There have been multiple posts about this and hundreds of comments, so there is clearly appetite to discuss it, although none of the submitted links have been very detailed.
I've merged the other threads into this one, so you'll see some anachronistic timestamps below.
I don't think "appetite to discuss" should be a justification to override the guidelines against political submissions and discussion. There is far too much politics on HN and it leaks into unrelated discussions too. There are plenty of other places to discuss politics on the internet.
Mullvad has two owners, founders, and CEOs - Daniel Berntsson, and me, Fredrik Strömberg. All posts I've seen yesterday and today, including the newspaper articles, talk about Mullvad as if Daniel is the single owner, founder and CEO. It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns you're welcome to comment on this thread, or email our customer support.
See below for the response you'll get from support:
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Mullvad is a political company. We fight for freedom of speech, freedom of information and the right to privacy. These are firmly held values of the founders of Mullvad.
Mullvad protects the right for people to express things we don't agree with. We protect the right of everyone to access views we don't agree with.
We also live these values by being tolerant in our daily work. Everyone is welcome to collaborate with Mullvad if they share these narrow core values. As employees, contractors, customers, suppliers, lobbyists, campaign partners or whatever it might be. No matter what their other opinions are and no matter whether the founders or anyone else in Mullvad dislike them. The founders themselves fundamentally disagree on several important issues.
This is what allows us to advance our common causes. Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment is also liberating and promotes truth seeking.
The more people do this, the better a place the world will be.
It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission, in the same way that someone's opinions on animal rights, taxes or public healthcare policy isn't.
That said, if you no longer want to be a Mullvad customer for philosophical reasons, we think it's important to honor that. In that case, reach out to support.
I'm sorry to hear that. I'm not defending his choice, but consider reading Daniel's rationale in the Flamman article. There's also his blog [1], which explains some of his views. I know he doesn't share all of Örebropartiets views, but I should let him provide that nuance.
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.
If you bought the product, the money went to the company. You don't need to take personal responsibility beyond that, and the company isn't doing the thing you hate so much. By the same token that "some of your money might end up (after many twists and turns) empowering politics you find repugnant", a much bigger share of this money is paying for the food on the table of the employees, their families and their children.
How many people unrelated with your personal gripe, people that were doing a good job since you were paying and satisfied customer, are you willing to punish in order to "send a message"?
This is an impossible standard to live by and demand from everything you buy and every service you pay for. Doubly so if you need to announce to the world you're dropping a product because of something that isn't done by or responsibility of its employees.
I am sympathetic to the sentiment, but the argument does not hold water.
> the fact remains some of my money can end up empowering politics I find repugnant
are you paying taxes? are you using gasoline? are you paying for amazon?
Some ratio of your money will always go toward something you hate. The big question is: is for a mulvad subscription that ratio bigger than for the alternative? The next question is: how is the ratio for things you like?
> If it were a small amount of money, it wouldn’t be an issue.
I'm not speaking for or against anyone's views for or against anything here, but it's worth noting that Brendan Eich's $1K donation caused quite the stir.
No offense, but you're being so dramatic for no reason. You're not that important, and it doesn't matter what you believe. Your comment just reeks of smugness and immaturity.
I’m a long time Mullvad customer, likely paid Mullvad upward of 400€ in the past number of years, as well as recommended it to friends and family members.
What you seem to be missing in your comment, is that some of that money I paid, found its way to support an organisation that has extreme racist views.
I’ve reached out to support and requested a refund of my outstanding credit.
Not just “support”, it’s literally the main source of funds for the party. >70% of donations. If it was a small donation that would be sort of controversial but maybe defendable, but here we are talking about funding pretty much the whole party
What you seem to be missing is that every single € you've spent on virtually anything in the past number of years, some of it has found its way to support organisations that have extreme racist views.
I did the same, except I'm paying for Mullvad through the Tailscale partnership, so I reached out to them and expressed my desire for them to partner with other privacy focused VPN providers like Njalla, Airvpn and others. I don't feel great about my money funding ethno-fascists in my country.
I'm a long-time Mullvad customer, and I respect what the company has been doing and the pro-privacy political stance it openly and publicly stands for.
I agree that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission, and shouldn't be.
But what I do care about, strongly, is that Mullvad as a company doesn't bow to pressure from pro-immigration activists who are attempting to impose social and financial consequences on people and institutions like Mullvad that tolerate anti-immigration political speech. Which is of course why people are publicizing this donation and publicly stating that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because of it.
I want to state publicly that what would make me no longer do business with Mullvad is if Mullvad, organizationally, attempted to pressure Daniel Berntsson into not donating to anti-immigration political parties because it induces pro-immigration activists to attempt to boycott the company. I don't want to live in a world where people trying to run a pro-privacy VPN feel pressure to police anti-immigration speech unrelated to the core mission among people in their organization, and that's the principle that my customer dollars are riding on.
> Which is of course why people are publicizing this donation and publicly stating that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because of it.
But you're doing the same thing, making the same threat. You've only escalated it from a conscientious protest to a Mexican stand off.
I'm not icked-out by immigration discussion, but I am concerned by business owners starting down a political path. VPNs are not a very glamorous segment of the industry, and Mullvad had carved out a niche in taking a neutral side and fostering trust through a transparent product. My former boss spoke well of them and visited their sites in-person after hearing the marketing line about their RAM-only VPNs. Their appeal was not in protecting politicized speech, but protecting all speech and defending it as an apolitical technological imperative.
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 your paycheck on inordinate political investments 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'm a long-time Mullvad customer, and I respect what the company has been doing and the pro-privacy political stance it openly and publicly stands for.
The speech people are objecting to isn't anti-immgiration. It is pro crimes against humanity against people who previously immigrated, and their descendants.
A stance that Sweden should reduce the amount of immigration they accept would be utterly unremarkable and never result in outrage like this.
Hello Fredrik! As a heavy user of Mullvad in the past, easily spending hundreds of euros over the years, I was reserving my judgement to see what the official statement on this would be. Thank you, now I have my answer.
> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission.
It should be obvious that what people are concerned is their money being used to support these political causes, whether it was done in a way that keeps the company out of it or not is besides the point. Daniel, of course, is free to choose what to do with his money. I am, too, and based on this I will be making a choice to not spend any more money on Mullvad subscriptions. Nothing personal, and it's a shame because I have nothing but praise for the technical side of it. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
But as someone that has been in a similar situation to you, I understand it's tough to end up building something big with someone who's politics you do not agree with. I would seriously urge you to consider building something new that rejects this kind of politics explicitly.
Oh, I definitely agree with some of his political opinions, the obvious ones being around free speech, free press, and privacy.
There are important issues where we don't agree. His values around empathy stretch to most sentient beings, and he believes I commit torture when I eat fish for lunch. And he's still willing to associate with me.
Unless you happen to be of Somalian descent in Sweden. Then you should be ripped away from the only home you've ever known, indeed possibly the only country you've ever been in, and sent to a foreign country you have no citizenship in, where you have no home, don't understand the language, know no one, and be forced to try and survive.
What you said makes sense, but what the founders do matters. I'll never buy a Tesla car because of Elon's actions. I cancelled my Amazon Prime subscription because of Bezos' actions.
There are plenty of people for whom it doesn't matter, but for some it does.
Indeed. It matters to me. In fact, most of my political opinions have atrophied, or rather I have self-censored. Daniel believes that is not the right trade-off to make in this case. I understand his point of view, and disagree.
> This is what allows us to advance our common causes. Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment is also liberating and promotes truth seeking.
Nope, that is what will get you taken over by the assholes. Reasonable defense is necessary in reality. There ARE bad actors, they must be kept out.
Everyone has their own definition of a bad actor. The fact that you're implying to know how to spot them says a lot about your tolerance for differences in opinion.
Of course sir, just like the chancellor of Germany's time on the board of Blackrock doesn't have anything to do with his full commitment to doing what's best for the German people as chancellor. I think it would be crazy to suggest otherwise.
Politics and the company you own somehow having to do with each other and influencing each other? Preposterous. Wouldn't happen!
That's great and all but can I have a refund for the portion of my mullvad subscription that went to supporting organizations who think that people like me don't deserve to live?
Can you point to the charter where the Örebro party ever said that you don't deserve to live?
The embellishments of what people actually believe is extremely exhausting.
FWIW, I'm an immigrant in Sweden and if they gained power I would be affected, but we talk about people with differing views to us as if they're actively violent in order to shut down conversation.
This catasphrophising language will eventually not help your cause, because ordinary people start to feel numb to it and the hard-right will not be defeated by it.
Fredrik, thank you for a clear and honest statement of Mullvad's position rather than corporate word salad.
> Mullvad protects the right for people to express things we don't agree with. We protect the right of everyone to access views we don't agree with.
> That said, if you no longer want to be a Mullvad customer for philosophical reasons, we think it's important to honor that
Combining the above statements, would you have any recommendations on VPN providers for people who choose to leave Mullvad? As you will agree, anonymity and privacy are under attack the world over and even people who leave Mullvad deserve have access to tools enabling the same.
The VPN space is a cesspool of shady operators who seem to spend more on marketing than technology and it's really hard even for the HN audience to know which providers are legit. This is where your background and experience are really valuable, so any recommendations would be very welcome.
Yes, I am aware that the ask here is to endorse a competitor, however if someone has made up their mind to leave Mullvad, they are going to do so anyway. Enabling them to do so while retaining their anonymity and privacy will go a long way in advancing the political aims Mullvad stands for.
Hi! No worries. I haven't spoken with Nick Pestell of IVPN in ages, but he's always struck me as genuine and empathetic. We met the first time at RightsCon in 2018 I believe. TunnelBear and ExpressVPN were also there. We all wrote this thing together: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2018/10/17/signals-trustworthy-v...
Since those conversations I've always thought that IVPN is closest aligned with Mullvad's values. Again, I haven't spoken with Nick in ages, so I don't know what IVPN is doing now.
