Doing the Lord's work right here. I absolutely cannot stand screenshots of desktop apps.
Mobile screenshots will be readable on both mobile and desktop.
But desktop screenshots are only readable on desktop.
Glad I could help..
It renders fine, it's just a pain to read due the wide aspect ratio. Either it's too small or you have to scroll horizontal for reach line, or you have to flip your phone. None of it it is optimal.
Ridiculous.
He specifically started talking about American party politics, unprompted, making sweeping statements about both Democrats and Republicans. NOW he wants to blame us for...being concerned with his views on American party politics? Dude. Get real.
Saying stupid shit now and then is forgivable, but not if you take it in as the new nucleus of your public image. Why do so many public figures have this compulsion to double down combatively?
Business owners should not touch politics, thats just alienates 50% of the user base no matter his views
That’s correct, he was asked about it on Reddit too and confirmed it was just his birth year.
Since it’s a common dog whistle though I do think it’s always worth questioning. Particularly when it’s tied to someone licking Trump’s boots.
A lot of Nazis were supposedly born in 1988...
But in this specific case, i believe him.
8 is also a lucky number in Chinese culture. I've seen a lot of "88"s in Chinese social media just because of that.
It always sucks when shitbags co-opt innocent symbols and language.
While yes adding your birth year to your username is common (but terrible OpSec), adding 88 or HH or other Nazi symbolism is also common among their community. Especially in an open setting.
It serves as a shibboleth for the alt-right that you are one of them.
He's from Asia where the number 8 have a good luck meaning, so is likely is not related to the 88 neo nazis uses.
Sadly, "Asia" doesn't mean "ignorance of Hitler."
#Looking for link to Nazi store in ...
Edit: first link I found. Not endorsement. https://qz.com/...
He knows what he's doing.
Not even a little in this situation. Maybe take your head out of your ass and stop spreading lies. He literally addressed this head on.
His reply in text form:
It's the year I was born, and also a lucky number in Taiwan where I am from: https://en.wikipedia.org/....
UPDATE: Andy Reply
According to Andy's logic, if Hitler were the president of some unfortunate country, we should differentiate the boss from his good nominees. Even using a company founded by an entire community to show a good evaluation made by one of its founders to give him a loving pat on the back and show the world that he is not completely bad as they think, but not meaning that the founder agrees with all his innocent actions, of course, such as disregarding the rights of many people around the world because they are just part of the democratic game.
So, to get this straight, for you it's impossible to recognize that a pick for a position is a good pick in the Trump government, by definition, without consideration of the actual pick?
To me this is religion, not politics or ideology (which I both consider very good things). To be even more clear, I consider Andy's position completely rational and legitimate in this case. I believe it's absolutely legitimate to be happy Trump picked someone good for a position and at the same time not support the rest 98%. At most, the interesting debate is why that pick is not good, which is 100% opinable and worthy of a discussion.
But saying that any statement, in any context, whatever narrow and specific equal full support is completely insane to me.
If all he said was literally "i approve of this pick for this position" you'd be correct.
What actually happened was he approved of the pick and also claimed the republicans are now actually the party that stands for the "little guy".
Then followed up with a non apology that claimed what he said was not intended to be a "political statement".
by all means, argue that you think there's a fuss over nothing, but if you leave important context out seemingly because it doesn't suit your narrative it weakens your argument substantially.
I know what happened, I followed quite thoroughly.
He thinks that republicans are now the ones with a higher chance to push antitrust cases against big tech (I.e., work for the little guy - EDIT: source). He thinks this based on the last few years and a few things that happened. He likes the nomination from Trump. How is this a full support to Trump? How believing that republicans will do better - in this area - equals being a Nazi?
Of course I believe that there is a fuss over nothing. The above statement has been inflated and I have already read "he applauded to Trump antitrans policies", " posted Nazi symbols" and other complete fantasies.
Many people, who are on the internet on a perpetual witch hunt decided to interpret a clearly specific tweet (about antitrust and big tech) as a global political statement, and read that "little guy" as "common man" or - I have read it here on Lemmy - "working class". Basically everyone tried to propose ideas about why that post was so awful, rather than first trying to understand what the hell he meant. I will agree the first tweet is ambiguous, but that's because it's a 200 characters tweet, he then explained his position quite clearly, and the summary above is what he actually meant.
This "context" added doesn't move my post a centimeter IMO.
See, now that's a more thorough explanation of your position.
I disagree with pretty much all of your assertions (though the witch hunt stuff can be true sometimes) , but at least i know I'm disagreeing with an opinion formed using the whole of the information provided.
This “context” added doesn’t move my post a centimeter IMO.
It shows you read the initial information in it's entirety and still came to the conclusion you did.
That removes the possibility of responses such as "Did you even read the initial tweet?".
Well... it should remove that possibility, in practice it just means you can safely ignore those responses because clearly the people making those responses haven't read your response in it's entirety.
That's not context, that's a superficial observation. Zuck kissed the ring by changing Facebook policy to align with trump/musk posture on "free speech", Andy said he likes the antitrust pick. They are completely different things.
Honestly I find his attitude to be quite commendable and I think that speaks much louder than whatever it is you disagree with.
Maybe he should have just left Trump's name out of it entirely as that seems to be what really pushed people's buttons.
People are going to twist things around no matter what is said though. Don't forget hindsight makes everyone look guilty.
It would be one thing if Trump was actually anti-trust...but he isn't.
He's anti companies which don't prostrate themselves in front of him and bow to his whims. They're bad, terrible, anti American companies. The ones that do are great, wonderful, beautiful companies. The bad ones need to be broken up and given to the big ones.
