Comment by kfreds

I wonder if by this thread's logic, it is now my turn to virtue signal as if I'm leaving Mullvad as a customer, because now you said that don't like someone else's freedom of conscience, and I value freedom of conscience.

Such a bad place we're in: people say they value "freedom", but then you can't choose you own political representation without being witch-hunted to death by the same "freedom" group.

(I honestly think that the perfect response in this case would be to support the cofounder, if anything, to make their own choices, and refuse to hate on the person's political leaning. But alas, the chains of freedom are super heavy.)

>I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues.

Its a strange world now where everyone is expected to have a public opinion on everyone else's opinions to keep them in line. Very anti privacy, anti freedom, and against plurality of opinion.

Really fighting windmills with the hot takes about things that aren't true. "Sweden actually has a hidden wealth tax" and "The money supply is the real inflation!!"

Really in line with typical views of right-leaning people you see on X etc.

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> I'm not defending his choice, but consider reading Daniel's rationale

This is literally defending his choice. More than that it is providing direct support to the views you are apparently trying to distance yourself from by suggesting people read literature in favour of them - not in a context where they even see opposing arguments.

But as a fun aside to the people debating that his views aren't right wing... consider this quote from the aforementioned blog (translation made via firefox's swedish to english model)

> A building permit officer at a municipal city building office is primarily dedicated to preventing, making it difficult, costly, delayed and uneasy construction. He causes great damage and thus produces negative value, but still also receives his salary from the tax of others and is thus supported by others.

Can we get more right wing than claiming that imposing standards on industry so they don't go around building death traps that kill people to save a few bucks "causes great damage and thus produces negative value". Not even as an argument that this particular office is overly restrictive, but just as a statement about building permit officers in general.

> As I said in another comment, speaking for myself, I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues.

Maybe there's a case to distance Mullvad from him, then. Not taking a stand is also a political choice.

Perhaps you should talk to customer support and try to get your money back. Even if it won't work, there's no faster way to reach the company to make a stand than to have an explicit paper trail to customers that are leaving them because of this.

What is the issue with Proton?

IVPN, NymVPN

Yeah, what's your point? Plenty of us are actively opposing the evil things our tax dollars fund all the time. If we could safely opt out of paying taxes for those things, we would.

But Mullvad isn't the government. I can get a VPN from somewhere else. I can opt out of funding something that I consider morally abhorrent.

> Geez, I hope you do not pay give any money to Google, Microsoft and such.

Yes? I have been divesting from big tech. Not only do I feel good about it but the side effects have been positive too.

Yes, I check whether my local bakery is run by people with hateful politics.

You don't think there's a difference between a founder and a random employee?

Why shouldn't someone divest from big tech companies if they think they are harmful?

If I found out that my local bakery was funding regressive far-right politics, I absolutely would stop going to that bakery.

These are silly questions with easy answers if you have basic moral standards. By mocking people for having standards, you just reveal you lack them yourself.

> [Bad companies] have many employees and I am sure some of them donate to causes you would disagree with using (part of) the money you gave to those companies.

People keep saying these things and I simply don't understand this at all. For sure some of my money goes to things I don't want to support, but for the money I can control and know where it's going without doing active research (though that approach can be also used), and even if it's just what I get as info through newspapers, forums and news sites, it absolutely shouldn't get people who I think of a re extreme rascist (regardless of whether this applies in this specific case).

An employee is different from a cofounder.

For example, I certainly boycott anything to do with Elon Musk, for the same kinds of reasons.

You seem to be falling into the "perfect is the enemy of the good" trap. It's not possibly to perfectly boycott every person and organization that deserves to be sanctioned, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it where it is possible.

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> But you're doing the same thing, making the same threat. You've only escalated it from a conscientious protest to a Texas stand off.

Yup, because I want the people attempting the conscientious protest to have less power to influence businesses and the people businesses employ. An apolitical firm is less likely to bow to pressure from one group of activists if they know that another, opposing group of activists is paying attention to how they respond to pressure from the first group of activists. Really, this has nothing at all to do with Mullvad specifically, except it does happen that I am a long-time customer of theirs.

> Now more than ever, it's hard for me to believe their brand identity. You're allowed to have political opinions, voice them and vote for them when you're a CEO. But spending customer money on political campaigns is how you ask for a boycott. It's how I would feel about any political investment that their CEOs make, and its already tarnished the Mullvad brand for me.

