> You're right to raise this, and we want to address it directly and provide you important context on how this happened.
> Vincent Lapierre's channel should never have been part of our affiliate and sponsorship program, because we intentionally avoid association with channels whose content could distract from our message and divide our community.
> Proton operates globally, and while our services are available to everyone regardless of political views and our mission is consistent everywhere, our knowledge of every local media landscape is not. In this case, our team didn't have enough context about the French space to make a well-informed decision, and that's on us.
> We also want to be straight about what a placement like this is and isn't. An affiliate or sponsorship arrangement is a transactional placement for awareness, not an endorsement of a creator's views. In the case of Vincent Lapierre, this was a single video sponsorship, not a partnership.
> But that distinction doesn't excuse what happened here. The responsibility to vet who we put our name next to is ours, and we didn't meet it this time. We're now reviewing our vetting process and our guidelines for our marketing agencies to ensure this doesn't happen again.
> If you see something like this again, tell us. We rely on your feedback and vigilance.
It's 2026. LLMs are integrated into text editors the same way as spell checkers and grammar checkers. Even if people write things themselves, they likely are using LLMs to review and edit.
This isn't a bot pretending to be a human, this is an official announcement from a company. It's going to be written by a committee and edited by legal and PR and marketing anyway. Who cares if one (or several) of those steps used an LLM.
i can totally understand this piece of news being a "stab".
but, i dont understand the 404 piece. they are a lawfully operating company, they will answer lawful requests. the same will be true of any and all companies you choose to use for your mail.
in this case, only payment data was handed over. if your payment history is of concern, proton accepts cash and bitcoin
(if anything, this should be a point in favor of proton, seeing as how the only data they were able to hand over was payment data, and not email contents)
I'm very sorry to hear about this news. I've read through the responses from Proton and don't find it sufficient. I'm now seeking an alternative even though one of my current emails are provided through Proton Mail.
Basically, yes. If you support inequality in front of the law (basically that laws should apply differently depending on your skin n colour or your religion), you are far right. Shouldn't be that hard to understand. In general, most reactionary politics are far-right, although you're right that being reactionnary isn't enough to be categorised as such. But any reactionnary policy that create more hierarchical levels is definitely in that category.
Response from Proton
> You're right to raise this, and we want to address it directly and provide you important context on how this happened.
> Vincent Lapierre's channel should never have been part of our affiliate and sponsorship program, because we intentionally avoid association with channels whose content could distract from our message and divide our community.
> Proton operates globally, and while our services are available to everyone regardless of political views and our mission is consistent everywhere, our knowledge of every local media landscape is not. In this case, our team didn't have enough context about the French space to make a well-informed decision, and that's on us.
> We also want to be straight about what a placement like this is and isn't. An affiliate or sponsorship arrangement is a transactional placement for awareness, not an endorsement of a creator's views. In the case of Vincent Lapierre, this was a single video sponsorship, not a partnership.
> But that distinction doesn't excuse what happened here. The responsibility to vet who we put our name next to is ours, and we didn't meet it this time. We're now reviewing our vetting process and our guidelines for our marketing agencies to ensure this doesn't happen again.
> If you see something like this again, tell us. We rely on your feedback and vigilance.
Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1u05xs2/comment...
> You're right to raise this
Is this LLM generated?
Lazy enough to draft their response with LLMs, but not diligent enough to vett their sponsors with LLMs.
Does it matter if it was?
It's 2026. LLMs are integrated into text editors the same way as spell checkers and grammar checkers. Even if people write things themselves, they likely are using LLMs to review and edit.
This isn't a bot pretending to be a human, this is an official announcement from a company. It's going to be written by a committee and edited by legal and PR and marketing anyway. Who cares if one (or several) of those steps used an LLM.
2 replies →
You're right to raise this
Possibly reworded by llm. It would make sense for sensitive communication
This is valid construct in languages, and a very legitimate use of this construct in the context.
If this was AI generated (which I am not convinced of given the full text), it escapes my alarm bells.
Honestly, I think this is a good response.
Does not dodge responsibility, offers a good explanation, agrees that current vetting process is imperfect.
> We rely on your [..] vigilance
A crazy idea, but: Why not be vigilant, yourselves?
They responded around 3 hours ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1u05xs2/can_som...
After the 404 piece on them (https://404media.co/proton-mail-helped-fbi-unmask-anonymous-...), this is the second stab at the good opinion I had about them :/
Not saying there's a pattern behind those two informations but I'll definitely be watching more closely their news.
i can totally understand this piece of news being a "stab".
but, i dont understand the 404 piece. they are a lawfully operating company, they will answer lawful requests. the same will be true of any and all companies you choose to use for your mail.
in this case, only payment data was handed over. if your payment history is of concern, proton accepts cash and bitcoin
(if anything, this should be a point in favor of proton, seeing as how the only data they were able to hand over was payment data, and not email contents)
So they sponsored one YouTuber. What's the problem exactly?
I'm very sorry to hear about this news. I've read through the responses from Proton and don't find it sufficient. I'm now seeking an alternative even though one of my current emails are provided through Proton Mail.
>I've read through the responses from Proton and don't find it sufficient.
i thought their response was pretty reasonable.
what would a sufficient response for you look like?
Seemed sufficient to me. They said it was a mistake and they'll be more careful not to sponsor nazis in the future
> I've read through the responses from Proton and don't find it sufficient.
Genuinely curious: What do you find insufficient specifically?
Deleting posts about this topic from /r/proton (which is moderated by proton)!?
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Basically, yes. If you support inequality in front of the law (basically that laws should apply differently depending on your skin n colour or your religion), you are far right. Shouldn't be that hard to understand. In general, most reactionary politics are far-right, although you're right that being reactionnary isn't enough to be categorised as such. But any reactionnary policy that create more hierarchical levels is definitely in that category.