He's so transparent it's painful. If someone says good things about Trump or give him money, they're good. If they don't, they're bad. It's absurdly obvious.
If that motivation still leads to work against tech monopolies, good. Can't wait for people to do the right thing for the right reason. If that won't happen it will be criticized as a lack of action.
Ultimately the benefit for the population is having as much freedom and fair competition in the tech space as possible. If that comes from Trump hallucinations, from a dream or from something else, who cares...?
If that motivation still leads to work against tech monopolies
It doesn't, never did, never will.
I can't believe we have to argue in 2025 about this.
The whole project 2025 is about breaking bad regulations, antitrust won't survive. You just have to kiss the ring, and do whatever.
How can anyone possibly think that Trump is against tech monopolies when Bezos, Musk, and Zuckerberg are going to be sitting behind him shoulder to shoulder at the inauguration?
He should have just stayed the fuck out of Americans politics being a provider of a secure service that many Americans of all political persuasions use.
He is an idiot who cost his company business. The only spin is trying to downplay it at this point. The consequences are lost profits.
No, he should stay out of either side because business is about making money. I don't want to know what politics you support. I don't care for politicizing everything. It is a fucking turn off.
You want my money, do your job, sell me your product, give me your service, but don't talk to me about your hot takes on politics. Also religion as well. I and many many other people don't want to hear it.
You say it doesn't match that other users opinion, but doesn't it not match the vast majority of proton users opinions? Authoritarians aren't usually big on personal privacy. So praising one when you run a company based upon privacy is a dumb idea. It would be like running a vegan food company and praising people who like Slaughter cattle. It's a stupid fucking mindset. Which says a lot of things to me about his capacity as a CEO frankly. If he's this dumb why should people trust them to run a business they frequent?
Maybe he should have just left Trump's name out of it entirely as that seems to be what really pushed people's buttons.
It probably didn't help, but no, I don't think that was it. I think it was his sweeping generalizations about dems/republicans as a whole, along with the insinuation that dems were bought, republicans are "looking out for the little guys", and the election undermined the will of the people:
Dems had a choice between the progressive wing (Bernie Sanders, etc), versus corporate Dems, but in the end money won and constituents lost. Until corporate Dems are thrown out, the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.
You are right about the generalization on parties, but the "little guy" he meant are small tech companies opposed to big tech. It was clear to me in the context, and to clear any doubt, he explicitly said that in a reddit comment.
I want to specify because this has been stretched on here as far as "he said republicans care for the working class".
Now to reply to the post itself, I think this sums it up:
Though the sad truth is that almost every single product or service we use are owned and run by people with similar opinions, it is literally the nature of the capitalist beast, it's how it function, and why it will always decay in to fascism - because those with the power and the money (not just those at the very very top, but several levels bellow them, too, like this guy) will always and forever care solely about maintaining it and creating more for themselves, that's it. And to do that, they have to side with whichever dictator-du-jour benefits them the most.
Remember - there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and this is only one of the reasons why.
To an extent probably. But I use https://mullvad.net/ as my vpn, and they seem pretty great.
Probably where I'll go next, I have until the end of February and then my business will be elsewhere.
Since I set up some family at the same time, I'll be doing it for a few accounts.
I seem to remember that Switzerland has a history of profiting from their relationships with Nazi's. Thus they might not be a good source of advice as to what to do about Nazi's.
It's dumb to call Trump a nazi and the populist wing of the Republican party nazis.
It's not even clever at this point, maybe it was edgy and transgressive like 7 years ago.
The reason it's dumb is that you are wasting all of your powerful language and you will have no more if things get worse. Boy who cried wolf. Just like people did to racist which used to carry great power and now is basically meaningless as a powerful descriptor.
It’s not even clever at this point, maybe it was edgy and transgressive like 7 years ago.
Are you really this childish that you genuinely think the only reason people might suggest Trump is a fascist is because it was "edgy and transgressive"? Not the fascist rhetoric, increasingly fascist policy and the various fascists he's willing to work with and support?
Nazism is a very small subset of fascism, they are not equivalent. Nazi also carries VERY heavy baggage which is inapplicable to Trump. Use the right terms.
Nazism is a very small subset of fascism, they are not equivalent. Nazi also carries VERY heavy baggage which is inapplicable to Trump. Use the right terms.
Can't tell if you're defending trump or gatekeeping nazism.
Hey guys, look at this dipshit, drawing irrelevant distinctions and pointlessly trying to police other peoples language because they think the only reason others would use those terms is because they're "edgy and transgressive".
Tell me, where on the fascism to nazism meter is mass deportations, muslim bans, endorsing far right militias, supporting running over protestors, palling around with white supremacists, and seeking to eradicate trans people from public life? Are we at .49? or is it more like .76? My readings seems to be off. Just so I know I'm not using the incorrect terms so some moron from .world doesn't get mad and try to incessantly police terms on the internet.
Gee. Which side has all the people marching with nazi flags?
Which side never kicks them out when they do?
They don't kick their nazi buddies out of their events.
I recommend therapy.
Poe's law detector fail
I'm sorry but what? This is really weird logic as language and words aren't required to follow some linear path of severity. People call the GOP, Trump and the like Nazis because... they fit the definition of Nazis, actual card carrying Nazis support them by a significant majority. (Yeah yeah I know there is the odd one here or there that doesn't)
If it walks like a Nazi, talks like a Nazi and engages in Nazi tactics, behaviors etc. Then it can be called a Nazi. You don't reserve your language so that you have some end point to progress to.
It's also very weird to use the boy who cried wolf when the whole point of that story is that you don't call something that which it isn't for fear that when the real thing comes along no one will believe you as that would imply that they are in fact not Nazis. Which would only be true in the most technical of sense (As in they are not of the Nazi party of Germany) but by most dictionary definition the word fits.