Obviously there are not easy solutions here. Has Mullvad considered offering to buy out Daniel's shares?
The mission statement that Mullvad has promised it's users does (did) come with a duty of care.
In my eyes that mission statement is compromised, it either dies here and Mullvad is just another product financing political parties by proxy, or something is done.
I hope you find a way to protect Mullvad from actions that are counter to your mission statements.
The more people tolerate the far right, the worse the world will be because they will take your good faith and use it to extinguish tolerance for anyone but themselves. This is literally textbook. I don't know how you can invoke the word tolerance without understanding this.
I am really frustrated about that donation. I am an LGBT person, and I fear that a service I have paid for for many years will found someone who wants all my human rights gone. That I am supporting someone who just wants me to stop existing. I am not sure what VPN provider I could use that is even half as trustworthy as mullvad and I am not sure what to do.
>Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment is also liberating and promotes truth seeking
I agree 100%, which is why the dehumanizing intolerance of the Mullvad CEO completely disqualifies your organization from being on the same side as that statement.
> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission
Why should this be obvious? I don't think that's obvious at all. The owner of a company could very easily decide to one day use their company to further their political beliefs/ideologies (see: Twitter, FaceBook, etc..). Why would Mullvad be any different?
To answer your question, we started building this organization in the summer of 2008 for idealistic reasons, and we are still idealists who think privacy is fundamental to a civilized society.
The best strategy for achieving societal impact through entrepreneurship is consistent, long-term, and value-based ownership. For us, this disqualifies taking outside investment, either through venture capital or going public. Mullvad has instead been growing organically without outside investments.
Our principles have withstood the test of time. Our conviction has remained unchanged through multiple serious offers of acquisition and outside investment. Words are cheap of course, but consistent action over the course of almost two decades is not.
Mullvad is about privacy. Neither Daniel nor I have used Mullvad's brand to promote our personal opinions.
As a counter argument to your marketing fluff comment:
Name a single instance of right wing parties that did not violate all human rights the second they got in power. Name one, I dare you.
And no, historically such a fairytale world does not exist that you're trying to paint here. All right wing parties feed off aggression, painting humans as enemies, and populistic lies. It's always been this way, always will be this way.
Not a Mullvard customer anymore, and going to never recommend you again for any person that asks me in the future.
Go to history class if you still can't see the truth in my comment. I'm German, and that's our fucked up history, and our messed up ancestry of people "that just followed orders" that I have zero tolerance for. Your fairytale comment reads like the "Hitler just wants peace" protests during WW2.
There is always a democratic and peaceful option, and right wing parties never choose that option. It's unsystematic to how they fundamentally work.
If you still wonder why there are sudden attacks on Mullvad, I "heard" there are Chinese (in addition to the others; dual- / triple- vendoring is key) LLM-based tools to check for swarm origins and campaigns.
I have to say, this is a disappointing message. The thing about intolerant movements is that tolerance doesn't fix them, it makes them worse and lets them accumulate power until they can destroy the tolerant.
I'd recommend reading Karl Popper and his Paradox of Tolerance, which he formulated after seeing this exact thing play out in his native Austria with the rise of the Nazis.
You may try to unsuccessfully hold this distinction, but at the end of the day money that I give to your company ends up being used by far-right politicians to oppose Mullvad's supposed mission.
Whatever what you say and so, it doesn't change the fact a part of my money is going to end up in an absolutely disgusting political party and other potentially terrible stuff. After so many years, I'm done with Mullvad.
I'm pretty familiar with these right-wingers that claim to fight for "freedom of speech" they all end up fighting for "freedom of speech for the things I want to say, jail for those who oppose me." The 2024-2025 swing was pretty extreme on that front.
Political extremists are all the same, left or right, nobody should be surprised because they seek power above all else.
I had been pretty concerned about the level of advertising for Mullvad I've seen recently, that's usually a really bad sign for a VPN type company. But seeing this comment, in combination with the news article linked here, tells me everything I need to know for trust.
VPNs are all about trust. Mullvad has completely broken all trust with me.
Do you think any of the people publicly claiming that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because Daniel Berntsson donates to an anti-immigration political party, wouldn't make donating to that party an illegal, jail-able legal offense if they had the political power to do so?
This response completely fails to address what is the issue for me and many others, and frankly I find it quite offensive. The Örebro Party uses racist and transphobic rhetoric and dog whistles, and openly advocates for ethnic cleansing. Their political actions have already hurt people I care about. Berntsson's donation is explicitly meant to support the party in bringing their politics to the national level. This would bring material harm to me, to family and friends, and to many others.
And Berntsson's ability to fund ÖP in doing that harm is directly linked to the financial success of Mullvad. Whether you or Mullvad agrees or disagrees with Berntsson or ÖP is irrelevant. Thanks to Berntsson, more money to Mullvad means more harm to us. So why on Earth would I pay you anything?! On the contrary, it would quite obviously be in our best interests if Mullvad fails as a company, if possible to such an extent that Berntsson is ruined financially and can no longer fund "nationalist socialist" parties such as ÖP.
It just doesn't matter whether Mullvad believes in free speech or not, not when Berntsson is making it so that giving you money causes us to be persecuted and harmed. And to be perfectly honest, I find your framing of this as "philosophical" to be profoundly appalling, and it tells me that you do not at all understand what is actually going on.
An honest question: Would you like to live in a world where company/employer exerts more control over the views that are publicly expressed?
Do you actually want voting to happen via wallet?
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?
If you want to vote for or against Örebropartiet, then just do it at the booth.
Plenty of people here basically seem to indirectly advocate for company based censorship and some kind of budget-plutocracy, and no matter how "morally correct" your views are, that is under no circumstances a worthwhile endeavor.
I'm not saying this to dunk on IKEA, but sometimes even when there's a sole founder, the mission of the company and the mission of the person who founded it do not necessarily align.
EDIT: It also seems that the party is extremely left leaning but is anti-immigration, as a person who lives in Swedens third largest city (which is predominantly non-Swedish, like myself: I am also an immigrant) I can understand Swedes desire to minimise this, it's not a "far-right" topic anymore.
It's a HN thing, not down to the commenter. Sometimes threads are reactivated if the mods think a low profile discussion is worth a second chance or boost. The submission time doesn't always reflect the original submission. Sometimes it's due to a comment move or thread merge.
>> Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment ...
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."
>> the same way that someone's opinions on animal rights, taxes or public healthcare ...
We're not talking about reasonable people disagreeing about tax policy, we're talking about free expression, the entire purpose of Mullvad.
When you make a large donation to a political party whose most fundamental policy is restricting the free expression of people, that is wholly incompatible with everything Mullvad says they stand for.
When a founder and executive with influence over Mullvad policy and operations is exposed actively and financially support restricting free expression of people, it's not "tolerant" to pretend that's somehow compatible with the mission and brand of the company.
I cannot speak for Daniel. I know there are some policies he likes and there are things he doesn’t like. Personally I am not a fan.
This morning Daniel explained his rationale to most of the company. Speaking for myself, I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues. Speaking as the co-CEO of Mullvad, we will continue to protect the universal right to privacy. People should feel safe using Mullvad regardless of their political affiliation.
I don't see him saying he doesn't want people to look into that. What I see is an explanation for why he thinks the company is better for having a multitude of views and opinions on their staff, a correction of some lazy reporting in the media and stated tolerance for people who no longer want to use said company's products for perceived value incompatibility (which he also seems to disagree with though).
It’s called voting with your wallet. People in America do this, and are told to do this, all the time.
What would you like them to do? Roll over on the co-CEO and throw him under the bus, signaling to everyone that there is a “correct” point of view to have that Mullvad as a company is going to push and promote?
Individuals should be allowed to think and do what they want as an individual, as long as it isn’t compromising the company. The fact that they have 2 CEOs with differing political views seems like a healthy thing.
Freedom of speech is a political view that shouldn’t be tied to any one party.
> What a dismissive way to treat your customer. Basically the equivalent of someone on the American right saying “if you don’t like it you can get the hell out”, which tracks given Mullvad’s party of choice.
I'm sorry to hear that. We didn't mean to come across as dismissive. We're simply saying that if you disagree with our stance on the matter, you are welcome to reach out to support, and they can hopefully sort out a refund.
People in this thread are slowly (or maybe not so slowly) realising "… this was also a business after all… just with a different "model"… huh". There's caring, there's caring PR, and then there's caring theatre.
> We fight for freedom of speech, freedom of information and the right to privacy.
OK, but the far right, like all totalitarians, has an agenda that is thoroughly opposed to this. That leads to the tolerance paradox: You must be intolerant to agendas that would put an end to tolerance.
FTR. The reports I have seen have always made it clear that Mullvad has two owners/founders/CEOs. And while the donations may be private, they obviously come from money earned as part of being one of the founder/owner/CEO of Mullvad and thus raises questions on corporate responsibility.
I'm Swedish, but never heard of Örebropartiet before. I tried looking into their website and it doesn't say a lot.
Translated from Swedish wikipedia:
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Örebropartiet was founded by Markus Allard in the spring of 2014, when he was recently expelled from the Left Party and the Young Left.
[...]
Among the party's main issues are reduced politicians' salaries, reduced bureaucracy, civil servant responsibility, assimilation policy and the repatriation of people who do not adapt.
---
I think it is very reasonable to demand that people try to integrate when coming to a new country - learn the language, get into the culture. As a Swedish person I think this is missing from our integration politics, which is an often talked about topic in the last years.
In the end this is a political question and sadly instead of engaging in dialogue the reaction to these questions feels like it most often leads to polarization and division. Inclusion means also including people with different beliefs and respecting their opinions, even if we don't share them. Through understanding comes empathy.
Fun fact: we get a dopamine release when taking an opposing stance and then seeing (subjective) proof of our stance. It requires self-discipline and fighting your impulses to avoid polarization.
