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Joined 2Y ago
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Cake day: Jun 29, 2023

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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.


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.


Do you realise that this is a tautology? People who accuse people of being Nazis without concrete evidence

I didn’t put the 88 in his username. I didn’t force him to praise trump.

Or maybe he used his own judgment which is based on his own cultural background.

Stop hiding behind his cultural background just because it’s convenient for you.

Everyone knows that everyone should behave and say things that need to conform first and foremost to the sensibility of Americans.

If he’s talking to Americans and already stuck his foot in his mouth, he should have run this through his company’s PR department before making a username with 88 in it.

The assumption is that “everyone who disagrees with me is a Nazi”.

That’s your deliberate mischaracterization of anyone who disagrees with nazis.

I wonder if you can even admit that both nazis and trump are shit.




What benefit do all those who have kissed trump’s ring thus far get? All I know is that I’m not about to trust my privacy to someone with 88 in their username. I only signed up for proton last month because of trump. I’ll be leaving for another service for the same reason.


He’s trying to have it both ways though. He wants to support trump and then be like “nooooo! What are you talking about? We’re neutral!

Yeah, with the same Swiss neutrality that doesn’t care whose teeth the gold came from.


And I am not defending the choice of 88.

If you say so.

You are good, so anybody who disagrees with you is automatically evil.

Nonsense. People of good conscience can disagree in good faith. People who praise trump and have 88 in their usernames are not people of good conscience, and I don’t think you’re defending him in good faith.

do not try to reflect on the fact you are projecting your culture on a Taiwanese person

They said it on an English language forum in English about an American president-elect. The account was two days old. If his judgement is that shitty here, it’s shitty everywhere.

Do not reflect on what’s the likelihood a normal guy, with a PhD in physics

Yeah, whoever heard of a PhD being a nazi?

who built a great company that protects millions of people is actually a Nazi, and decides to show it because why not.

Whoever heard of a techbro having nazi sympathies?

Sit on your absolutely simplicistic assumption, because this reinforces all your previous beliefs, and makes the world a much simpler place!

Nazis are shit. That’s simplistic. And true. And it offends you deeply.


He supported Trump’s pick. I know reality makes little difference for you, but still.

I know you’re defending him for two reasons. This is one of them.

Also yes, he put 88 in his username,

And this is the other.

which is not a crime,

No, it’s not a crime to be a nazi in the US. I hope it is in your country.

Correct, because a non US citizen communist republicans are my party.

I didn’t say republicans were your party.

I think it’s quite clear that I am also a Nazi, trying to cover my Nazi colleague Andy.

I believe you.



Also, it’s not “sitting there for everyone to see” because it’s binary.

Yes, obfuscating it makes it better!

Maybe it’s not your responsibility to compute the cabala horoscope for everything you do, and assume that people will be able to use at least the 2% of the brain and for example distinguish from a bold Nazi supporter with 88 tattooed and a guy born in 88 who appends 88 to his username (in a nerd way). But apparently not.

He supported trump with 88 in his username.

He created an account to speak personally and not from the proton account he uses before.

And he didn’t need to put 88 in there, or obfuscate it. And I’m increasingly certain that you’re freaking out and defending him for it because you’re happy that your political party is represented.


Unlike being a Nazi, nobody gets punched in the face for being a stoner.

Police have a long history of punching stoners in the face and worse. If you don’t want to get called a nazi, don’t do nazi shit with an 88 in your username.


I’m just saying that if a stoner tried to convince me that he had 420 in his username because he was born on April 20, I wouldn’t buy it.


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.


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.


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.


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.


“Chill, I was just drawing a meaningless distinction between my party and another part of my party with identical views!”


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.



Gee. Which side has all the people marching with nazi flags?

Which side never kicks them out when they do?


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.


“we refused pressure to deplatform both Jewish student groups and National Socialist student groups”

They are a Swiss company, yes.



People that Trump hates use proton as an end-run around the actions of trump’s cult.



Ads for replacements for items in your luggage they broke?

The whole experience sounds like an ad for Greyhound or Amtrak.


Which will be followed by letting companies pay to see who to retaliate against.


…for now. This isn’t a beloved google service that people were relying on. This is the means by which google intents to subjugate and fully enshittify the web. They’ll try again under different names until one takes. It only has to work once.


How useful would an AI model be if it were trained on the content from a social media platform full of nazis, russian trolls, and bots?



It’s like a CVS receipt of privacy invasion.