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.
Andy out here shooting straight through his foot and putting holes in his boat’s hull.
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.
They showed political stances all the time when it comes to privacy and antitrust, just look at their blog. Why wouldn’t they? What they do is also political, as a company.
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.
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.
This is at the same time:
- a novax level conspiracy
- a completely idotic assumption that not only doesn’t stand Occam’s razor, but not even basic common sense.
- racist and showing a colonial mindset, clearly prioritising what is relevant in YOUR culture (superior, more important), compared to what is relevant in that person’s culture.
Please can someone tell me how this attitude is fundamentally different from people who are in other cults (maga, novax, etc.)?
For limited people, maybe.
88 is:
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important for people born in 1988
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amateur radio romantic message (apparently older than Nazis, don’t ask me how I know, but it has to do with being used in that, and not HH, meaning in one Nazi song ; felt strange for me, until I’ve just read that it was a telegraph thing before radio)
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two eternity symbols turned (not those wheely ones)
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as people have mentioned, common as a lucky number in certain parts of the globe
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people can also be born on 8 August
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had that number on some item memorable for him (I had 72 in plenty of my nicknames, I can promise you it’s not about 72 virgins or 72 names of god and I’m not Muslim, I just had a yellow t-shirt with that number when I was a kid).
The funny part is that points #2 and #4 are probably known to him, tech company and all.
Why are you so knowledgeable of plausible deniabilities for a Nazi symbology?
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Keep in mind that the number 8 is auspicious and lucky in many parts of Asia. Any time I see a bunch of 8s in a username I think it’s for luck.
I promise you this restaurant (and the hundreds of others with 88 in the name) are not dogwhistling for anything other than luck.
Can’t speak for how this reflects on Andy Yen as I’m not familiar with him, but I just want y’all to know you can’t assume 88 = HH in every case.
But he is swiss, and here we know that 88 is for prising Hitler
He is from Taiwan, studies in US and then moved to Switzerland.
But that’s how dogwhistles work: they can hide behind a veil of plausible deniability.
If it’s really plausible, then you’ve got no way to tell it’s a dogwhistle.
Your comment is equivalent to “I can’t prove that Jews rule the world, but that’s because they’ve worked for plausible deniability, I know they do”.
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.
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.
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🙏
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.
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.
Who puts their birth year in their username?
You are not very old, right?
Maybe now, in our stupid time, folks use phone numbers for identity, some stupid handle (or just their actual name) and then post a lot of text, photos and such, totally less harmful for their privacy than their birth year. And no birth year
But in the olden days it was the main solution to “such user already exists” problem, combined with things like ‘xXx’ and ‘+0+’ on both sides or something.
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.
To be clear, I’m not arguing that people don’t put 88 as a clear dog whistle to white supremacists/general Nazi bullshit. This is more to the comment “who puts their birth year in their username?” bit specifically. The answer is a lot of people.
I also am not excusing Yen for his pro-Trump comments - that was fucking bullshit and I’m deeply disappointed - I’m just saying the YOB thing is a thing, but also coincidentally I also can’t seem to find a source to prove if he’s also doing the YOB thing or something else.
Note to self: Limit Lemmy to 3 beers max, particularly where Trumpian bullshit is involved. And thank god for autocorrect. Apologies, I really should not be interneting right now.
To be clear, I’m not arguing that people don’t put 88 as a clear dog whistle to white supremacists/general Nazi bullshit.
To be clear, anyone who supports trump is already nazi-adjacent enough to get no benefit of the doubt, and I don’t buy the “It’s my birth year” shit from any of them. Even if they were born in 1988, that’s not the reason 88 is in their username.
I also don’t believe that someone whose entire personality centers around cannabis has “420” in their username because they were born on April 20th. I don’t believe that some fratboy who is constantly making horny comments has “69” in his username because he was born on June 9th, either.
88 is so much worse that I wouldn’t even compare then to the anodyne 420 & 69 examples.
Holy shit. That is indeed 88 in binary…
Wait, the proton ceo is a trump supporter? What the fuck, he’s the last person I thought would do that
No, I would not describe him as a trump supporter. I would say that he’s a right-wing “Libertarian” tech-bro that has no clue about American politics, just spewing his uneducated bs because he thinks he’s some genius. He might be a CERN scientist, but he’s a dumbass when it comes to American politics.
(But it is concerning to have such an idiot on the board of the Proton Foundation)
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.
Isn’t 88 considered extremely lucky in Chinese culture?
You honestly think that’s what he was going for? Someone who grew up in a culture pretty heavily insulated from that but steeped in “former” Nazi ties?
Not only is 88 considered suspicious in his native culture, he was also born in 1988. Normally, yes, be wary of the 88 dog whistle, but without further evidence it looks like a nothing-burger in this case.
I think he’s more likely fascist than a Nazi, given the differentiator being the racial purity part. He lives and works in Switzerland, but was born in Taiwan and educated in the US.
Where’s the 88?
1011000 is binary for 88
Ohhhh. Drag thought it was the ASCII code for X
If you look a bit around in this thread, someone linked an article that mentions he was born in 1988.
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.
How do you explain the 88 in his username? That’s not an American thing.
My guess is that it’s a neo-Nazi thing, so his promoting right-wing American politics (his largest userbase) is probably intentional and not just him being stupid
the comments in that thread is such a reddit moment
Sounds like the CEO of proton doesnt understand the basic privacy concerns for the US VPN market. He should really look that up someday-- theres money to be made in the Us market if he cared enough.
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.
Gee. Which side has all the people marching with nazi flags?
Which side never kicks them out when they do?
Wasting your time explaining nuance and facts to literal retards, which are the majority of lemmings.
Now now. Many MAGA are in fact documented nazis, and Trump’s record is bad but it quite as explicit as that. If you’re afraid of the term being bandied about, I recommend therapy.
Far right is not mutually exclusive to Nazism
They don’t kick their nazi buddies out of their events.
I recommend therapy.
Poe’s law detector fail
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.
chill
“Chill, I was just drawing a meaningless distinction between my party and another part of my party with identical views!”
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
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.
Americans are not flirting with Nazism. They dated it, married it and had many children with it.
Dont post pictures of text without links to the source
Sorry. I’ve already added it.
All he had to do was keep his mouth shut & show his support on another account
Calling Trump a Nazi is the same as calling an average Lemmy user a communist. Or calling Kamala a communist.
Indeed, it’s a dumb antagonizing
Calling a fascist a fascist is actually not the same thing as calling a fascist a communist. Trump and Kamala can both go to the Hague.
You’re just completely unbounded by reality huh?
Provide the proof that Trump is a nazi
^ classic sealioning
huh
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.