I don't think it's reasonable to "demand" integration. What should happen is that the existing cultures should be open and welcoming enough so that new-comers want to take part. Also, I like the idea of immigrants bringing their culture with them (and in some cases, that may be the last representation of that culture) and welcoming people to learn about it.
Multi-culturalism should be about championing different cultures and not forcing everyone into a cultural homogeneity.
> I don't think it's reasonable to "demand" integration
Yes, it is reasonable to demand people who come into a country adapt to rules - written and to a certain extent also the unwritten, of which Sweden has many - of that country. When in Rome, act as the Romans. This adaptation will never be 100% but that is not the point, what is most important is that newcomers learn to assimilate to such a level that the natives are open and willing to maybe integrate some parts of the newcomer's culture.
People who 'are the last representatives of [their] culture' can write a book about it while becoming part of their new culture since it is clear that their old one did not stand the test of time. They're much better off that way instead of living like cultural fossils for the likes of NPR and PBS to make documentaries about. By all means document what that extinct culture had to offer but life is for the living and culture is the commonly agreed upon set of rules how to live it.
Multiculturalism is a pipe dream, something dreamt up by people who listened to one too many version of John Lennon's Imagine. It has been shown not to work time and time again, it makes it harder for people coming in to a new country to assimilate and integrate because there is no clear target to aim for. Culture is not a fixed thing, it evolves through time by adopting new things and getting rid of old customs. Multiculturalism does not call for cultural evolution, it calls for revolution: here's a whole new culture, now deal with it. Revolution hardly every works and when it does it tends to go badly for those on the wrong side of it.
GP literally addresses your points. I think we’re very welcoming in most of Europe, adopt others’ traditions, and are not too imposing. Just, you know, leave women alone and don’t aim fireworks at ambulances.
Dismissing any amount of integration is chicanery. We’re pro-social creatures, and knowing the lay of the land makes your life better.
> What should happen is that the existing cultures should be open and welcoming enough so that new-comers want to take part
I'm an immigrant to the EU/NL (naturalized, now a citizen), and I also lived in Sweden for a short stint. If Swedes are anything, they're open and welcoming, I'd even say too open and welcoming, which is part of why these issues keep cropping up.
Some context so I'm not immediately written off as ignorant or as carrying some kind of agenda: I grew up in Indonesia. My family is largely atheist, but we lived in Aceh (look up Qanun Aceh, it's Sharia law territory) and various other places around the country. I've been immersed in Islam, every sect of Christianity, Buddhism (I went to a Buddhist school as a kid), and Balinese Hinduism. I went to an international school with people from literally everywhere, and I'm still close with many of them, scattered across the globe as they now are. I say this to establish that I've actually lived among a wide range of people, cultures, and religions, this isn't an abstract opinion.
This isn't unique to EU immigrant communities either, I've seen the exact same pattern in Indonesia. Many (I want to stress: many, not most, but certainly too many) immigrant groups are remarkably insular and resist integrating in any meaningful way, even multiple generations in. They don't learn the language, don't adopt the host country's customs, and make essentially zero effort to become part of the society they live in. This gets worse where there's already a large existing community of the same background, those often calcify into enclaves where you're functionally not living in the host country at all anymore.
At a certain point, we also have to admit that some immigrants are the source of the problem.
Where I land is this: host countries should expect integration from long-term and permanent residents, and should actively support it via language access, civic education, real investment in helping people become part of the society they're settling into, rather than leaving newcomers to sort it out alone or quietly tolerating permanent parallel communities. What that integration looks like has to be specific to the country in question, because "host culture" isn't one universal template, integrating into Aceh's legal and religious framework is a very different thing from integrating into Sweden's secular, liberal one, and I'm not pretending otherwise.
But in both cases, multiculturalism shouldn't mean a one-way street where only the migrant's culture is expected to remain untouched and is treated as a holy thing while the host culture is expected to bend indefinitely until it, too, warps into something it never was. If you've chosen to build a life somewhere, the society you've moved to should welcome you in, but you should also be expected to actually become part of it. We shouldn't have to walk around on eggshells when we say that people should integrate, this should be the expectation for anyone looking to form a permanent life in a country they live in.
Refugees are a different case, since they didn't choose displacement, but even there once return is no longer realistic and a person has built a long-term life in the host country, the same logic on integration eventually applies to them as well even if the urgency and framing should differ from voluntary migration.
On a side note (and this is more of my own personal problem), I'd rather not see any kind of Sharia-like culture anywhere near me ever again, that crap is stone-age level bullshit that deserves to go extinct forever.
It’s a hot topic, but in Belgium some people are taught how to take the bus, do their taxes, and not harass women. One of my Dutch teachers led the integration course and said this stuff was really difficult to land.
If you come from a culture of groping women, not doing is gonna be a challenge. I get it. But we’ve also built mosques and have pagan festivals and allow public servants to wear their choice of religious attire. I think it’s a balance, but nobody is ever happy with wherever you set the balance.
When I learn the local language, I’m happier; it’s nice to talk to people. Not everyone agrees.
> Translated from Swedish Wikipedia [...] I think it is very reasonable
When I looked into this party when news broke a few days ago, I was surprised to find that the English article was comparatively longer and included the more appalling statements. Seems worrying that their narrative on the native version appears to be working
I’ve read a few books about dopamine/motivation/common neurotransmitters and this has never come up. In my amateurish view I think empathy is more connected to oxytocin (which afaik does release during social connections, which The book ”The molecule of more” covers a bit).
"Mullvad AB and its parent company Amagicom AB are 100% owned by founders [1 person] and Daniel Berntsson [...]"[0]
So I'll assume he owns about 50%. Well, that ends my usage of Mullvad.[1] I appreciate that probably many of Mullvad's employees have different views, and obviously Berntsson has every right to his opinions and to express them, and I also appreciate that someone can have control over an opinionated company and run it for one particular set of reasons but not for other causes that someone believes in, but in the end I just don't want my money supporting anti-people causes.
Lets remember for a second that Mullvad has enabled people on all side of the political spectrum to communicate online, anonymously. This is more noble than almost anything else. Mullvad has enabled freedom for yourself, and millions of others, regardless of their political or personal leans.
I'm sorry to hear that. Yes, Daniel and I own 50% each.
> obviously Berntsson has every right to his opinions and to express them
Indeed.
> and I also appreciate that someone can have control over an opinionated company and run it for one particular set of reasons but not for other causes that someone believes in
That is exactly the case.
> but in the end I just don't want my money supporting anti-people causes.
As is your right. Daniel made his choice and now you make yours, as a number of other people in this thread has done. Some believe this party is left-wing, others right-wing. Some approve of it, others don't. Personally I don't, and as I've said elsewhere in this thread I wish he hadn't donated. As do many of our colleagues. To be fair though, there are also colleagues who do seem to approve. And then there are those who don't seem to care either way.
Still, I'm glad you recognize the possibility that Daniel and I are able to keep our personal opinions separate from the mission of our company. This is something we live in our daily work as well. As a workplace I'm glad we're not a monoculture of 100% like-minded individuals.
I would like to add one note: if I were an activist in Iran, or in any other way my livelihood would depend on strong privacy services, I might keep using your service and even be (slightly) more certain of the company's resolve to keep my privacy protected. Although I would be very aware of the irony. But choosing for one's own safety can override other concerns. Very few things in life are black and white.
> Some believe this party is left-wing, others right-wing. Some approve of it, others don't.
For a company that puts political principle so fundamentally at the core of its marketing strategy, it's astonishing to see this kind of stance being taken.
The man who owns half the company seemingly choosing to funnel his share of its profits to a political party that advocates the mass deportation of people is, in that context, something with significant consequences.
I understand how awkward the position you're in must be, but it's obscene to present this as somehow being a thing that one can be morally neutral on. In the context of rising fascism across the continent, it's dismaying to see a company that a lot of us rely on so decisively pick the worst possible side.
In some business, political and legal roles, we deem certain structural relations to be a conflict of interest regardless of what people on those roles actually do..
The mere potential for excessive improper influence arising from the structure of their relationships and roles is what creates the deemed conflict.
As the owners of a company making substantial profit like Mullvad, you always had the potential capability to financially influence political outcomes on a scale which most your customers cannot, in ways that may seriously harm some of your customers and to be potentially against the stated mission of your company.
I think the relationship between running a company with an openly advertised public mission, or even an implied mission in the minds of customers, while in another role (wealthy private citizen) being able to make a substantial material action against the same mission, should be recognised as inherently a conflict of interest. But obviously it's one we can't avoid, as long as we allow people to get rich from a mission-driven company.
What we can do, is recognise that if someone actually takes a large material action against the company's mission, then they have gone a step further and demonstrated the conflict of interest.
We generally favour free speech, including political donations. But when the money for very large political financing comes mostly from customers who, by virtue of the advertising and marketing of the company's mission, are led to believe they are supporting the company's mission?
In my view, at that point the customers are being tricked into paying for something while their money is paying for something else which opposes the thing they thought they were funding.
At the least, it should be dealt with in a similar way that conflicts of interest are dealt with when, for example, directing multiple companies: By making sure everyone knows, so other people are able to consent or not on the major conflict issues those other people might have a view on. The analogy for customers is their consent shown by their informed decision to become or remain customers.
In Mullvad's situation, that would mean Mullvad should explain to customers, embedded clearly within it's public marketing of the company missions and values, that one of its current major owners receiving customer funds by way of profit, is the main financier of a political party which sponsors remigration in Sweden. Because that is clearly a thing some customers care about when evaluating whether to pay for Mullvad's services from now on. You know that, I know that, so there's no legitimate excuse for not letting customers who would care know.
Then, as you said, customers will be free to choose.
> People who failed so spectacularly that the country became the rape capital of Europe and has more crime than El Salvador today.
> the rape capital of Europe
I’ve read that this is because Sweden changed how rape is counted - instead of multiple votes instances within the same relationship being counted as “one rape”, each instance of non-consensual intercourse is counted individually.
