this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2026
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Proton

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Video description explicitly mentions a partnership (not just affiliate link) + 2min 20s segment embedded in the video.

The person in question: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Lapierre

User Lumpy_Carpet9877 shares more info:

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

I'll add that if you dare venture on his youtube channel (at the risk of ruining your suggestion algorithm like I did to provide the screenshot), you'll see that most videos are typical far right content / talking points

Update: read Proton's response below

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."

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[–] KiwiTB@lemmy.world 160 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Hes in their partner program which anyone can sign up to from what I saw, not being directly sponsored.

[–] imahappyguy@lemmy.world 84 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, checked out the link and it's just a sign up for proton mail. He probably just signed up for their partner program and Proton has put in zero effort into seeing who signs up.

[–] JustEnoughDucks@slrpnk.net 43 points 2 weeks ago

How dare you suggest tech journalism isn't just trying to sensationalize a nothing burger without doing more than 10 minutes of research??

[–] PixelatedSaturn@lemmy.world 75 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Not worth the post. The guy just automatically got their link.

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[–] MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zip 65 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Seems like a decent response to me.

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[–] Jerry@feddit.online 35 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] inlandempire@jlai.lu 21 points 2 weeks ago

Thank you! I'll update the post

[–] Jerry@feddit.online 27 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Apparently this is a false alarm.

For all those going off on being negative about Proton based on an ambiguous post, this is the best explanation of Proton's political position: https://medium.com/@ovenplayer/does-proton-really-support-trump-a-deeper-analysis-and-surprising-findings-aed4fee4305e

[–] zeezee@slrpnk.net 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

TLDR: my conclusion is that it is far more likely that Proton and its CEO are actually liberals.

😔😔😔

[–] egrets@lemmy.world 22 points 2 weeks ago (20 children)

An affiliate or sponsorship arrangement is a transactional placement for awareness, not an endorsement of a creator's views. [...] The responsibility to vet who we put our name next to is ours.

I'm willing to give Proton a fair amount of the benefit of the doubt (albeit a little less after the Trump-endorsing antitrust tweet by Yen a few years ago), but this is a baffling set of statements.

"The type of people we pay to plug our services doesn't indicate that we endorse their message. I mean, obviously it does, but we don't care enough to manage it closely."

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[–] Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 16 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

The majority of the time youtube sponsorships have almost no where near enough over-site into who they are sponsoring. Its commonly a shotgun approach. Hell half the time companies arn't even doing it driectly but going though a middle man company that sends out the emails and all they have to do is sorta review it once and a while to make sure that company is doing their job.

It's extremely obvious this is yet again another great example of that. The number of times companies have found themselves sponsoring someone they don't agree with or would never do in any other circumstances is staggering on youtube. It's basically a running joke at this point.

This is basically a fat fucking nothing burger beyond "yet again a company fucks up due to language barriers and poor management." Honestly i wouldnt be half surprised if they review their process fix it and then it goes right back to being half broken in 6 weeks.

Its basically youtube sponsership 101 at this point.

[–] Alaknar@sopuli.xyz 8 points 2 weeks ago

over-site

oversight

The majority of the time youtube sponsorships have almost no where near enough over-site into who they are sponsoring. Its commonly a shotgun approach

Exactly. I don't think any reasonable person can expect that a relatively small company knows and understands the ins-and-outs of every country's political spectrum.

The number of times companies have found themselves sponsoring someone they don’t agree with or would never do in any other circumstances is staggering on youtube. It’s basically a running joke at this point.

Especially because, like you noted, they mostly do that through third parties. And a third party might be super comfortable supporting someone like that. How often does anyone pay enough attention to call them out on it?

[–] ironycanal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah. Never mind last time.

[–] wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

At first glance I thought that was Billy Mays

[–] GMac@feddit.org 7 points 2 weeks ago

Decent response but they need to do better.

[–] Rat_in_a_hat@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Their response sounds like what AI would say when it's called out.

They should do better and they should make public what they'll do so it won't happen again

[–] okamiueru@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Oh? Doesn't seem like that to me at all. In fact, it was a pretty decent response.

[–] Rat_in_a_hat@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

They admitted they were wrong, what corrective action will they take?

[–] axx@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 weeks ago

This is it. Saying "that's on us" and then saying "keep telling us, we rely on you" shows no real change in behaviour, it mostly amounts to a "oops, made a booboo, better say something to make the cross people less cross".

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[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 4 points 2 weeks ago

Proton has started advertising on leftist channels within the last month or two, which doesn't make Proton leftist. IMO, what it really means is that there is greater distrust between political views - we got rightwing crazies wanting to ICE people, and so naturally their minority opposition wants more privacy. In turn, the crazies also need to cover their own ass, so they use VPNs to hide their search results of [insert local school, minority, or individual here] from potential leaking to government.

Point being, such fear and hatred is a good opportunity for arms to be supplied to every side. Those arms, in this case, being encrypted privacy. Proton is being pragmatic.

[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 2 points 2 weeks ago

Link to article?

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