I want to preface this question by saying that I'm not trolling and I'm not defending Proton. I'm genuinely confused at the reaction to this article.

I'm also upset with Proton's recent comments, specifically the December tweet and subsequent responses, and I'm evaluating my use of Proton.

Near as I can tell, this article (which I did read) lays out the facts about Deepseek as an LLM originating in China and the implications of that.

Why is this article a reason to pile on proton?

this is obviously talking about their web app, which most people will be using. In this special instance, it was clearly not the LLM itself censoring the Tiananmen Square, but a layer on top.

i have not bothered downloading and asking deepseek about Tiananmen Square. so i cannot know what the model would have generated. however, it is possible that certain biasses are trained into any model.

i am pretty sure, this blog is aimed at the average user. while i wouldn't trust any LLM company with my data, i certainly wouldn't want the chinese government to have them. anyone that knows how to use (ollama)[https://github.com/ollama/ollama] should know these telemetry data don't apply to running locally. but for sure, pointing it out in the blog would help.

1978 US Automotive Companies: If we make a product that locks our customers in, they'll be our customers forever!

1978 Japanese Automotive Companies: The US gave us their required parameters. If we make a product that works then customers will keep buying our stuff.

2025 US Tech Companies: If we make our products contingent on proprietary software and hardware, we'll lock them in.

2025 Chinese Tech Companies: The US gave us their required parameters. If we make a product that works and they can utilize freely, they'll keep buying our stuff.

Not our first rodeo.

Jesus fuckin Christ, just marry Trump at this point, Mister proton CEO.

Goddammit I had such high hopes for Proton. Was planning on that being my post-Google main. Now what. 💀