Lastly, what the hell are you even talking about "edgy"? Do you think people are calling them Nazis to be edgy? Because that's ridiculous and quite frankly your entire comment screams of someone trying to defend them through deflection.
Why in your view is it mutually exclusive? To address any problem one first has to identify that there is in fact a problem. Calling it out where it exists IS that identification. It isn't about "labels" it's about identifying what needs to be dealt with and make no mistake there are a lot of people who don't want to acknowledge the problem and if anything what you're doing is exactly the shit the fascists do by forcing the side wanting to fight fascism to moderate its language on the belief that if we use that language against the fascists the fascists will dig into their fascism... as if they aren't doing that anyway.
In fact letting the right-wing control the narrative no matter what happens is in large part why we are where we are and why this shit needs to be called out, identified, labelled and opposed at every point with whatever means are necessary.
As swiss person I have to meet and talk to this guy, he can not be that stupid!
We definitely have something like the republicans party, it is called SVP (Schweizerische Volkspartei). SVP uses exactly the same tactics as republicans, like anti “woke”, anti regulation, anti common media, pro hate-speech(“anti censorship”), etc.
We just not have a single party to counter it, like democrats, but like 10 parties with little nuances.
We have some small parties besides SVP “on the republican site” but those tend to be irrelevant. Maybe, the anti corona party has a some relevance, still, but I guess their power is sinking.
I personally support the pirate party, which mainly stands for privacy, no matter if left or right, but the party it self is leading to the left (democratic) side.
At least, that is how I understand our situation here.
I am sure he is very smart about a lot of things. Unfortunately US politics are not one of those things. I also suspect he is not that good at business considering he just alienated a lot of his customers.
They do have power. But it is split between around 4-5 bigger parties. Our federal council (similar to the President uf the US) is split into 7 persons, where the biggest parties get one or to seats. Like the mentioned SVP has "only" 2 seats and next big party the social Democrats have 2 seats as well.
What's nice in our system(in my opinion), there is no "The winner takes it all". Because our federal government is split between alot of parties, not one can "rule" alone. For every thing the want to pass, they need the support of multiple parties.
I wouldn't say we have ruling coalitions like you see in germany, but they do work-together if they have same goal.
This is how parliamentary governments work, they figured out how to resolve the bug in the US system that always tends towards two major parties. However the two-party system, so I've read, is actually a tad bit more resistant to the fascism bug, as parliamentary systems can have outright fascist parties winning a minority of the vote eventually grow big enough to take over and end the system entirely.
We have two “Räte“ like groups that write the laws depending on the constitution (they give new laws back and forth until an agreement is found, and after agreement there can be a referendum made with enough signatures from the people that are allowed to vote, which then leads to a vote where the people who are allowed to vote have to confirm the new law). One of these “Rat” is a Voting where all people allow to vote choose which party gets how much seats in this “Rat” and in the same voting you choose people to place on this seats. (It is a bit complicated and here at the choosing of seats. Partys can work together and “combine lists” meaning that they collect seats together and split it up after). In the other “Rat” there are a defined number of people per Kanton (the states of switzerland) and those are chosen by each Kanton in their own way. Kantons are relatively free on how to organise their government, but most have a similar mechanism as what is done in federal level.
The Bundesrat (aka 7 presidents of switzerland) are chosen by the people in the Rat (I would have to check if both Rat get to say something, or if it is only the one with the lists). We have some unwritten laws in choosing the 7 persons in the Bundesrat. The general consensus is, that we have to ensure most diversity possible (political, gender, and all the other things), but of course, here we have discussions all the time as well.
☺️feel free to ask more
Get. Off. Reddit.
He's kind of right on the money and kind of being completely dumb.
The fact of it is that Republicans don't want to help privacy or take down big tech's abuses, they want to make it worse. All of the reasonable things Andy has said have taken place past that, so in a way the entire conversation is talking past the point.
The question is, how can somebody so influential at a major privacy company not have such a pre-school understanding of major world figures' relationships to his core business?
Andy will one day find out that, in the eye of the magat beholder, he is nothing but yellow. I hope he enjoys getting spent as the token he has become.
Andy out here shooting straight through his foot and putting holes in his boat's hull.
Scratch under the surface of every for profit privacy / anonymity service, you find shitty libertarian cryptobros who probably post racist memes on 4chan while whining about feminism in the man-o-sphere. That doesn't speak to the nature of people who care about privacy, it speaks to the nature of people who care about privacy and also want to do capitalism.
"hey guys social media manager here. It was all my fault. It's not our CEOs fault, at all. Just mine. Who am I? Well I can say my name definitely doesn't start with an A and end in a Y. Just little ol' faceless nameless me. Tee hee sorry."
A wise man once told me, don't mess with politics. The moment you show stance (which usually isn't beneficial), you cut off options from yourself and endanger customer relationship.
Proton should just do business as usual, without that single post things would probably be just fine.
I think that's a different thing. That is a political stance but it's not picking sides. People who want to organise Nazi rallys and people who need to communicate without getting attacked by Nazis both have reasons to use encrypted email. When you pick one over the other, you've cut the size of your userbase.
I would be perfectly happy with a VPN that was openly anti-nazi.
That's not the point. A neutral stance VPN has all the anti-Nazis as customers, and all the Nazis. I would prefer anti-Nazi as well but I get that that a neutral stance means they can have more customers, something they need for economy of scale.
If they had stated their anti-trump stance then the freeze peach lemmy instances would probably have all their Nazis cancelling their proton subscriptions.