I don't see a meaningful difference between voicing political opinions and voting based on them, and making private donations to a political cause. Any money at all that an owner of a company spends on anything, down to their groceries, comes from their ownership of the company; just as any money at all that an employee of a company spends on anything comes from their salary.

But also lots of CEOs of companies make all kinds of political donations, many of which I think are bad. The reason this particular donation is making the news is because it's to an anti-immigration party rather than a pro-immigration party or NGO or some other cause; and a lot of people want to exert social pressure to make that specific political stance dangerous. Those are exactly the people I want to lose.

> But you're doing the same thing, making the same threat.

"I'll boycott you if you keep supporting free speech" and "I'll boycott you if you stop supporting free speech" are hardly the same thing, especially when aimed at a company whose business is all about free speech, which at the dismay of some people also includes speech you don't like.

> A stance that Sweden should reduce the amount of immigration they accept would be utterly unremarkable and never result in outrage like this.

I don't believe this claim, because immigration is a live political issue in my country (the United States) just as it is in Sweden; and people absolutely claim that reducing the amount of immigration the US accepts is immoral and genocidal. Seriously, claims of this nature are a huge amount of contemporary American politics and this is obvious to anyone who has seen the name "Donald Trump" in a news publication talking about the US in the past decade. Also I've read Bryan Caplan's argument that not having open borders is morally equivalent to Jim Crow, and read plenty of other people who think similarly to him.

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Mullvad isn't doing anything here. A person within Mullvad is.

If I work for Google and buy a BMW, that doesn't mean Google endorses BMW.

> while cozying up to the government

Uh, the Örebro Party isn't even elected. In fact, they have 0 seats at the Swedish parliament.

A political entity =/= The Government.

>he's still willing to associate with me

Presumably because you are not an immigrant (or the child of an immigrant).

This is entirely false, not every country is the USA. Sweden does not have birthright citizenship. Most Somalis and their children in Sweden are not Swedish citizens.

To add, they all retain their Somali citizenship.

> don't understand the language

Seriously? It's not like the Somalis have been in Sweden that long.

And to be sure, I agree Daniel is entitled to his opinions and the right to do with his money as he pleases. Of course there may be business consequences for doing so in terms of how the user base reacts.

I think the bigger problem -- and I don't know the rules for political donations in Sweden -- is that any individual is able to pour millions into a political party of any persuasion. In the US this situation is made much worse since a Supreme Court ruling known as Citizens United which opened the floodgates for the ultra-wealthy to bankroll politicians. But that's another discussion altogether.

You would have been so much better off just ending on the, already obvious BS, part about how his views aren't the companies. Instead, you went on to downplay the obvious problem.

Mullvad was one of the last products I felt I could honestly recommend, and feel good about. Never falling for this garbage again. The world is complete shit right now.

I think you're just bad at identifying assholes

Recently? Some people have been saying foreigners are bad for 30 years.

Its not that they start to feel numb, they didn't care in the first place. I have had random co-workers start talking about how they don't want foreigners in Finland and that in Sweden immigrants (maybe you) get free money and don't work.

Talking about how entire races of people deserve to be deported is active violence

Thank you! I wasn't even aware that IVPN existed.

Muslim fascists and Western fascists are on the same side here. They both want the same thing... a world defined by hatred of the other.

There is zero contradiction on opposing both of them.

It's stupid when one of the CEOs of a private VPN company decides to fund political actors. That's just PR issue bound to happen. Funding bad actors bites you every single time - so maybe have a chat about if you have seen this coming - and if not why were you blind to this?

On top of this don't change your service based on this outrage. If you change it, then you will prove that Mullvad is malleable by political pressure. You can guess what happens next...

Even if they do, it's none of your business.

The conclusions do not follow from the premise. Show actual examples of what you are afraid of?

Fascism isn't a generic term for "things I don't like".

It is a very specific ideology responsible for the worst atrocities in history that needs to be ruthlessly stomped out as soon as it rears its ugly head again.

This isn't about opinions or tolerance. It's about preventing crimes against humanity.

I don't belong to any party.

I come from a country that was devastated by fascists like the ones the Mullvad founder funds and history taught us anything but opposition is collaboration.

Go ask the millions of people murdered in concentration camps how tolerating Nazi ideas worked out for them.

