Listen,

It is possible to criticize something without abjectly despising it. 404 can have bad takes; I'm still paying for their journalism because it's usually very good.

Proton's marketing and social team are kind of yutzes, but the service is very good for what it is, and much better than the normative choice.

Seeking infallibility will eat all your time and get you nowhere.

@mttaggart Do not let perfect stand in the way of good.

@Sempf Also, do not mistake the imperfect for evil, which keeps happening and it's extremely not helpful

@mttaggart I didn't read that 404 thing, but did this get any mention in it at all?

https://web.archive.org/web/20250115164340/https://mastodon.social/@protonprivacy/113833074076075466

I'm surprised it hasn't come up in any comments that come by me - I guess they deleted those outings quick enough back then for enough people to remember ...?

@YinYinFalcon See above re: yutzes. Yes, we remember.

@mttaggart Also, I don't think "complying with a legal request to the minimum extent required by the law by providing the data they must by law retain and nothing more" is not actually a fallibility on protonmail's part

@mttaggart I don't even think it's that bad a take—"Even privacy-focused Proton will comply with the law and disclose information they have when compelled to" is information in the public interest. Framing the governments involved as the primary actors might be *better*, but not more accurate in terms of communicating how safe you are on Proton.

I do agree with your broader point—I listen to their podcast every week. I don't agree with everything, but they're doing important work.

@maxleibman They have framed it a couple times now that Proton provided info to the FBI which is just a misrepresentation of Proton's actions. The lesson part I agree with, but no—404 went too hard on the framing here and exceeded faithful reporting.

@mttaggart @maxleibman Yeah the framing from 404 was pretty bad, this is an issue with how payment methods in general work, Proton does accept crypto and anyone can buy pre-paid gift cards with cash to use to pay for services like that, this should be a teachable moment about those things rather then an attack on proton.

It’s mostly the users fault for not taking better care about their opsec given the work they do, but I do think proton constantly advertising them selves as more “private” then they really are leads to people making assumptions that they would be protected in some way against state level actions or court orders. It’s foolish to expect ANY for profit corporation to stand up for you on principles, sure they might have great policies and PR, but at the end of the day no one is gonna risk jail or fines by a court, or do what Lavabit did back in the day…

Remember Lavabit? now that was a company that absolutely respected privacy above all… and we see where it got them.