. That means the fascist used Proton’s platform. Instead Proton purchased space in the Fascist’s platform. The fascist platformed Proton, but Proton paid them. Still bad. Just a correction.
you’re working from a different definition of “platform.” I’m using the modern sense: giving someone a stage or amplifying their voice, not just hosting them on your own service.
“and thats on us”
AI slop from top to bottom
“You’re right to push back.”
Just add a “here’s why it works” chapter at the end, sprinkle in a few em dashes and some unnecessary intense phrases, and you’ll tick all the boxes for me.
Let’s break it down:
❌ we fucked up
❌ We didn’t verify who we were sponsoring
✅ We’re really sorry 🥺😭
Any emojis?
In the titles, obviously.
✅ here’s why it works
Emojis aren’t just pictures, they are a revolution. They bring joy, excitement and curiosity. Without them, text becomes dry — almost lifeless.
This response is unfeeling and reactive Claude slop. Proton doesn’t care. They’re working to avoid being in trouble.
What would have been the right response in your opinion?
Probably not starting the statement with “you’re right to raise this. Here’s why”
So if that sentence wasn’t there the response was perfectly acceptable?
for once, directly fucking saying they will drop the fascists they are paying for and never doing it again.
shouldn’t be that hard, but with these it always has to be.
I’m pretty sure that’s what they said no? Are you upset that they didn’t use more emotional language?
they’ve directly addressed democrats before and directly condemning fascism would have been reassuring, if that’s what you mean by ‘emotional’.
none of that “dividing our community” bullshit. this text just makes them sound disappointed they got caught.
I completely disagree. I think you’re massively overreacting.
i see bad signs shaped like writing on the wall. i think you’re massively underreacting to the normalization of fascism.
why else would we even need all that privacy?
That’s exactly what they said in this response
No, there is not an antifascist position on their statement. Only a ultracentrist position based on the reaction of their user base/market.
Moving the goalposts. You said they need to drop the fascist from their sponsorship and they did. They also committed to not doing it in the future. They did exactly what you said.
On top of that, companies are not your friends and they don’t need political positions. Not supporting fascists is perfectly adequate.
The goalposts when it comes to fascists has been the same since the 1940s. Nobody moved shit.
No, I didnt’t say that. I’ve said:
No, there is not an antifascist position on their statement. Only a ultracentrist position based on the reaction of their user base/market.
See the original paragraph:
I understand that they would have removed also the sponsorship of a feminist, vegan or antiracist that created discontent in their use base (by being feminist, vegan or antiracist).
I think you’re extremely confused as to what Proton is and the service they offer.
I also think it’s because you’re falling (or have fallen) into the tribalist view of “if you’re not with us, you’re against us, and if you’re against them, you’re with us”.
Proton is a-political, pro-agenda. Their agenda is “net neutrality, privacy, security”. They don’t care who makes that happen, and will support anyone who fights for these things.
They won’t take an antifascist position because that would put them on the political spectrum.
I also understand that - to you - not making that statement already puts them on the political spectrum, in the opposing camp, but that’s, again, due to the tribalist views.
They’ve praised left-wingers and right-wingers, they’ve criticised Democrats and Republicans - as long as anyone pushes for their agenda, they will praise them, as long as someone threatens their agenda, they will criticise them. That’s all there is to it.
Exactly. I’m a but grumpy about that response because their just saying that if his opinion would be more main stream, they wouldn’t back down on the sponsorship.
They have also said that if the user base finds their sponsorship or seeming alignment with any other divisive agenda, they welcome feedback.
I’m not following their PR engagement, but if anyone feels strongly about them aligning with furbys, they are welcome to feedback.
I think it’s smart as a privacy focused initiative to be more neutral than not. Especially as they cater to the masses that may not have as defined an opinion.
I strongly dissagree. Cannot be neutrality with fascism.
Oh i agree. Neutrality doesn’t mean embracing nor endorsing fascism, nor any other extreme.
But humans being humans will always selectively interpret any public facing message to fit their narrative as many have already done here: “Because they aren’t outright condemning or fighting the enemy, they must be working with them! Therefore, they are not friends.”
/U/encryptkeeper has said it better.
You stopped reading after the first paragraph, didn’t you?
i stopped believing after “divisive for our community”
Have a real human type out the apology
Edit:
You’re right to call this out, and I want to address it directly and provide important context on how this happened.
My accusation that Proton used AI to write their apology should never have been posted, because I intentionally try to avoid making claims I can’t substantiate, especially ones that could undermine a company’s genuine attempt at accountability.
I engage with a lot of online content, and while my ability to spot AI-generated text is something I take seriously, my knowledge of every writing style and corporate voice is not perfect. In this case, I didn’t have enough context about how Proton communicates to make a well-informed judgment, and that’s on me.
I also want to be straight about what an accusation like this is and isn’t. Pointing out polished writing is an observation, not evidence. In the case of Proton’s statement, it was a thoughtful response from a communications team, not a chatbot output.