> against whoever is labeled as intolerant

No. that's exactly not what is said.

it only is applicable to organisations and people who very clearly express not only some disagreement, but their intolerance and their plan and intent to enforce suppression of dissent once in power. and then suppression of whatever they are intolerant of.

and the far right very clearly announces that they will "eradicate" and "put to their (lower) place" whatever. immigrants. homosexuals. transgender humans. wom(b)en.

if you tolerate _that_, even pay for it, in times of ai boosted slander, you get queers in prisons, pregnant teenagers, and a few much richer very rich people.

> When our enemies say: well, we gave you the freedom of opinion back then - yeah, you gave it to us, that's in no way evidence that we should return the favor! Your stupidity shall not be contagious! That you granted it to us is evidence of how dumb you are!

-- Joseph Goebbels, 1935

The whole point is that fascist movements will abuse your tolerance to build themselves up to a position where they can take it away from you. The only answer is to not tolerate the intolerant.

Why would we? There are plenty of us that believe in free speech, but would rather not see our money go towards bankrolling further destroying public discourse like you see Allard doing. It is perfectly possible to forward your opinions without setting the public square on fire. The kind of rhetoric that you profess here is dangerous and I see it all too often in the US. If no side attempts to hold the high ground, all we will have is a race towards the bottom and at some point arguing that it is high time to send the other side off to the camps and that is not a future I want to see.

Racial discrimination is illegal where I live, and I believe that's a good thing. Political parties that advocate racism are simply antithetical to the whole concept of liberal democracy.

Any? As in one of them? Maybe. I think it’s incredibly unlikely though, and I think you’re making a huge and questionable leap. Boycotting a business isn’t normally a precursor to fascist dictatorship.

> An honest question: Would you like to live in a world where company/employer exerts more control over the views that are publicly expressed?

I don't really object to you asking this question, but I do object to you calling a rhetorical question "an honest question".

> Do you actually want voting to happen via wallet?

Money has a huge influence on politics, and recognizing that reality isn't the same as wanting it or encouraging it.

>If you want to vote for or against Örebropartiet, then just do it at the booth.

I'm kinda confused here. The context of this is that a rich tech bro uses his money to fund and promote a political party, with our money, but we can't decide to not pay him because that's influencing money with politics (???)

What kind of bizarro world is this, he can use his vast wealth to promote racist parties but we can't collectively use ours? How about he just "does it at the booth" and donates his money to the against malaria foundation?

This is about what customers are comfortable supporting. This guy doesn't just have what many consider to be unpalatable political beliefs, he's one of the biggest funders of what many consider to be an unpalatable political party. Lots of people don't want to give money to something which they feel will in part be funneled to an organization which is antithetical to their views. Realistically, I kind of doubt Mullvad is rolling in swimming pools filled with cash getting syphoned to neonazis, but that brings me to my next point...

For many, it's not just an intellectual position but an emotional one. This doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, but you probably won't be able to reason them out of it. It's the same reason I don't listen to Michael Jackson. He's dead and none of that streaming revenue would go to him or to raping children but...yuck.

At the end of the day, there's an irony in this guy supporting the very freedoms on the internet which are being used to disseminate criticisms against him, and perhaps inducing people to starve one of the vehicles which helps maintain those freedoms.

I don't know why your comment is flagged dead, there's no good reason it should be.

> This whole view kinda confounds me. I don't see how you can honestly profess to be on the tolerant/right side, morally, while trying to boycott someones business over his political views. Would you have preferred early feminists or LGBT advocates to be hounded in their professional life? Would it have been better for more people to do that?

Okay, first of all, early feminists and LGBT advocates were and are hounded in their professional lives. This has happened to progressives for all of human history, it's actively happening under the current US administration, and it's going to continue happening forever.

A bigger point here is that your argument is morally worthless. You're just saying that I shouldn't judge anyone, because other people have judged wrongly in the past. I disagree entirely. I wouldn't buy juice from a rapist, I wouldn't buy a computer from a murderer, and I wouldn't buy a VPN from a fascist.

The largest point however, is that your argument implies that I am compelled to spend my money on Mullvad regardless of what I think about the people who work there or what they do, and that's an obvious absurdity. I am free to spend or not spend on whatever I choose for whatever reasons I choose, and politics is going to be one of them. You'll have to get over it.

Do you typically start companies that are opposed to your values, or do you start companies that align with your values?