Honestly I hope all the cancellations on our side aren't balanced by a bunch of Nazis signing up after seeing the comments.
That was probably their thought too. However, they have misjudged the Lemmy (and I think reddit) population on this, and I would argue that worse than the initial comment is the absolute lack of recognition (in follow up comments) that what they said could be taken as an endorsement of a government that is trying to actively harm a significant portion of the US Proton users.
Dont post pictures of text without links to the source
Always nice to be linked back to Reddit and reminded that it is a terrible place.
Americans just now finding out what has always been in place.
Vpn from Switzerland won't save you - they will share our data if it comes to us needing access to it. And if proton refuses - it would have been shut down already like tiktok
This needs to be pinned at the top: only a Nazi goes out of their way to put an 88 in their username. He thinks he’s clever by putting it in binary so people don’t immediately call him out. Nazis get off on that kind of “clever” dogwhistle.
When was he born? Not everyone knows all the "secret" signs for stuff. How 18 is A.H or how 81 is H.A (Hells Angels) 1% biker clubs have surprisingly much of such codes. 8 is also the number of Khorne in the Warhammer fantasy/sci-fi setting. And before we start with that there are surprisingly few Nazis who play, but the few are very vocal.
Years ago I saw a guy in a crocery store in Norway wearing a "Combat18 Böhmen" hoodie. Buying ingredients for tex-mex taco incidentally. And when I pointed him out to my wife, she said that you are probably the only one in here to know this, and spot him for what he is.
So if Andy was born in 1988 I hope it's why he has 88 in his username.
Here's all I could find about his age in a few minutes:
He was actually born in 1988, according to the author's article. If anyone can find a more reliable resource, please, post it here🙏
Yeah, birth years are super common in usernames (and password, don't use it there). Bob Smith finds his preferred username is taken so becomes BobSmith79 or BobSmith88 or whatever because it's easy an easy enough variation to remember.
You can find patterns/relations in almost anything if you reach for something, kinda like the "six degrees of separation" thing even if there's a more reasonable answer
He's apparently said he was born in 1988. In another thread others mentioned that would make him 21 when he started his PhD, which checks out.
So he can dogwhistle with impunity. Lucky guy.
When was he born? Not everyone knows all the “secret” signs for stuff.
I don't care when he was born. Who puts their birth year in their username? "Here, internet. Here's one less piece of information you need to steal my identity!"
No. "ItS mY bIrF YeEr" is just what nazi shit says when they get called out on being nazi shit.
Look, I can't comment on the significance of binary 88 in this instance with any confidence, but a lot of people use their birth year in their username.
Is it stupid? Absolutely, alongside demonstrating a total lack of any creativity whatsoever. But it's 100% a thing.
Edit: Lol, will also note the first 'people also search' suggestion coming up when Googling Andy Yen is "When was Andy Yen born", and in the 5 seconds of drunken searching I still haven't seen a birth date.
Look, I can’t comment on the significance of binary 88 in this instance with any confidence, but a lot of people use their birth year in their username.
A lot of people who like trump were coincidentally totally born in 1988.
He's my generation. That's what we did in the dawn of the internet when web email was new and shit. Everybody has "coolname87" "dogshit89", "hipguy88" as their username. It's not such a wild idea.
He's younger than me, but there was a broad age range that all caught the internet around the same time. I'm aware that this is how it was once done. Usernames are longer now, allowing for greater creativity.
And this goober still uses his first name and an obfuscated 2 digit number? Yeah, he didn't choose it because it's his birth year.
Tbf I’ve put my birth year in my username before when I was a kid who knew next to nothing about privacy. I’ve seen other people do this too. So it’s not totally implausible. But yeah it is a bad look for Andy regardless.
Tbf I’ve put my birth year in my username before when I was a kid who knew next to nothing about privacy. I’ve seen other people do this too. So it’s not totally implausible.
It's one thing when you're a naive kid or a clueless boomer. It's quite another when you're the ceo of a privacy-focused company.
You are not very old, right?
You're not getting my birth year this way, either.
But in the olden days it was the main solution to “such user already exists” problem,
The account in question is two days old. And it's from the CEO of a VPN service. This isn't him signing up for baby's first AOL account back in 1994.
Yes, a public figure, whose data can be discovered in few minutes, considers his birth year a secret. Also nobody ever used the birth year in their username on the internet.
Also ANDY = 1 + 14 + 4 + 25 = 44, which is half of 88 and contains 14, another nazy symbol. He is trying to pass it off as his name, but who uses their name on the internet? I will check the cabala now, because I am sure there is more.
God, I hope Nick Fury is already grouping the avengers, because Hydra is really making a move here.
If you don't want people to think you're a nazi, don't say good things about trump with 88 sitting right there for everyone to see in your username.
The account is 2 days old. He knew what he was doing.
But that's how dogwhistles work: they can hide behind a veil of plausible deniability.
That doesn't mean he needed to put it in his username.
The motherfucker lives in Switzerland and he supports Putin's Sock Puppet. Fuck Andy. The USA will regress further away from the Swiss standard of living, which is what the USA should be striving for.
As some who has been out literal in the woods, can someone give me more context?
tl:dr Proton CEO came out on Twitter and praised Trump's selection for FTC leader. Which is fine, in my opinion, even though I disagree with it. What's not so fine is that he followed that up with basically "dems are bought and conservatives are more likely to fight for consumer privacy", which is abundantly clearly to anyone who pays attention to US politics, objectively incorrect.
The biggest problem to me was the official Proton reddit account making an official statement agreeing with Andy. Andy blamed this on a "miscommunication" and it has since been deleted, but probably only because of the backlash they were receiving.