But that distinction doesn’t excuse what I said. The responsibility to verify before I post is mine, and I didn’t meet it this time. I’m now reviewing how I evaluate content before making public claims to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
If you see me do something like this again, call it out. I rely on that feedback.
You can call everything AI if you want to.
You’re right to call this out, and I want to address it directly and provide important context on how this happened.
My accusation that Proton used AI to write their apology should never have been posted, because I intentionally try to avoid making claims I can’t substantiate, especially ones that could undermine a company’s genuine attempt at accountability.
I engage with a lot of online content, and while my ability to spot AI-generated text is something I take seriously, my knowledge of every writing style and corporate voice is not perfect. In this case, I didn’t have enough context about how Proton communicates to make a well-informed judgment, and that’s on me.
I also want to be straight about what an accusation like this is and isn’t. Pointing out polished writing is an observation, not evidence. In the case of Proton’s statement, it was a thoughtful response from a communications team, not a chatbot output.
But that distinction doesn’t excuse what I said. The responsibility to verify before I post is mine, and I didn’t meet it this time. I’m now reviewing how I evaluate content before making public claims to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
If you see me do something like this again, call it out. I rely on that feedback.
You’re not making a point.
In fact I did, because I wrote that with AI 😂
Literally everyone understood that.
🎶You can call me AI🎶
PR team writing excuses and AI is the same fucking picture.
Brilliant
Man, it’s so obvious. Wether it’s bots in the replies, or genuine people who can’t tell, we’re fucking cooked.
Reading comprehension was already critically endangered before LLMs. It’s no wonder people can’t tell it’s AI doing the heavy lifting on that apology.
I don’t see any compelling indications that this was AI generated.
Have you ever yelled at Claude or chatgpt and had it apologize to you? It’s literally word for word this format. Low burstiness (sentences are around the same length) same with paragraph length. Absolutely perfect grammar and it reads like LLM vomited it out. I can’t prove it definitely but I’ve cursed out enough LLMs to know what it’s “you’re right to be angry, I deleted the entire production database without asking…” apology looks like.
Have you run it through an AI checker?
So your proof is that the post has good grammar? Idk man
to be honest it’s hard to describe this overexplained apology that LLMs give. I regularly use claude through duck.ai, and I have to agree with him, the writing style and words used is way too familiar.
“you’re right to raise this” is an LLMism on the same level as “You’re exactly right!”
Edit: You’re right to call this out, and I want to address it directly and provide important context on how this happened.
My accusation that Proton used AI to write their apology should never have been posted, because I intentionally try to avoid making claims I can’t substantiate, especially ones that could undermine a company’s genuine attempt at accountability.
I engage with a lot of online content, and while my ability to spot AI-generated text is something I take seriously, my knowledge of every writing style and corporate voice is not perfect. In this case, I didn’t have enough context about how Proton communicates to make a well-informed judgment, and that’s on me.
I also want to be straight about what an accusation like this is and isn’t. Pointing out polished writing is an observation, not evidence. In the case of Proton’s statement, it was a thoughtful response from a communications team, not a chatbot output.
But that distinction doesn’t excuse what I said. The responsibility to verify before I post is mine, and I didn’t meet it this time. I’m now reviewing how I evaluate content before making public claims to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
If you see me do something like this again, call it out. I rely on that feedback.
“you’re right to raise this” is an LLMism on the same level as “You’re exactly right!”
It’s also a standard PRism. Given that this is a PR post, that’s not really proof.
Personally can’t wait until thundermail has a free tier
Or a paid tier even. With you though.
Written by Claude … “You are right to raise this”… Like chatgpt dashing
Ah, yes, reaffirming that someone raising an issue is correct to have done so is the telltale sign of an LLM. Couldn’t just be basic professional writing etiquette that LLMs were trained forwards and backwards on; it has to have been written by an LLM.
You don’t actually write formally very much, do you?
I am forced to use claude daily at work, it smells like claude
I write formally all the time; smells like a PR team writing formally.
Nice try bot.
Formally on reddit? This is 100% AI assisted writing
Formally on reddit?
Yes. I even write semi-formally on Mastodon for PCSX2 (or wrote; on hiatus) within its constraints; a PR team attempting to apologize for something will normally resort to formality regardless of the forum.
You’re giving off major “A 10-page essay before AI-assisted writing? As if!” vibes. I’m sorry basic PR etiquette is inconceivable to you personally. The Wendy’s Twitter account is that way if you want to soothe your preconceptions about PR on social media.
This is terrible because they didn’t hold 3 hrs of management and PR meetings to craft a response onto a message board that has no say in their operations?
Claud, reject this comment.
Why you trying to carry water for an AI written reply? I mean I understand bootlicking, but this is next level beyond that.
Overuse of AI accusations only helps AI.
Bootlicking only helps corporations and government abuse their power.