> and has more crime than El Salvador today
I couldn’t find any reliable data here other than Sweden’s homicide rates are a little higher than historically, but still pretty low. And the comparison to El Salvador is off the mark in general because the murder rate there has fallen dramatically from where it was historically.
I think you'd be surprised at how quickly that sentiment has moved from the far-right to close to the center. People are (rightly, in my opinion) pretty upset at their governments for letting mass migration happen with pretty much only downsides for their actual citizens. People are all about the idea of helping the downtrodden when it's just an ideal, but when they realize it's having negative consequences for them that can easily change.
You have to consider the context which is that Sweden does have an awful lot of fake refugees mixed in with the real refugees. "Parasite" is harsh but unfortunately all too accurate for some of the migrants who are essentially gaming a system intended for people in real distress.
I think it’s quite important to understand in what context that have been said. The ”parasites” are immigrants that have not integrated, entire families and generations living off welfare and the ethnic group basically have a super high unemployment rate of maybe 50% or more.
I’ve listened a lot to talks from the party leader of Örebropartiet, and while I think he would benefit from slowing himself down, yell and insult less, I really can’t see he being racist or far-right. More leftist actually. I think he’s simply VERY motivated/obsessed around questions like to get government less corrupt, much more efficient governence, and to stop major ethnic groups from very poor parts of the world get an unreasonable high amount of the governments welfare spending.
> Some of its key issues include lowered wages for politicians, ending the tax payer funding of various sculptures, monuments and art, large scale remigration, a stricter immigration policy, and free dental care.
To understand why there might be a desire to limit spending on art;
There was a recent case where city of Malmo was building a hospital; during the building of the hospital it was decided that a splice of the oldest tree in the world would be installed.
A very expensive life-support system was developed and an enormous amount of money paid for the splice. (not including the life support system, which was also an inordinate amount).
> Remigration is a far-right concept referring to ethnic cleansing via mass deportation of non-white minority populations [...] to their place of racial ancestry
> Some of its key issues include lowered wages for politicians, ending the tax payer funding of various sculptures, monuments and art, large scale remigration, a stricter immigration policy, and free dental care.
Limiting immigration along with generous government benefits for citizens is an interesting new space for political parties not fitting the traditional left right axis.
They are a really strange party revolving around their leader who got a personality. It can be seen more as Trump where ideology isn’t as important as what the leader says.
Slightly tangential on Swedish society, there are similarities between USA and Sweden. There's a large segment of society that is white and very blond, and there's a largish segment which is not. Along that same line there are all kinds of divisions: economic, education, religious, sets of values, and of access to things and possibilities. What pisses me off is that the cast of "CEOs of successful companies" live in an sphere of privilege where they really are not bothered at all by the brown people. They in fact have plenty of places to go, a vast archipelago, out of reach for anybody who can't afford a boat. Though they get all the benefits, including cheap qualified labor from people who had to leave their homelands displaced by poverty, conflict and war. I'll switch VPN provider too.
One of these days we will elect somebody who is corrupt and morally corrupt, incompetent and poorly educated and who'll promise to screw us over many times and in many positions, and we will let him just do so so that there are concentration camps for the brown people.
What's the relationship between race and immigration status?
It's not entirely clear what the argument which unites them is supposed to be. This unification is always in the mind of the white matry not the person opposing immigration. In the UK polish immigration was opposed, en mass, poles are white.
SUPPOSE there are large numbers of poorly assimilated people in a country, whose culture of origin is very different than that of the host country. What does the minor coincidence of their common lack of european ancestry show, other than to prove the point, they lack such ancestry?
White skin evolved in europe, with the peoples of europe, as with european culture -- that whiteness tracks this culture is a conincidence. (There's less-and-less european diaspora in america -- which, if imported en mass, might also enrange europeans).
The refusal to treat large scale immigration as a cultural and economic phenomneon, to try and insult opponents of this position with a slander of racism -- this tactic doesnt work any more.
All you are doing is driving those people to say, "OK, so its racism. We'll vote for that then." And the result is real racists are elected.
Do you have any analysis of the issues people opposed to large scale immigartion, from non-western cultures, and who would reverse at least some of it -- do you have any arguments that engage the issues they actually raise?
It is strange, because this party’s platform seems to mirror the positions of the blackest Swede I know (Malcolm Kyeyune, a Marxist writer who is also often accused of being a right-winger). I suspect that the divisions in Sweden are much deeper than race.
> The refusal to treat large scale immigration as a cultural and economic phenomneon
> and insult opponents of this position as racist
On the other hand, you treat the negative effects of current immigrant milieus as eternal and innert to their ancestry (dare to say: genes).
This way, you can look at integration as if it has to happen in a single generation and also, allows you to ignore the more important part of diminishing social mobility, which effects the natives as much.
Look at germany, where after WW2, alot of turkish "guest workers" were invited and stayed. After several generations the descendant of those immigrants are as german as you can be. They are still soft muslims, drink alcohol, engage with german bureaucracy, have a heavy turkish accent -- some of them are even candidates for the far right AfD. Please note, they migrated into an economic boom.
Isnt that utterly ridiculous? When time proves you wrong, it reveals your narrow mindedness.
And when you reduce immigrants to percieved negative innert properties, isnt that racist? When you broaden your scope, youll see the bigger problems are elsewhere, dont get distracted by bigotted populists, that are as clueless about problems or their solutions.
> a vast archipelago, out of reach for anybody who can't afford a boat
No. That is just false. There is a very well developed ferry/commuter boat network. [1] The cost on some lines are included in the Stockholm public transport pass. A five day ticket is €12/day. No need to buy a boat.
Sweden wasn't like USA until politicians decided to make Sweden a "humanitarian superpower" by establishing the most liberal refugee policy in the world, without thinking of how they can actually integrate and offer a better future for all those refugees. I guess the real motivation may have been getting cheap labor, rest of the society be damned.
In any case, Sweden's policies on humanitarian migration have been an utter failure, and I can't really blame Swedes for wanting to make it stricter. Obviously refugees are not the ones to be blamed here, but politicians who took in more than they could successfully integrate.
>Slightly tangential on Swedish society, there are similarities between USA and Sweden. There's a large segment of society that is white and very blond, and there's a largish segment which is not.
There are no similarities at play here. Swedes are the native, indigenous people to Sweden. "White people" in the US are not native nor indigenous to the US.
> Slightly tangential on Swedish society, there are similarities between USA and Sweden. There's a large segment of society that is white and very blond, and there's a largish segment which is not.
Do you have a source for that? I tried searching, but didn't find anything supporting this notion. I can find numerous sources pointing to the high prevalence of blonde hair in Sweden and other Nordic counties, but the US rarely even makes an appearance in those rankings. If anything, it seems like a point of difference rather than a similarity
I lived in Stockholm for seven years. One of the biggest mistakes was not buying a boat. They‘re not as expensive as people make you believe; you can get a really nice day cruiser for around $10k, which you can sell again for $9k after a few years. Used boats have very little depreciation. Yes, you can go fancier; a nice weekender like a Nimbus 250 sets you back $60-70k, but that’s just like cars. You can get an Audi or BMW, or you start with a Kia.
The problem with boats isn’t that they’re expensive - the Stockholm archipelago can largely be considered like a lake, not like the sea. It’s education. And I don’t mean university.
I mean: which boat is appropriate? How do I navigate? On which cliffs can I stop, and how? How do I prepare for a nice day out? Which insurance do I choose, which parts need repair and when, what Mai tweets must I do myself vs pay someone, how much should I expect in upkeep costs, etc
These are all very manageable things to learn, but if you’re not used and not exposed to boat culture you won’t do it.
But the problem isn’t money. $10k isn’t free, but it’s less than most used cars, and annual upkeep is less than a car, too.
It took me 5 years to get the boat - a 22ft daycruiser with toilet. That was 15 years ago, haven't looked back. Got a daycruiser from the UK. Drove there, bought a trailer there, drove it home. Arbitrage during the financial crisis - half the price of the same boat in Sweden at the time.
I understand Mullvad has historically been a leader in privacy among the big VPN options. What are some other equally affordable and user friendly options that you all have been satisfied with? Think for someone who saw Mullvad advertised during the Super Bowl but looking to leave because of this news.
+1 on AirVPN. They are amongst the handful of companies which successfully resisted the war on torrenting (targeting VPNs that allowed persistent ports) and still allow for port reservation.
Mullvad, like most other VPNs gave in in the end and removed port reservations.
I've used both, and for me mullvad has worked a lot better. They seem more focused on VPN as core to what they do and don't leak data when reconnecting to a different server, and with proton I often experience that my connection stops working if my laptop gas been closed for some time, and the only way to make it work again is to reconnect to a new server. And then it leaks connections for a few seconds.
I think they're relying on the fact that "Nord" sounds like "Nordic", so consumers think "they must be a Swedish company, I hear some Swedish techies are hardcore on freedom, e.g. the PirateBay is Swedish!".
By any chance are you using any Apple products and are you a supporter of Donald Trump? Because if the answer is yes and no singling out Mullvad seems be rather hypocritical?
Based on his actions Tim Apple openly is an ardent supporter of Trump. So effectively everyone here who has a MacBook was supporting a company run by by a pro MAGA ceo...
Of course greed and corruption might be considered a mitigating factor by some people (instead of seemingly doing it purely due to one's personal convictions and without any coercion which is presumably the case here
Without wishing to defend Tim Cook at all, there is a difference between a corporation donating to an incumbent government that seems unusually receptive to bribes (including to be left alone) and an individual CEO being the main financial backer of a local fringe far right party he wants to make a national force, presumably because of his enthusiastic support for their policies which include the 'remigration' of citizens deemed excessively brown...
This sounds very much far right and not left at all to me
> Markus Allard takes inspiration from marxist ideology[32] and unites the "productive" classes of society against the "Transferiat", with the "Transferiat" being a term coined by Allard to describe the classes of society that lives off of transfers that are a net negative for society such as those who, despite having an ability to work, live off of social welfare benefits, as well as those who work "made-up services"[33] that the party deems serve no societal function, such as bureaucrats, consultants, public sector communications specialists, strategists and HR-specialists.
