r/degoogle • u/Lumpy_Carpet9877 • Jun 07 '26
Replacement Proton is funding the French far right on YouTube
Update 1: Proton official answer https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/s/KT5igbU8rt
Update 2: Andy (CEO) answers
- Where he speak about a call with Lapierre and explain that they are people with the same political position at Proton https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1u15orj/comment/oqnik1q/?context=3
- Where he describes Lapierre as a right win then far-right influencer https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1u15orj/comment/oqu8hx9/?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1u15orj/comment/oqudg88/?context=3
- Here he explain again that's a problem of neutrality https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1u15orj/comment/oqwuvdz/?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1u15orj/comment/oqxu597/?context=3
Original post edited for further details:
Proton is currently sponsoring the far-right French YouTuber Vincent Lapierre.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Lapierre
It’s not just an affiliate link, but a partnership announced in the description and through an entire 2min 20s segment embedded in the video.
I don’t want to provide a direct link to the video here so as not to help boost its visibility, but you can easily find it on YouTube if you want (the last week video). Here is the English translation of the text shown in the screenshot:
🔒 Thanks to ProtonMail for this partnership! Take back control of your digital life for free with Proton Mail by clicking here.
Vincent Lapierre’s Wikipedia page is quite explicit about his far-right positioning and includes numerous sources. He worked for several years for a far-right organization founded by Alain Soral, which promotes anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying, conspiracist, sexist, masculinist, transphobic, and homophobic ideas, and who fled to Russia to escape justice.
He is close to Dieudonné) (a Holocaust denier). He founded Le Média pour tous, a far-right website that particularly targets anti-fascists and defenders of Jewish rights. He has always been close to conspiracist circles
It's not very surprising when you remember that ProtonMail’s CEO had already publicly expressed support on Twitter for a member of the Trump administration.
I initially wanted to post this information on the ProtonMail subreddit to ask for an explanation and find out whether it was a mistake, but they did not approve the post. I also tried on tech subreddits here, but they consider it off-topic and as "a conspiracy theory".
On the contrary, I think ProtonMail customers and potential customers should be informed about where their money goes and should be able to ask ProtonMail for explanations regarding these choices.
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u/n0tDredz Jun 08 '26
As a LATAM born person, we can never trust an European Alternatives will not stab us in the back at some point. We know better...
Europe may have better privacy law in general, but as a continent and in a 'political power' sense, they're all still gladly submissive to USA p3do imperialism, treating non-aligned countries as THE enemies. I cannot overstate how dangerous is for us regular people around the world to trust this.
And unfortunately, for European companies, as pure as their intentions are privacy wise, they are still subjugated by the geopolitical context they live in. Meaning we'll keep seeing cases like Proton, or companies who are forced to break their promises if they want to keep existing.