He actually didn't touch privacy, he touched antitrust and monopolies. The whole benefit to privacy is indirect by means of a level field.
He believes that republicans will do better than dems in terms of fighting big tech monopolies.
*She
He, Andrew Ferguson
He has stated intentions to ease his predecessor's scrutiny of business mergers and acquisitions, while continuing critical oversight of big tech platforms.
Expect continued increased in costs if goods.
This is also a lie. He did not promote the Republican Party. Words mean something, quit making shit up.
Yes, because nobody (including you) is probably going to do it better: https://www.theguardian.com/...
No he had plenty of time to educate himself but instead doubled and tripled down. Also his username ends in 88 which has been the most unsubtle Nazi dog whistle since the invention of usernames and the internet.
How convenient.
He didn't have to put it in his username.
Where's the 88?
Considering how he runs a business whose goal is to capture the privacy crowd and how a large portion of the privacy crowd is made up of those "Libertarian" tech-bro types, it might be more than just "no clue about American politics", especially since he's also doing stuff like promoting Bitcoin through Proton Wallet which is also popular among "Libertarian" tech-bro types, and the article used for marketing that both-sidesed the problems the "left" vs "right" experience and equated the Democrats with the "left", which is popular among "Libertarian" tech-bro types as well. The 88 in his Reddit username is also suspect regardless of him claiming that it's there because it's his birth year. People who know how to operate a business usually aren't doing it out of stupidity, so I'm not going to give him the benefit of the doubt on this, especially since the entire platform depends on trusting that they aren't doing anything shady.
I moved several years worth of emails off their platform and closed my subscription on Friday. Enough is enough. I’m not giving this guy another dime. I specifically pointed to andy88’s behaviour in the “why are you cancelling” dialogue. I feel for the good people who work at that company and don’t support this, but we all have choices to make.
Tangential: shouldn't it be "Naziism"? Like, in "Nazi" the "i" belongs to "Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei", or the "Natio—" part. But shouldn't there be another "i" that goes with the "ism" suffix, so "Naziism"? Am I thinking about it in the wrong way?
Giorgio Galli ... the born of Nazism and please stop to rant about Trump and Nazism ... the Nazism did not born in Germany but in the civilized Vienna and in France, the young Hitler was having masters that did not seen a judge after the war and the heritage of them is still very much thriving in Bruxelles ... and really I am not here to lecture but to explore the web iceberg with freemind and happiness ... not to bother myself with these gross traces of ignorance ( very easy to be solved with 4-5 kilos of right books ).
What is this about?
I personally think people are overreacting, but hey, we're on lemmy after all..
ah yes, the American mindset
Uh what? I don’t think "a few Europeans on discord" is any representative way. Although I think we have a bigger west east decide (sometimes even per country), but in Western (or northern or even southern) Europe that’s definitely more accepted than in the US.
And European representative surveys have shown trump would have lost like 80:20 here.
Don't like it, move out.
Just a reminder that democrats funded a genocide and police brutality. Democrats are no better than Republicans.
Why is this getting downvoted? It is a well known truth that the Democrats funded the Palestinian Genocide
Many people in Lemmy don’t want to accept reality.
And also a reminder that Switzerland flirted with actual nazism. Remember that whole "neutral" during WWII thing. That was really finlandization of Switzerland from western powers. They operated inside the German economic block.
So telling a swiss company that Trump is a nazi and association with anything even 0.0000001% a nazi would be outside of what you'd expect for a Swiss is kind of funny.
The only thing Nazi-like about Trump is his support of Israel committing a genocide against people who are in the way of Israel's Lebensraum.
The term “Nazi” has been overused so much, especially in US [identity] politics, that it’s losing (or has already lost) its meaning. When are we going to start calling elevator farts “genocide” and “nazism”? 🤷🏻♂️
If the outrage is based on the screenshot of the comment above, I’d say that this is a typical example of “Swiss neutrality” with a touch of “I don’t give a flying f*ck about US politics because I don’t live in the US.” I don’t see how that makes you a nazi??
I suspect I may be missing something here…
You missed the start of all this: https://lemmy.ml/post/24811284
Why would anyone believe the Democrats are not also Nazis? They just spearheaded a live-streamed genocide, and bypassed a law banning sending arms to Nazis so that they could send them billions in arms.
Both parties are Nazis. Both must be stopped. Stop playing this stupid game where they make you fight over which Nazi to follow.
TrUmP iS a NaZi
The pathology of the reply is a psychosis
Calling Trump a Nazi is the same as calling an average Lemmy user a communist. Or calling Kamala a communist.
You're just completely unbounded by reality huh?
Provide the proof that Trump is a nazi
^ classic sealioning
No it is not :( When you make a wild statement you have to prove it. You cannot just say random things then call a troll anyone that tries to understand
huh
Indeed, it's a dumb antagonizing
The hypocrisy of many calling Trump a Nazi is mind boggling.
As far as I can tell Trump can only be deemed a Nazi by association - he's not been going around spouting stuff about people's races making them superior or inferior to others like an ethno-Fascist and instead he's been mostly using traditional Fascist dog whistles (I.e. about the superiority of the Nation), but since he has indeed cultivated the support of neo-nazis and other ethno-Fascists in the US, he's associating with Nazis.
The hypocrisy comes because the most Nazi ideology around right now is Zionism - they're ethno-Fascists, claiming to represent a race, going on and on about the superiority of their race (calling it "the chose people") whilst being overtly racist about Arabs in general and even more so Palestinians who they call "human animals", i.e. subhumans whis is literally untermenschen - and, even more extreme, they're mass murdering them right now by the hundreds of thousands.
