1978 US Automotive Companies: If we make a product that locks our customers in, they'll be our customers forever!

1978 Japanese Automotive Companies: The US gave us their required parameters. If we make a product that works then customers will keep buying our stuff.

2025 US Tech Companies: If we make our products contingent on proprietary software and hardware, we'll lock them in.

2025 Chinese Tech Companies: The US gave us their required parameters. If we make a product that works and they can utilize freely, they'll keep buying our stuff.

Not our first rodeo.

I want to preface this question by saying that I'm not trolling and I'm not defending Proton. I'm genuinely confused at the reaction to this article.

I'm also upset with Proton's recent comments, specifically the December tweet and subsequent responses, and I'm evaluating my use of Proton.

Near as I can tell, this article (which I did read) lays out the facts about Deepseek as an LLM originating in China and the implications of that.

Why is this article a reason to pile on proton?

this is obviously talking about their web app, which most people will be using. In this special instance, it was clearly not the LLM itself censoring the Tiananmen Square, but a layer on top.

i have not bothered downloading and asking deepseek about Tiananmen Square. so i cannot know what the model would have generated. however, it is possible that certain biasses are trained into any model.

i am pretty sure, this blog is aimed at the average user. while i wouldn't trust any LLM company with my data, i certainly wouldn't want the chinese government to have them. anyone that knows how to use (ollama)[https://github.com/ollama/ollama] should know these telemetry data don't apply to running locally. but for sure, pointing it out in the blog would help.

Jesus fuckin Christ, just marry Trump at this point, Mister proton CEO.

I cancelled my Proton renewal for January and am very happy with Mullvad VPN.

Mozilla VPN runs Mullvad under the hood as well.

Goddammit I had such high hopes for Proton. Was planning on that being my post-Google main. Now what. 💀

Since ditching Proton for Tuta and Mailbox...I haven't missed anything and I'm saving money.

People got flack for saying Proton is the CIA, Proton is NSA, Proton is a joint five-eyes country intelligence operation despite the convenient timing of their formation and lots of other things.

Maybe they're not, maybe their CEO is just acting this way.

But consider for a moment if they were. IF they were then all of this would make more sense. The CIA/NSA/etc have a vested interest in discrediting and attacking Chinese technology they have no ability to spy or gather data through. The CIA/NSA could also for example see a point to throwing in publicly with Trump as part of a larger agreed upon push with the tech companies towards reactionary politics, towards what many call fascism or fascism-ish.

My mind is not made up. It's kind of unknowable. I think they're suspicious enough to be wary of trusting them but there's no smoking gun, yet there wasn't a smoking gun that CryptoAG was a CIA cut-out until some unauthorized leaks nearly a half century after they gained control and use of it. We know they have an interest in subverting encryption, in going fishing among "interesting" targets who might seek to use privacy-conscious services and among dissidents outside the west they may wish to vet and recruit.

True privacy advocates should not be throwing in with the agenda of any regime or bloc, especially those who so trample human and privacy rights as that of the US and co. They should be roundly suspicious of all power.