It's practically a copy and paste of the ideology behind "doge".
"The technocracy movement proposed replacing partisan politicians and business people with scientists and engineers who had the technical expertise to manage the economy"
This is just a rephrasing of the lumpenproletariat, coupled with the professional-managerial class. You could also refer to the latter as a modern version of the lumpenbourgeoisie (although this term is applied rather broadly). It sounds more like pro-labor, pro-work, anti-lumpen Marxism. In no way “right-wing” unless you want to call North Korea “right-wing”, which is a very ultra-left thing to do (what orthodox Marxists call left deviationism).
This is actually very far left, just not the current wealthy-urban-lgbtq far left. USSR marxists and Maoists held the same views, where the individual's main function was to work and refusal to work or low productivity required either reformation (aka often, Gulag) or hunger.
"Those how do not work, do not eat" - Mao
Interestingly, psychoanalysis in the USSR was aimed at helping the patient to go back to work, for instance.
Is it so hard to imagine that someone willing to take such a principled stance on privacy that they start a company to provide a privacy focused vpn company that they also hold other extreme views?
It takes a certain kind of personality to become a founder especially more do for such a strongly principled company and adhere to it.
What counts as an "extreme view" is relative. If my country had seen such a surge in gang violence as Sweden has, I too would support mass deportations of migrants with a criminal record, and much harsher migration policy. It's not that extreme of a stance considering how bad the situation has got in Sweden. I don't want to live in a society where teenagers are regularly hired as hitmen and shootings & explosions are a weekly, if not daily thing.
For real tho, I think the current crime wave has more to do with power struggles in the drug market than anything else.
Sweden has had terrible integration policies coupled w segregating all immigrants in the suburbs.
The drug consumption of everyday Swedes is fueling the crime wave. Cocaine consumption is at an all time high. The former prime ministers son was caught w coke at home. But only the marginalized are penalized for it and forced to work supplying the rich inner city kids who get off the hook..
Can it really be called "extreme" anymore? Europe is swinging strongly towards being anti-migration at the moment. Other parts of the world like Japan are also going through such swings. Many countries never opened their borders to begin with. This political party sounds like it's closer to the average than people would like to admit.
I was mostly going by the “far-right” classification in the title. If indeed the whole spectrum has switched it will be less extreme when viewed from within the spectrum.
They're so populist, in fact, that they require CEOs to donate them millions of dollars to constitute the backbone of their party. Oh wait, that's what political interest groups do.
Mullvad's principle was that they protected speech. It wasn't a political imperative, and they enjoyed business from all sides of the political aisle perusing this product.
Now the apolitical appeal is fading. It's not hard to understand why VPNs, one of the most commodified businesses on the internet, struggle to find customers without that kind of niche reputation that Mullvad once had.
This comment reminds me of Sweden < 2015, where any critique of immigration labeled you as a supporter of the Swedish Democrats (SD) and possibly a Nazi.
you value privacy, but you don't think privacy is a political topic? VPNs, encryption, and other privacy tools are regularly under attack or protected by legislation and policy that is actively debated and lobbied for.
I think that you do care about politics, you just don't care about this particular topic or policy. That's your prerogative of course, but don't pretend you are wholly above the fray. I suspect if a company's founder had donated millions to a party aiming to mandate backdoored encryption you would suddenly find yourself to be a very political person.
And what does that have to do with the guy leaning right? He runs a VPN. If you care about privacy, that should be sufficient to support it, his other opinions aside.
Agreed. I use mullvad because I believe they are the best off the shelf choice. If I stopped using things because of the owners opinions, then I'd live in a cave.
That article calls the party far-right, which for US based readers will imply they have the same ideology and policies as the US “far-right” concepts.
Is that actually the case? I’m not familiar with this party, and it’s difficult to get a grasp on whether they are Nazi-level pure evil, or an otherwise reasonable party with stricter views on immigration policy.
I try to turn it other way in my head, like if Mullvad got to know somehow political views of some of their customers and say "We don't like what you say, so we decide to end our business with you. We don't want our infra to be used to spread opinions like yours."
They could do it, some people would align with that stance, and some wouldn't. Exactly how it plays out being a customer: now we've discovered he supports a far-right party here in Sweden, I can choose to not support the CEO with my money and let others know about their political leaning to decide by themselves if they want to support him and his business aware that their money might got to far-right parties.
I don't see any issue with your flipped argument, it's the same thing, no?
I imagine that if a company really denied a customer due to disagreement on some views there would be similar flood of comments like "my views is my problem, I pay you money you must do business with me". Maybe I'm wrong though
You’re not taking it far enough. What if Mullvad has someone you disagree with as a customer, and does nothing about it. Does this mean that Mullvad is supporting them? Does this mean that you have to stop supporting Mullvad? What about Mullvad’s landlord? The company that provides them their electricity? Their internet provider? Their internet provider’s internet provider? Should you boycott the entire internet because Mullvad has not been given the BGP death penalty?
What are you trying to say with this? This is absurd.
The outrage has nothing to do with Mullvad itself supporting people with certain opinions or not.
The problem I and many others have, is that if the founder takes our money and gives it to causes that I (edit: or rather we) find reprehensible, we don't want to give them our money anymore. Simple as that.
I will not try to stop you from using Mullvad by any other means than my arguments. Hopefully you understand now where we are coming from and agree. If not, just do your thing.
If the far-right parties they're supporting are similar to MAGA in the U.S., what they're doing is taking customer money and funneling it into a political effort to do just what you're describing - just in a different way. "We don't like groups X, Y, and Z, so we're going to fund a political effort to take their rights away by using government."
As I understand it, the Örebro party pushes for deporting immigrants and has a "Sweden belongs to the Swedes" policy that includes deportation for even those born in Sweden if their parents were born in, e.g., Somalia. So basically, "we don't like certain people, so we want to use customer money to force them out of our country". That really doesn't paint Mullvad as the victim, here.
When it comes to publishing anti-human, genocidal rhetoric, I hope they would say "we don't want your blood money."
Flipping that back around, I'm glad I'm not a Mullvad customer that would say "I'm okay with a portion of the money I give you being used to call for genocide."
Admittedly I had never heard of this party before, but after looking into them calling them far-right seems to be quite a leap.
If you didn't know, Sweden used to be extremely welcoming to asylum seekers and refugees about a decade ago. What they got out of it were gangs, their youth being exploited to enact crimes (due to leniency towards minors), and neighborhoods that even the police doesn't dare drive through. Having a party that calls for integration and adaption to Swedish values, and at worst remigration, seems rather tame. Especially so if you just take a look across Øresund and see what's happening in Denmark.
He's not just the CEO, he's a co-owner... Meaning that the profits from the business acrue to him...
and therefore enable this party.
So, it's a question of "am I ok paying for this service, knowing that a portion of that money will flow to this political party and how do I feel about the results of that funding?"
How do you feel about providing value to Hacker News, a plattform made by Y Combinator funding several startups, many of them destroying our society and benefiting from mass surveillance? You can do this argument with every company.
We can easier look at conclusion people make about banks and stock options. Will people invest money into index fonds and pension fonds if those fonds invest money into companies that produce and sell weapons to abhorred brutal dictators? What about buying stocks from telecommunication producers who operate in abhorred brutal dictatorships and who helps those dictators to control their population?
Let's think of the other extreme as well: exactly the same excellent VPN service, is run by an almost-the-best-person-in-the-world who has just one small quirk that makes them not 100% perfect for you (they pat kittens not as often as you'd like them to do). Obviously there is a border between your extreme and mine, which border defines "use" and "no use" cases for you. And now: wherever this border is - should it be the same for everyone?
The party in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party. Doesn't sound extremist far-right to me. Many of its positions would be considered center-left or even far left in much of the world.
Where in the world is calling refugees parasites considered a neutral statement? Legit curious where this "much of the world" would be since I can't imagine this of an average person
Everyone hating, I hope you check every company you use to make sure their political stance align with yours.
No AWS or Google Cloud if you're pro-abortion, for example:
"Together, Amazon, AT&T, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, Comcast, CVS, General Motors, Google, T-Mobile, Walgreens, Walmart, Wells Fargo and Verizon have spent at least $15.2 million to support anti-abortion politicians, according to publicly available political spending disclosures." from https://truthout.org/articles/companies-like-amazon-and-cvs-...
I am surprised that people are surprised, all these services are by people for people who are marginalized. Therefore, they are either far-right or far-left. When its business, its more likely to be a far-right since they are more business-oriented. The far left folks usually make a repo and give it away or try to organize some collective effort.
> for people who are marginalized. Therefore, they are either far-right or far-left.
There are many types of marginalised groups, and many other reasons to want to use VPNs. Putting everything on a left-right political axis seems more than a tad reductive.
Sure but far left and far right is a crude default way to generalize, the left folks will be especially annoyed by this but its still useful when the specifics don't matter.
mullvad's mistake was to respond. it's all universally performative, the only reason it elicits reactions (1000+ comments here) when the view of a megacorp don't is because people anticipate the ability to elicit a response from a smaller company like mullvad.
rule number one: ignore any and all political controversies, don't respond in any way. deviation is nearly always punished. unless it's part of some PR campaign with a side-risk of backfire.
Mullvad did not respond, as far as I'm aware. One of the owners has chimed in with their opinion, but I have not seen any official acknowledgement from Mullvad, the business entity.
> mullvad's mistake was to respond. it's all universally performative, the only reason it elicits reactions (1000+ comments here) when the view of a megacorp don't is because people anticipate the ability to elicit a response from a smaller company like mullvad.
You're underestimating the large influence of paid actors/FUD here. It's no coincidence that in this very thread, normally supposedly intelligent people conveniently forget that about half the companies they buy stuff from have blatant MAGA-like CEOs. HN didn't suddenly suffer from a 20 point IQ drop.
