But it looks like Proton does not choose the beneficiaries. From their statement:
‘Recipients are nominated by the Proton community and selected based on community feedback. Proton doesn’t nominate the recipients.
Recipients cannot be changed after the raffle begins and the fact that some find Bellingcat controversial was not known beforehand.
While in theory it is nice that an organisation would give over so much power to its customers in terms of where donations go, it does come with the risk of problematic decisions being made. Then later, when they’ve boxed themselves into a corner, quite unnecessarily, all they can do is go along with what their customers decide and then pass on the morality of that decision to those customers. But that’s not really good enough to say “My customers made me do it!” No, you gave your customers too much power in the first place. It’s a privacy organisation so surely better to give some money to a group that supports and compliments your aims. Bellingcat (regardless of the problems raised in the article I posted) has nothing to with privacy. If people read the article and decide they are happy with Proton, then go for it. I’d rather people make a decision with their eyes open.
But it looks like Proton does not choose the beneficiaries. From their statement:
While in theory it is nice that an organisation would give over so much power to its customers in terms of where donations go, it does come with the risk of problematic decisions being made. Then later, when they’ve boxed themselves into a corner, quite unnecessarily, all they can do is go along with what their customers decide and then pass on the morality of that decision to those customers. But that’s not really good enough to say “My customers made me do it!” No, you gave your customers too much power in the first place. It’s a privacy organisation so surely better to give some money to a group that supports and compliments your aims. Bellingcat (regardless of the problems raised in the article I posted) has nothing to with privacy. If people read the article and decide they are happy with Proton, then go for it. I’d rather people make a decision with their eyes open.
While I kinda like what Bellingcat does, you do have a point. Crowdsourcing decisions rarely lead to good outcomes