Anybody who here and now calls Trump a Nazi due to his association with ethno-Fascists but has previously been defending Biden, Harris and most of the Democrat party as not being Nazis all the while they were actively supporting with weapons the present day Nazis who were actively engaged in a genocide along racial lines, is a hypocrite.
Ditto anybody going around criticizing people who chose to neither vote Democrat nor Republican: it is absolutely understandable that when people only have the choice between two sets of Nazis, many chose "neither". After all, if one is a Nazi by supporting Nazis, then the Republicans supporting of Nazis makes them Nazis and giving support to the Nazis-Republicans (for example by voting for them) makes one a Nazi and exactly in the same way the Democrats supporting the present day Nazis makes them Nazis, so supporting Nazi-Democrats makes one a Nazi - anybody who does indeed believe people can become "Nazi by association" land does not want to be a Nazi, would refuse to vote for either Nazi-by-association party.
I truly respect those with the genuine principles and ideological consistency of calling both main American parties Nazis (as I said, if one thinks associated with Nazi = Nazi, then logically they are both Nazis) or at least Nazi-supporting, because they are.
It's only the political tribalists for whom one group of Nazi-supporters are Nazis but the other group of Nazi-supporters are not Nazis because the former is "them" and the other is "us" who are despicable hypocrites.
As far as I can tell Trump can only be deemed a Nazi by association - he’s not been going around spouting stuff about people’s races making them superior or inferior to others like an ethno-Fascist
Trump says immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country" https://www.nbcnews.com/...
That's traditional Fascism, which is all about the nation.
Nazism would be "Latinos have been poisoning our White blood", a whole different ball game and far, far more prone to extreme violence in the form of things like ethnic cleansing.
If you want to see how present day Nazi ideology manifests itself, look at Zionists: they claim to represent an ethnicity, that their ethnicity are a superior people ("the chosen people") and that the neighbouring ethnicity whose land they invaded and who they are currently mass murdering are less than human ("human animals").
I have yet to see Trump claiming to represent whites, saying that whites are superior and wanting to invade Latin American and murder the latinos because of deeming them subhuman.
Don't get me wrong, Trump absolutely is a Fascist. However directly so far he doesn't seem to be a Nazi and if he is a Nazi because of who he "sits with" then so are the Democrats since they all sit with the Zionists, the biggest and most murderous Nazi-like ideology around.
The expression Mango Mussolini fits Trump so well exactly because he's a Fascist in the same vein as Mussolini, not the same vein as Hitler.
Give me a fucking break. This is from the preamble to the Nuremberg Laws:
purity of German blood is the essential condition for the continued existence of the German people
And Trump:
They let — I think the real number is 15, 16 million people into our country. When they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They’re poisoning the blood of our country. [...] They’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.”
"The German Nazi Party adopted and developed several racial hierarchical categorizations as an important part of its fascist ideology (Nazism) in order to justify enslavement, extermination, ethnic persecution and other atrocities against ethnicities which it deemed genetically or culturally inferior. The Aryan race is a pseudoscientific concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people who descend from the Proto-Indo-Europeans as a racial grouping and it was accepted by Nazi thinkers. The Nazis considered the putative "Aryan race" a superior "master race" with Germanic peoples as representative of Nordic race being best branch" (Source)
In their ideology, German people and Arian Race were the same thing, same as Zionists conflate Israeli with Jewish.
All you proved with your decontextualized quote is that Nazis also claimed to support Germans (which makes sense, as ethno-Fascists are a kind of Fascist hence also use the "love of the nation" in their speeches). That doesn't disprove that they had an ideology of racial superiority, saw other ethnicities as inferiors and committed Genocide along ethnic lines which is what makes the not merely Fascists but actually Nazis (and the reason why people remember them still, whilst almost nobody remembers the parties of the traditional Fascists such as Mussolini or Franco).
To back your claims that Trump is a Nazi rather than "just" a traditional Fascist, you need to show that he has the kind additional ideology elements that made the Nazis be something else (much much worse) than merely Fascists and that's the whole rabid violent racism thing.
That is an absolutely valid take (assuming you really believe the principle rather than merely parroting the slogan), which would mean that Trump, most of the Republicans, Biden, Harris and most of the Democrats are Nazis, as are anybody who supports them in any way form or shape including with a vote, because all are "sitting wit h Nazis" by supportingnthem, which explains why some people simply refused to vote for either party (as they didn't want support Nazis).
You have my total respect if you genuinely believe that as a principle and hence apply it equally to all 11 people sitting on that table with the Nazi.
If however you do not apply that rule equally to all 11 people, and say that only some (Trump) are Nazis for sitting down with modern day Nazis whilst others (Biden) are not Nazis for sitting down with modern day Nazis, then you're just a hypocrite using the word Nazi as a slogan.
Sadly a lot of people here are just jumping on the "let's call Trump a Nazi" bandwagon and do not apply the same rule that justifies caling Trump a Nazi, to those in their own party (which the rule would deem as Nazi since they too wilfully "sit with Nazis") or accept that many people did not vote for their party or the other party exactly because they sawnthosnwhonsupport modern day Nazis as being themselves Nazis (exaxtly as per the sentence you quoted) and hence refuse to not support such Nazis.
You seem to forget that the Democrats ran against Trump. The extent to which they willingly "sat down with" him is the extent to which they were obligated. They weren't blithely enjoying his company at the table, they were arguing with him at it.
I suspect you know the difference and that you're arguing in bad faith.
You're using circular logic or missing my point entirely.
The Democrat leadership sat with Nazis because they support Zionists, who are the biggest group around promoting racial supremacy and ethnic cleansing, and even commiting a Genocide along ethnic lines, all of which are ethno-Fascist ideas, the same kind of ideology as Nazis.