I get that this is in the news (or at least the nerd news), but really...do y'all canvass the companies you buy things from, figure out on net who the people who work for them support in politics, ask whether that's what you like, and move your business around based on that?
It seems crazy to me. Part and parcel of having a pluralistic society is that we treat each other the same in public-facing parts of life without regard for stuff like sex, political positions, etc.
You gonna refuse to accept mail from the postman who supports something you don't like?
What about the ice cream shop?
I don't know the verb canvassing (I'm not a native speaker) but assuming you mean something like vetting each company I buy from: that seems impossible. One can only do so much. Seems important to do what you can, though. I could understand the viewpoint that this person's earned money is theirs to spend; I can also understand people that don't want to fund this and are happy to have heard of it (even if the damage has been done now)
The argument, if I've understood it correctly, sounds a bit like the common pattern of asking someone who tries to buy ethical products whether they're impeccable/perfect themselves. Like asking someone who is in favor of a local wind turbine whether they've ever flown or such. You can only do so much as an average individual
It's different. There are things you can reasonably vet, and things you reasonably can't vet. For example, "is the diamond in the wedding ring I'm buying lab grown". "Is the fish I'm buying endangered". In many countries, "what kind of conditions did the chicken who laid these eggs live in". "Is this shirt I'm buying made to last or going to fall apart after a few washes".
Whether $0.01 of every $1 you spend to a company goes to someone who donates to far-right views, is absolutely impossible to vet and this news changes nothing about it. Would every $1 given to ExpressVPN lead to less $ ending up with someone who promotes such views? The truth is, we have absolutely no clue, we can't know, and there are so many factors in play here that this news doesn't move the needle. Pretending otherwise is performative behavior to make one feel better about themselves.
This guy isn't just the CEO (someone who "works for them"), it's a cofounder with 50% ownership. Personally, I avoid buying anything from the KKK bake sale.
That's a pretty unfair read in my opinion. Whatever the Mullvad guy supports (it is...a bit difficult for me to understand), it isn't the KKK. It isn't even close to the KKK. Not comparable. And he owns half the company, which means he has a lot of control...but the company is much more than ownership. It employs a lot of people and does a lot of good work. The good work it does is totally unrelated to the guy's political leanings. Whereas, a KKK bake sale is by and for the KKK. You buy muffin, $ from muffin less muffin costs --> KKK.
Did anyone actually look into the "far-right" party that this purports to be?
The Örebro Party (Swedish: Örebropartiet, ÖP) is a local populist political party in Örebro, Sweden, led by Markus Allard. It holds seats in the Örebro municipal and regional assemblies, focusing on local populist policies such as reducing politicians' salaries, stricter migration, and free dental care.
Sweden has undergone a horrible transformation in the last several years where gang warfare and especially bombings have skyrocketed. Most of the new gang violence in the last several years is from migrants from North Africa and the Middle East, after Sweden implemented a generous immigration policy.
There's nothing to indicate that this party is "far right" at all. It's a populist-based party but the stance on immigration is definitely linearly correlated to the violence that was brought in by immigration. Lowering politicians' salaries and free dental care doesn't sound very far right to me.
Swede here. That's not even close to accurate. Örebropartiet is not extremist, but I would absolutely label them radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists. Please do some research and make up your own mind. They're a tiny local party active in Örebro municipality where their founder and leader loudly points out clearly wasteful use of government funds, or more or less corrupt decisions made by leading party figures in other parties on local matters. The party leader is known for ridiculing competing parties party members on debates.
Where the Örebropartiet (Örebro Party) usually are called extremist is in questions regarding immigration. They are of the opinion that people that move to Sweden should not integrate but also assimilate, and quickly, find a job. For some people, this might sound extreme, but I would argue that more than half of the Swedish population (and its parties) nowadays share this view, similar to how Japanese people and society broadly want people that move their to assimilate.
> similar to how Japanese people and society broadly want people that move their to assimilate
And it's super racist there too, I can assure you. My father in law is Korean but lived in Japan his whole life. There's no way to describe what he experienced except racism. People just hated him for being Korean.
I have no respect for people that concern troll about some vague cultural purity to disguise their prejudices.
A friend of mine who is a non Japanese Asian lived in Japan and when asked said there's no racism. There's mild cases but if you are careful to follow the customs and speak the language, you are generally accepted as a Japanese in daily life.
Racism is one of those things that unfortunately crosses political and social boundaries. Some groups just hide it better than others by enforcing anti-racism as a group norm.
> Swede here. That's not even close to accurate. Örebropartiet is not extremist, but I would absolutely label them radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists. Please do some research and make up your own mind.
This sounds like you expect very few people to do this. I can't speak for others but this was exactly the first thing I did upon hearing about it, and
> Where the Örebropartiet (Örebro Party) usually are called extremist is in questions regarding immigration.
is exactly the conclusion I came to, based on their statements about "parasites". Not the integration aspect indeed...
The point is, they want to round up lawful citizens and turf them out of the country because they have the audacity to be slightly foreign, or worse born to someone foreign.
that is the issue, not how much tax/spend big/little government.
Exactly, the problem is not left/right it's the authoritarianism, which is again a huge threat to the world after being held mostly in check in Western democracies for many years.
People tend to forget about the "Last Man" part of Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man", but we are definitely in the phase of the Last Man seeking conflict and fighting against our hard-won freedoms.
I matters because a lot of people will only read the headline and then get a skewed view of the political landscape.
I did not post my comment to defend him or the party. All I wanted was for people to understand the situation a bit better than they would by just reading the title and post content.
>The point is, they want to round up lawful citizens and turf them out of the country
The US isn't the only country in the world. Sweden does not have birthright citizenship. Many (most?) of those to be remigrated are not Swedish citizens.
I don't see how, given their answers to simple questions as described in the "2026 run up to the elections" section, this party could ever be considered a leftist party.
To add to the context. The founder of the was the chairman for the youth organization of Vänsterpartiet (English name: The left party), the furthest left party in the Swedish parliament, and he recruited members primarily from the same organization when he was kicked out. The reason he got kicked out was that he was seen praising the Revolutionary Front, a far-left extremist political and militant network in Sweden.
It should be added that the area where they are active is in the local government of Örebro Municipality, a place with a total population of 160,143 people. Looking at the political leanings of parties for a small local government with the lens of national parties might not give a very clear picture. Their strategy is also directed toward local voters, not national voters, through a strategy called the 12% line.
That's typical for extremist parties, AKA Horseshoe theory. IRL Erdogan's party went so far to the right that they started actually adopting very socialist/communist policies. The party names is AKP which stands for "justice and development party" but many people are calling it "Allahs Communist Party" since in Turkish communist is written with K and they are islamists doing communist stuff.
It doesn't seem that complicated to be honest with you.
That is how they self identify but none of their policies seem particularly left wing.
At least not from that Wikipedia page.
Extremely left wing dental care is the best I will give them.
> Extremely left wing dental care is the best I will give them.
Free dental care is considered "extemely left wing" now? That's just bizarre tbh.
If a country would decide to use tax money to provide health care services for free to everybody that's not much different than using tax money to maintain an infrastructure network that's free to use (like roads), or free police and firefighting services - and I think none of those examples are considered particularly 'left-wing'.
This discussion is completely and irrevocably poisoned by the lack of general understanding of the distinctions between citizens, non-citizen permanent residents, legal immigrants, illegal immigrants, asylum seekers, economic immigrants, and war refugees under temporary EU protection (Ukrainians). Especially the differences between the situations in the US and the EU. This whole comment section is, sadly, full of people writing pure nonsense. Please educate yourselves on this big and important topic before posting.
I disagree. This thread contains tons of empathetic people who seem to understand each other, and disagree with each other. It's a breath of fresh air. Sure, there are also some angry posters who don't seem to lean into curiosity, but together we can make them the minority.
Given your understanding on these topics, can you give your opinion on whether this party (in particular their immigration stance) is as far-right extremist as the articles claim?
>> Mullvad is a political company fighting for free speech, free information and privacy, with two equal co-founders, co-owners and co-CEOs who fundamentally disagree on many issues. Daniel's donation to a political party is private and not part of Mullvad's mission. We protect the right to express and access views we disagree with. We welcome anyone sharing these core values, whatever their other opinions. We are happy to refund others who don't, where we can.
To be fair... I'm not sure how you could take any other position as a privacy-first VPN. By technical nature, you have to believe pretty hard in 'people's business is their own business and not mine.'
I'd rather have a founder who believes whatever, but supports others rights to disagree vehemently, than one who agrees with what I believe but is less flexible on allowing others choice.
Once I meet a Swedish girl whose parents were from XYZ.
She went on a rant on how new refugees from XYZ were ruining everything.
That’s the immigration debate in most of the world. The moment a new immigrant gets their citizenship they often feel they’re the last good one and all pathways need to be shutdown.
I’ll switch to a different vpn. It’s one thing to donate a nominal amount as a private citizen. It’s a whole different matter to be the primary source of funding.
It is a sensible combination to me. If you first believe that the government should provide a bunch of free stuff, but it doesn't at the moment because it's too expensive, it kind of makes sense that you would then think there need to be fewer people getting the free stuff so it remains affordable. The first people on the exclusion list would naturally be noncitizens.
its not uncommon. The overtly racist parties in the UK (e.g. the BNP has quite a lot of left wing policies (e.g. nationalisation of utilities), ending NHS outsourcing to the private sector, and free healthcare.
Its a combination that appeals to the worst off who compete with unskilled immigrants for jobs and rely on free healthcare etc.
A right to say something is not the same as the right to say (and do) something without being called out on it.
He has the right to do what he’s doing. Other people have the right to react and say “That sucks, it’s against my values, I no longer trust you or want to do business with you.”
People always conflate this statement. Only government can take "right" from people. Just opposing people don't make them lose their right. Otherwise it is taking away the right to say against what you say.