If you are the co-CEO of a company, will you push it to align more with your values, or less?

This isn't a company founded 300 years ago by a long-dead evil man in a business vertical completely unrelated to how it started, it's a baby company with the evil founder still actively involved at the highest level of management. Maybe you can regale me with epic stories about the companies you've worked at where the founder had no ability to influence the company and its values, but that's not been my experience at all, in any human organization anywhere.

Money that leaves your wallet and goes to Mullvad ends up funding politicians that believe non-whites shouldn’t have speech at all, as a personal choice by a top executive of the company.

The company’s values aren’t reflected accurately if you believe your money is funding free speech regardless of race.

Is IKEA's founder alive and currently donating lots of money to a political party advocating for mass deportation of "parasites"? If so let me know and I will stop buying IKEA furniture!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48721551

> restricting the free expression of people

I don’t support remigration, but calling immigration “the free expression of people” is a stretch. It’s orthogonal.

You can argue that remigration isn’t protecting the privacy of those who are surveilled by the government or deported to repressive countries that surveil their population. But Mullvad’s product protects even those people (it must, because it hides the identity of who’s using it from itself).

I'm always wary of people bringing up the paradox of tolerance; most of the time, it's just used as an excuse to justify censorship while claiming to be opposed to it. "When you censor me, you're being intolerant and that's wrong; when I censor you, I'm doing it in the name of tolerance, so I'm correct".

I'm not Swedish, so it's possible there's something that I am missing. But skimming the wikipedia page for the party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party#), I don't see anything that says the party is pro censorship.

> Karl Popper said, "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."

It's weird he said that, given that at the time there were many examples of intolerant societies that had become increasingly tolerant. So the statement is factually incorrect, and, given how educated he was, he knew this. In other words, the statement is a lie. But very useful if you manage to put yourself in the position of being the one to define what is intolerant, and which things are so important to tolerate that they should be beyond democratic decision-making.

That said, I don't disagree that private donations can be incompatible with (or more accurately, counter-productive to) the stated mission of a company. And it's not unreasonable for journalists to report on it, on the logic it may affect consumer choices. But I'm not familiar with Örebro, and nothing in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party#Policies indicates they're against online anonymity or free expression. But maybe I missed something?

> If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."

yeah i'm sick and tired of hearing this, because it gets applied very asymmetrically.

we routinely tolerate certain kinds of intolerants and silence other, and that sucks.

case in point: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/17/hamtramck-mi...

people happily tolerate lgbt-intollerant people, afraid of being called islamophobic and/or intollerant, and but we do not tollerate at all people that have been calling that risk out for years.

so yeah, popper's writings are being grossly misused, and i'm sick and tired of seeing that come out in every discussion on these topics.

---

Also: if only mullvad is taking that kind of political stance (no-log vpn etc)... maybe you should think twice about who is actually on your side.

> restricting the free expression of people,

Is it? They appear to be some sort of hardcore pseudo libertarians with some nationalistic vibes. To an extent that seems to overlap with Mullvad’s declared value?

>"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."

does that fight against "intolerant" also include fighting people from other culture that are systematically and religiously opposed against your current society and its tolerance and will undermine it within the next couple decades by reproducing more? nvm im aware asking for self awareness is too much.

> When you make a large donation to a political party whose most fundamental policy is restricting the free expression of people

Where can I read more about how this is the fundamental policy of the Örebro party?

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Oscar: "Look it doesn’t take a genius to know that every organization thrives when it has two leaders. shakes head Go ahead, name a country that doesn’t have two presidents. A boat that sets sail without two captains. Where would Catholicism be without the popes?"

When Mullvad's revenue is used to harm people, why should its customers feel safe?

"It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission."

> less likely

how so?

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Yeah I just expected better of Mullvad as a long standing customer. They seemed pretty politically neutral which I prefer.

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The party he's donating money to (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party) is an advocate of "remigration" that is a policy of forced deportation including of citizens on the basis of ethnicity. They're also it should be added self-declared Marxists, so in this case that's not a hyperbolic usage of the term, it's literally a kind of national socialist party.

Personally I'm not going to not continue to pay for Mullvad any longer. I've never been super squeamish when it comes to disagreements about policy but when you're unironically starting to sound like the NSDAP I'm out.

Being non-white isn't a bad thing, that's why.

What is "promoting mixing"?

What does this mean? Be specific.