Trump and the Rest of the Republicans sat with Nazis because they too support Zionist as well assupporting white supremacists (a smaller group of Nazis than Zionists and who at the moment aren't commiting Genocide, but who also have a racial supremacy and ethnic cleansing ideology, same as the Zionists and the original Nazis)
As far as I know, Trump himself has never defended racial supremacy or ethnic cleansing, so he is not directly a Nazi. However he definitely seats with Nazis, as does Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
It has nothing to do with seating with each other since it's perfectly possible for opposing groups to both be Nazis because they both support racials supremacist ideas and ethnic cleansing or support people who support those ideas.
If sitting with Nazis makes one a Nazi then everybody who supports Zionists, white supremacists or any other kind of extreme racist political movement which believes in their own racial supremacy and sees it as a reason to violently expel or eliminate people of ethnic groups they see as inferior, is a Nazi, which would means Trump, the Republicans, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Democrats are Nazis since they've been sitting with those who follow ideologies like Nazism.
I just hate when I'm hanging out with a bunch of racist gamers and people think I'm a racist gamer too. Sure, they may say some really inappropriate stuff I laugh at. And sure, I may not stop them when they're ruthlessly mocking some poor person of color, but I myself didn't do it so why would people think I'm a part of them? Everytime we go out to eat they treat all of us like we're terrible people, but really it's just them. I don't get it.
(This was sarcasm. I don't hang with racists but I didn't know how else to paint the picture clearly. Thats how your argument sounded though)
he’s not been going around spouting stuff about people’s races making them superior or inferior to others
you mean like this? https://www.rollingstone.com/...
did you really laugh out loud, or did you just type that, be honest.
that's honestly a real disappointment, I was hoping someone so off the mark would at least be enjoying themselves.
Oh FFS. Please stop abusing the word "Nazi" for every tiny transgression against 2025-era US progressive biases. Why do Americans do this - do you not learn anything at school? Words have meanings. Whatever the reason, to compare someone who isn't "fighting for a more just and equal society" to a "Nazi" just makes you look like a know-nothing ignoramus. It discredits whatever you have to say.
Response to the predictable justifications. Are you all aware that Putin calls democratic Ukraine "Nazi" for exactly the reasons you're all calling Trump one - namely, that it's a big powerful word? Yes, I'm aware of Trump's provocations and impulses. In other times Trump would probably have been more Mussolini than Berlusconi (i.e. a fascist). But "Nazi" is on a whole other level: it implies an apocalyptic, totalitarian, genocidal subversion of what most people consider civilization. This was actually a thing and it bears almost no connection to Trump's brand of chaotic reactionary populism. If you know anything about history then you should know this already. To insinuate that Trumpism is Nazism is insulting to intelligence.
Trump literally brags about studying Hitlers speeches. His father was a well known Nazi sympathizer.
Trump often uses Nazi rhetoric and sologans. The examples of these are extremely numerous and no other broadly supported American politician has been caught as often, all but assuring dog-whistling.
Neo-Nazis openly back Trump and are in his inner circle. They've been caught with swastika flags and tattoos, SS tattoos, 88 tattoos, often ending merchandise on Trump's own websites with $X.88, lifting their arms in a Sig Heil at rallies, etc etc etc etc.
Trump has been asked to condemn his Neo-Nazi supporters and their racial violence, and he refuses.
If it quacks like a Nazi, acts like a Nazi, and literally claims to be a Nazi- we should call it a Nazi.
Adding to that -
And his refusal in the leadup to the 2020 election to denounce the Proud Boys.
"Stand Back and Stand By" isn't the kind of thing you say to a group you want nothing at all to do with.
Sure, the recesses of Trump's mind seem to be a pretty dark place. But the guy was already president and we all know that whatever happens next, it's not going to look anything like Germany circa 1938. You know it, I know, we all all know it. America has strong institutions, Trump is fat and lazy, and most of his followers are not even "national conservatives" let alone fascists or (ridiculously) Nazis. They're people who voted against inflation and immigration. In the meantime, by hystericizing the language like this, you're simultaneously making fools of yourselves and alienating people who you might otherwise persuade.
Last time he had opposition inside his party. Powerful people who didn't want to rock the boat, the 'old guard's. He had a split supreme court. He had a pandemic that slowed and in many ways prevented his plans.
Well, unfortunately, those old guard conservatives have largely been purged. The supreme court has been packed. And while pandemics are not entirely common, people have been lulled into a false sense of security and are unlikely to respond the same.
I don't expect us to lose our vote. But I do expect voter suppression to escalate dramatically.
I don't expect ethic cleansing, but I expect a lot of racial violence and escalating racial tensions.
I don't expect world war, but I do expect a massive erosion of global diplomacy and many minor conflicts.
Most of the people who voted for him are largely brainwashed and uninformed or misinformed. Often times they're scared or mistrusting rather than hateful.
I don't call them Nazi's, and I sincerely hope we can bring many of them back into reality.
But anyone who has paid attention to his rhetoric, his plans, his platform and still voted for it. Well there's a word for people who supported the Nazi party in Germany but didn't support the war or the ethnic cleansing. Nazis. They were called Nazis.
So you won't call half of your fellow citizens Nazis, but they are, in fact, Nazis? Come on. And no, even Trump is not a Nazi, sorry. A quasi-proto-neo-fascist maybe, but not a Nazi. Deporting people who entered the country illegally is not "ethnic cleansing", let's be serious. Apart from tariffs and border security, Trump has no discernable beliefs, he just wants to people to suck up to him. Again: it's ugly, but it's not "Nazi". You're not being serious with language and I can tell from what you write that you know this already.