Okay - but that doesn't mean I'm not going to weigh up what you say when I'm choosing a business to support; especially if it's not in a professional context.
We need to add something to this nice rule about using services that are good from people we don't (fully) agree with.
I'm not personally inclined to be so strict about this, but there are people with objections against the Proton CEO who once agreed with Trump on twitter, or DHH (there is this one blogpost about his extreme views). Etc.
Aren't far-right parties opposed to government control and censorship? Ideally a provider should be politically neutral, but I'm wondering if it's preferable to have one that is opposed to government control and censorship.
The wikipedia article about the party is pretty interesting [1]. "The party has also been described as both right-wing populist and left-wing populist as well as left-conservative"
The party was founded after the founder was thrown out of the Left party for liking a far-left extremist group on Facebook and not backing down from that. Since then the party has evolved to also include goals traditionally attributed to the right, like large scale remigration and a stricter immigration policy.
The party also seems inconsequentially small, even at the municipal and regional level. They have 0 seats at the national level
I thought people were paying for Mullvad for a service. "Oh, my money is going to fund a political party I disagree with". You pay for a service, and thinking you now have a say on how the service provider decides to use the money they've received is such hubris. "But instead of using the money I gave the company to buy healthy food for his kids, he chose to buy processed food. I'm out." It's sad, almost immature.
Welp, that vanishes my support for mullvad, despite I did recommend it to many of my friends who doesn’t want/can setup their own.
Im not against people having different political opinions, I personally agree with things from each side and disagree with them both too on other matters, plus having my own third option that doesn’t fit any side. But I am certainly against a company marketing itself as a “defender of personal and human rights and freedom”, yet they are sponsoring a party that obviously doesn’t hold these values, this company will report individuals in the future to deport them maybe, 5 years later they are reporting others for disagreeing with whatever agenda that party is having, it’s always a slippery slope, never think it will end at xyz and that’s it.
Goddammit it’s like companies are ALWAYS destined to turn to evil one way or another, it’s just how long it will take is the question. It’s a reminder that you should always host your own, trust nobody, none.
> But I am certainly against a company marketing itself as a “defender of personal and human rights and freedom”, yet they are sponsoring a party that obviously doesn’t hold these values
No. Daniel made this donation privately. I own and lead the company too. Both I and several of my colleagues don't like that Daniel made this donation. You are misrepresenting the facts.
> this company will report individuals in the future to deport them maybe, 5 years later they are reporting others for disagreeing with whatever agenda that party is having, it’s always a slippery slope, never think it will end at xyz and that’s it.
You can choose to believe that, but it doesn't make it true.
> Goddammit it’s like companies are ALWAYS destined to turn to evil one way or another, it’s just how long it will take is the question. It’s a reminder that you should always host your own, trust nobody, none.
People are surprised that a privacy-oriented businessman is right-wing is very strange.
"Millions" in the title is also misleading in this context - it's millions in Swedish Kronor, which is roughly $500K USD. A lot, but the title seems intentionally misleading.
I've also never really understood the cycle of boycotting things because you don't like how an individual spends their own money. Almost every company will employ people who have values you severely disagree with, and put money toward those causes. And turning to Proton as the alternative is... a choice?
You're misinterpreting what I said. Being dense, honestly.
The start of this thread was primarily people saying they were taking their money elsewhere - and then suggesting Proton, whose CEO was in the hot seat for praising the Republican party. It makes no sense to have such a violent reaction to something like this and not consider that competitors could be similar.
The reality is that in general, your money is always going to somebody you don't want it to go to.
Örebropartiet is like the weirdest party in Sweden. It's named after "Örebro", a Swedish city with 125k population. The party's founder, Markus Allard, used to be far left politician before turning far right.
Their party program is all over the place. They stand for free dental care, direct democracy and deporting immigrants.
Marcus is also known for profanity and foul language in council meetings.
An oddity in Swedish politics is that if a local party manages to get 12% of the votes in a constituency they are eligible for getting a seat in parliament, and can skip the regular 4% popular vote rule.
Örebropartiet actually has a chance to get into national government next election (Fall 2026) since their local support is quite strong. Times are weird
No one is free until everyone is free. Daniel Berntsson is acting against freedom, he has chosen to vote for and support a party that protects only the /freedom/ of a small part of the world and seeks to “defend” it at any cost—through racism, stereotyping, and the criminalization of people fleeing exploitation and war. Europe is rich only because every corner of the world is exploited by Europe and the US. Now the tables have turned, and they want to protect what they have stolen.
Does not feel good to support such a cause. Will cancel mine and give ivpn a go. It really is a shame, I was happy with mullvad and their mission. I just wouldn't sleep well if I kept using it
I will be buying a Mullvad subscription because of this. Keep up the good work! Private individuals should have the right to free speech/expression, whatever that is, and that is a value I admire this VPN company for standing up for.
Too many companies pay lip service to the current political fad du jour, and it's annoying. I like an apolitical company that does its thing and doesn't pretend more.
Oh no :-( but why the far right?
You can sponsor sensible politics and politicians so that we get more of those.
I am a very happy customer since the service is extremely very good, the vpn problem was solved and I am so sorry but the smallest amount that I pay even if it is 0.01 cent cannot go to support the far right(or the far left).
Sorry.
But now the problem is to find a decent vpn service that is not private equity or malware.
I am anti-racist, son of immigrants, son of a mixed race couple, yet what scares me is the mobbing of people against other that have a different opinion than yours, as seen in this thread.
Plenty saying they cannot in good conscience support Mullvad, while directly and indirectly giving money to people like Bezos, Musk or Cook, among others, or supporting politicians from both aisles, who have the power to do much worse at a greater scale. I call this hypocrisy, and it is widespread in social media driven mob mentality. Intolerance about intolerants turns you an intolerant.
I like Mullvad the company, and I know that people might support politics I find despicable. Such is life outside of silly internet echo chambers.
> what scares me is the mobbing of people against other that have a different opinion than yours, as seen in this thread.
I am dismayed by the anti-intellectual climate in the world as well, but HN is an oasis of empathy and curiosity compared to other platforms. Look at the people I've engaged with. Many of them vehemently disagree with Daniel, and with my position. They understand it, compliment Mullvad, and say they unfortunately have to leave. That's the way political discourse should work.
> Plenty saying they cannot in good conscience support Mullvad, while directly and indirectly giving money to people like Bezos, Musk or Cook, among others, or supporting politicians from both aisles, who have the power to do much worse at a greater scale. I call this hypocrisy, and it is widespread in social media driven mob mentality.
Good point. We should probably be more open about how much good Mullvad has done over the years. I've been so focused on just doing stuff, and not telling people about it.
> I like Mullvad the company, and I know that people might support politics I find despicable. Such is life outside of silly internet echo chambers.
There's nothing wrong with promoting or protecting the interests of native or indigenous people over those of immigrants or foreigners. This is not a far-right fringe belief, though some are trying to paint it so.
A headline and 20 comments and no mention of what this party actually stands for. Only simple labels such as "far-right". Ehh. The Republican Party in America is EXTREMELY far right by Swedish standards. So maybe one should base this on the actual substance rather than labels?
For some people, the answer is obviously yes. For others, they'll judge Mullvad purely by its track record, audits, and technical design.
Honestly, you could say the same about the CEO of ANDURIL in the US - the Oculus guy...but he just cares about the US and wants to make money by making weapon systems etc.
Is he a bad person? Is he a patriot? Who knows, I ain't gonna play the ultimate judge game - but he did release a cool gameboy clone which is literally the closest I will ever get to his work... [1]
Look at Zuck and Musk. Their platforms are still used by millions. It's only "us" that care about the pedigree of our tech founders, most people couldn't care less.
There has to be some reason that so many projects are started by right wing people. Something in their personality that makes them both RW and willing to start lots of projects.
In some ways I would say it could even increase trust: if the guy is a privacy absolutist, ultra-libertarian, "my business is not the state's business" type, his VPN products are likely to be pretty good.
On the other hand, he might have other strong right-wing views that users don't agree with, and which might take precedence in one's set of priorities. If I like football and they like football, but they also want to kill me because of <other reason>, I don't think I'd want to give them my money.
Why are leftists so histrionic? If we had a thread made every time an executive espoused far left opinions we'd overload the HN servers. Why is an executive being far right even news?
I am leftist [1]. It’s not a coincidence that leftist groups in the world always devolve to infighting and splintering, while right-wing parties have no issue getting their radical ideas through because they don’t spend all their energy deciding who is part of the ingroup and who should be cancelled for wrongthink.
1: this is why I don’t usually label myself as such, as I am aware that the world is more complex than red and blue thinking.
It is getting almost impossible to consume media or use tech products without supporting a nazi sympathizer or supporter or downright nazi himself nowadays
Oh yes, sure, the party started by avowed Marxist Markus Allard is 'far-right'. For those who can read (or know how to translate) Swedish here's an article [1] on marxist.se - well-known hidey hole for far-right extremists - on how the expulsion of Markus Allard from the communist party (they call themselves 'the left party' but they're one of several communist parties in Sweden) is an 'attack on the left'.
Allard is a traditional leftie, someone who thinks in terms of class struggle and power to the people. He also happens to be rather outspoken about the failure of Swedish parties on all sides to handle the problems related to the excessive migration Sweden and Europe have been dealing with for the last few decades. This has put a target on his back for the everyone-I-don't-agree-with-is-Hitler crowd so his party is of course 'far-right'. Well, if that is what 'far-right' means it doesn't seem all that problematic so I wonder why people always complain so much about the claimed rise of the 'far-right'. See what that leads to, you obsessive labellers of those who dare to question the desired narrative? When everything is far-right the term has lost its meaning just as claims of 'racism' or '*-phobia' have lost theirs.
The mechanism of VPN is pooling together many users and making them indistinguishable to the outside, providing plausible deniability. Outsiders can see a user belongs to the pool, but they can't tell if they are 'good' or 'bad'.