So calling minorities "vermin" and making up shit about immigrants eating the pets of US citizens is a "tiny transgression"? No, that is text book nazi propaganda fueled by hate and endorsed by idiots.
To quote the incoming administration, "We need a genocide of trans people."
The LGBT community was one of the first groups in the camps. Alongside the immigrants and socialists. You know the famous picture of the Nazis burning books? Those books were records from the German Center for Sexual Wellness, a repository of knowledge about sex and sexuality, and the first known medical facility to treat transgender people using hormone therapy in the 1910s.
Maybe you should learn history before saying something like a know-nothing ignoramus and discrediting whatever you have to say. But go off about "progressive biases." To also quote a Republican complaint, "Reality has a left-leaning bias." Is that what you think, too?
Maybe you should learn history
I have a degree in it.
And yet you fail to see the parallels between Trump's rhetoric (one of Hitler's first campaign promises was to build a wall around Germany to keep the job stealing immigrants out), his and his party's stated goals, even his failed coup attempt (the Beer Hall Putsch sound familiar?), and the rise of Hitler's Nazi party. Even the phrase "Make America Great Again" was used by a pro-Nazi American political group during the onset of WW2, who only disbanded after Pearl Harbor because it united the aggression of all sides of the political spectrum in the US.
Your argument basically boils down to "They're not oligarchs unless they come from the oligarchy region of Russia. Otherwise, they're "sparkling billionaires.""
You majored in this in college, while I've learned much of the finer details of the Nazi party because of Republican policies in the past decade. If it steps like a goose, Sig Heils like a goose, and quacks about the purity of Aryan blood, I'm sure as hell not calling it a duck because it's an American goose and not a German one of 1910s breeding stock.
And even in that metaphor, you could argue a direct lineage between the MAGA party and the Nazi party because the incoming president is the son of a real estate tycoon who was a German immigrant whose previous business was refining jet fuel for the Third Reich's Me-262 Schwalbes produced by Messerschmitt.
Yes, I see the parallels. It's a question of degree and context. Your average MAGA hat wearer is comparable to a Nazi in the same way that your average American "democratic socialist" who cheers on the murder of a CEO is comparable to a Stalinist. Both of them are reckless fools before they're actual Nazis and communists. If either of them got their way, bad things would happen which would surprise them as much as anyone else. I think we would do well to turn down the temperature a bit and try to understand each other rather than throw around these big insulting words that clearly we don't really understand.
He is flirting with the alt-right. And some movements „dabble“ in nazi memorabilia to mention the most flagrant connections to it or his failure to even outright criticize Hitler.
I know that the word Nazi is really triggering but its also true in this case. He is not said to be a Nazi himself but flirting with them. Which is factual and not really discrediting per se.
If the only argument here is: Nazis can only be German and its a historical term that cannot ever be applied to other nations I think that belies how everyone consistently uses language in a not strict academic sense and even then there are academic papers linking him to Nazism and right ideology in general.
And your other insinuation of saying that „anyone who isnt working for a more just and equal society“ would be applicable to Trump, his campaign and the things he platforms falls flat if you look at what his recurring talking points are. Sure let’s use the word Nazi less bit of course in association with Trump it gets used for very clear, explicit parallels. But I don’t think you really care about that if you try to frame everything as tiny transgressions by people who are just not „fighting for a more just and equal society“. If Nazi is too strong a word, what would you propose? And is the use of it logically a valid reason to discredit an opinion? On an open source platform talking about people who have English as a second or third language?
If Nazi is too strong a word, what would you propose?
Something that describes the phenomenon you're talking about. "Nationalist", "national populist", "rightwing populist", "hard-right reactionary", etc etc. There are lots. No, they don't get your blood pumping like "Nazi", but the benefit is that they save you from looking like an ignorant extremist and might also help you be more persuasive.
Are you trying to be wrong on every thread about this you post in? To follow up on @EldritchFeminity point about the LGBT community, one of the other groups first targeted by the Nazi's were the disabled. Trump is on record as stating (as per his nephew) that disabled people should 'just die' and has openly mocked disabled people. His views are so close to 1930s/40s era Nazism as to make no real difference.
Are you trying to be wrong on every thread about this you post in?
So you're keeping tabs on me, I see. Maybe you're drawing up a list of my transgressions?
Yes and I recognize yours. But the fact that I thought you were "wrong" yesterday too is completely uninteresting to everyone else here.
[...] to compare someone who isn't "fighting for a more just and equal society" to a "Nazi" just makes you look like a know-nothing ignoramus.
(emphasis mine)
What an interesting way to describe the technocratic class that is aligning themselves with Trump. Are you up for a promotion at a FAANG, maybe? For recently rolling back some DEI policies perhaps?
Ok, let's agree on "Nazi Sympathiser"
@lemmy.ml
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
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- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
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@lemmy.ml
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
go to feed...
I can't be the only one who struggled to read that, and for general accessibility purposes since I'm already here:
Image ID:
andy1011000 Proton CEO posted:
"People honestly seem to forget that I live in Switzerland, where Republican/Democrat doesn't mean anything, and Trump isn't even on our ballot to be voted for..."
Onyx376. replied:
"The point is that fighting for a more just and equal society is not just about fighting for the fundamental right to privacy but also for all other fundamental rights, including individual rights and life. When you, as the CEO of a company that starts from these principles, nod positively to whatever action a political figure like Trump, who is known for always flagrantly putting his private interests ahead of those of his own nation, makes speeches about eliminating minorities, hurting their rights as citizens and flirting with Nazi movements, it is understandable that members of the privacy community are disappointed as this reveals a little about who is being the face of a company that should follow contrary principles. But now we really know what "freedom" means to you."
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