It's a similar mechanism that cryptocurrency, or money laundering uses. It's very possible for 'good' users to be recruited into the pool for no other reason than to provide plausible deniability for the 'bad' members. If I wanted to run an ilegal operation like cybercrime or drugs, I would probably use a VPN and a crypto pool, and try to get legitimate users to desire using VPNs for reasons like gaming latency, or avoiding taxes on 1K/month income.
It's well known that Mullvad provides lower than market prices when compared to competitors, and that they offer stricter no logs policies. Yeah, maybe they are providing a basic privacy right, or maybe they are providing shelter for criminals. Tradeoff old as time. But with prices possibly being subsidized, it makes sense that their incentive model is not to collect fees for usage, but to provide a wide enough user pool such that the anonimity is more effective.
What's interesting is that both far-right free-market anarchist users and far-left Not for profit Free Software socialists appear to be shocked that their anonimity pools contains them both. Kind of like how the lights went up at the club at 6 am and you realize who you've been smooching in the dark.
Such a convenient time frame with all think-of-the-children bs wave to point fingers at the one of the best VPN services our there with spotless reputation and raise a hysteria with duplicated stream of posts, isn't it?
Sad that I had to scroll down so far to see someone pointing this out. This is the least organic comment section I've ever seen on HN. Also very convenient that the manner of moderation has kept this on the front page for most of 3 days, quite unheard of.
Mullvad does more for internet privacy than any other company. There are a lot of people saying that they will not use Mullvad anymore. What are they going to do? Support ExpressVPN or some spyware VPN with unknown owners? To achieve what – reduce the roster of companies fighting for a free internet to 0?
Remember, currently individuals elected by you, from parties ranging from goodest to kindest, are voting for passport internet and chat control, with little to no well-funded opposition.
I dislike that Mozilla is spending their money sponsoring random political organizations while asking for money here and there. I dislike that EFF is sometimes busy with American politics more than internet freedoms, and I dislike that Alexandra Elbakyan believes in some kind of esoteric stalinism.
But despite all that, I still support all of them! Because they are doing good things that nobody else does.
There is a "what kind of American are you" meme that is usually applied to people who have zero tolerance for people with different political views. Of course, it applies only to evil people???
No! If you think that "canceling" organizations on the matter that their leadership is kinda suspected of maybe supporting something that doesn't 100% align with your last ballot is a good deed, this meme is actually about you!
> Mullvad does more for internet privacy than any other company. There are a lot of people saying that they will not use Mullvad anymore. What are they going to do? Support ExpressVPN or some spyware VPN with unknown owners? To achieve what – reduce the roster of companies fighting for a free internet to 0?
Exactly. This blatantly obvious fact being conveniently ignored by hundreds of comments here, is not organic.
Nah. But for the supposed "privacy" you swap one "dumb pipe" for another pipe, which you have no clue about its operations beyond "trust me bro". Of course they may behave with good intentions and actually keep their promises but that's a rather huge IF.
And then quite often people will still use their regular tracking-browser to access tracking-websites xD
What if the focus of their pro-remigration stance is families deemed impossible to integrate due to their persisting criminal activities and rejection of functional societal norms? Because that's the exact demographic this one policy of that party is concerned with.
Parties get goverment funding based on election result, with a minimum floor of 2.5% votes in national elections. This party is way too small for that, and is primarily focused on local election.
The Örebro Party seems similar to Bundnis Sara Wagenknecht in Germany. They are a splinter group of mostly older Linke who are anti immigrant. There is also this super weird fringe on the legit extreme left here, the Anti-deutsche antifa who are pro-Israel and islamophobic.
Frankly I am suspicious of anyone throwing money into politics; left / centre / right.
Small scale donors dont even get off without drawing my ire - finding out someone you know donated to a politician / party is like finding out they sent money to a nigerian prince to unlock their share of the inheritance.
The party seems to have some bizarre policies, but on migration can't really blame them considering how badly Sweden has failed to integrate humanitarian migrants. There is so much gang violence, so many people of migrant background marginalized and living on welfare without any hope of a better future.
I will gladly continue buying from Mullvad. There is nothing wrong with forced deportations. Without them anyone can come, claim asylum, and stay indefinitely if their country of origin doesn't want them back. That is simply idiotic waste of tax payer's money, and in case of criminals, also a hazard to public safety. Pretty much every Western European country does forced deportations, especially those of criminals.
Why doesn’t Apple just make a built in iOS native vpn that can be toggled (effectively) from the swipe down menu control and is paid monthly or part of iCloud
What's going on? Proton faced a similar scandal recently. I think in their case sponsored a video by a far right vlogger. After that I saw people recommending Mullvad as an alternative.
Tweet from Proton's CEO last year: "10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned."
He repeatedly said his statement was politically neutral.
I use Mullvad because it physically prevents anyone from logging my data.
What a co-owner does with his personal money in a local Swedish municipal election has zero impact on the code protecting my traffic.
Did a quick research - calling a party that campaigns for a 30-hour work week and socialist dental care 'far-right' just because they have a strict immigration policy shows how carelessly people throw labels around these days.
Why? It is perfectly possible to be a legal immigrant and a parasite. It's even possible to be a completely homegrown native and a parasite. Wouldn't you call essentially all career criminals parasites?
The Örebro Party (Örebropartiet) split from the socialist Left Party in 2014.
Some of its key issues include lowered wages for politicians, ending the tax payer funding of various sculptures, monuments and art, large scale remigration, a stricter immigration policy, and free dental care.
> While Allard has described himself as a Communist, and a Marxist, at its founding in March 2014 he defined the Örebro Party as "broad left". At that time the party considered itself a "local party that wants to carry on the labour movement's ideals", and "not interested in administrating the current society".
But that Bill Gates [Foundation] is a larger sponsor to WHO than all nations short of the US (at least prior to the currently elected govt) wouldn't dare making the news this far left into the interwebs... Just sayin' - figured I'd invest a few karma points into self reflection ;) love y'all
Up/Down (authoritarian/libertarian) is what matters there.
If he has high allegiance to the extant power structure then promises should be questioned.
If he is for radical decentralization and antiwar then I'm more likely to trust promises made about privacy and autonomy.
Then there's international confusion about left/right. Scandinavia is known as a good place to run a business because businesses regulation is much lighter than places like the US which are heavily regulated. In the US business regulation is "left wing" in Scandinavia it's "right wing".
We'd use a 14-dimensional vector for political positioning if we wanted to be studious but most folks are just looking for a friend/enemy distinction. Even many of the comments here looking to dump a well-regarded service if either "tastes great" or "less filling" is confirmed. The false dialectic as means of control and all that jazz.
Any of the Swedes in here can corroborate the claims in the article about this right wing group? Especially about the extreme anti-immigration statements and put that in full translation and context?
Also what this group leader has done in Örebro to contextualize this quote
> ”I hope they will do similar things on the national level as in Örebro”, writes Daniel Berntsson to Flamman.
Tried to find something from the party itself, but found nothing on their homepage other than that they plan to publish a party programme "gradually, starting some time during the summer of 2026".
The claims in the social media post is pure bullshit. The party is a tiny (read: one person elected) radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists. They have gained popularity for pointing out wasteful use of Örebro's municipalities resources, and their leader's fondness of lengthy ridiculing other parties politicians in lengthy debates, that he often publish on Instagram and YouTube.
No, they have 8 people elected: 3 in the region, 5 in the municipality.
They got 4,46 % of the votes in the region, and 7,92 % in the municipality. And who knows, maybe they'll use that 5 million SEK to get more seats in this years election.
Are his public stances on immigration precisely stated as remigration, or does he describe a thing such as remigration without explicitly naming it as such?
About his quote from wikipedia "They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish." which links to this video tweet https://x.com/AllardKlipp/status/2060109271635771457 can you give full context/translation?
The initiative to found the Örebro Party was taken in early 2014 by Markus Allard, who is also the first party leader. Allard had previously held positions as substitute member of the Örebro municipal council and district chairman of the Young Left in Örebro; in December 2013 he was expelled from the Left Party and its youth wing Young Left for "liking" the Revolutionary Front, a militant revolutionary socialist and anti-fascist organization, on Facebook and refusing to disavow it when questioned.[6] Allard has stated that the real reason for his expulsion was that he was perceived as a threat to the established party bureaucracy.[7][8]
While Allard has described himself as a Communist,[9] and a Marxist,[8][10] at its founding in March 2014 he defined the Örebro Party as "broad left".[9] At that time the party considered itself a "local party that wants to carry on the labour movement's ideals", and "not interested in administrating the current society".[11]”
Colours:
Red
Black
This sounds like a socialist, anarchist or Ancap group that believes in borders
OK, but please don't post low-substance comments on HN. Telling us you “don't care” about a topic achieves nothing other than instigating a generic tangent, which is against the guidelines. Please take a moment to read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them if you want to participate here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
"Some key issues for the Örebro Party locally include strong secularism, a 30-hour workweek with retained pay, lowered wages for politicians, expanded social housing, abolishing preschool-fees, making public transport free of charge, ending taxpayer funding of what it sees as wasteful sculptures, monuments and art and introducing free dental care. Nationally the party has set out large-scale remigration, closing the Swedish borders to immigration, a stricter assimilation policy and ending taxes on energy and fuel as some of its key issues."
And the party leader has described himself as a Communist and Marxist.
Now, the usual cry from blue sky spoiled rich kid fascists that are unable to understand that some people live in the real world, with real problems and because of that have ideas different from them.
Interesting. My friends and I were recently discussing the rise of right-wing parties and leaders around the world, and we observed that many of these controversial elected leaders also have an "Anarchist" trait. These leaders have enacted policies that deliberately cause a lot of social and / or economic upheaval - bordering on anarchy - which have ultimately resulted in mass transfer of wealth from the lower classes to the rich, and widened the gap between the poor and the rich. And, unsurprisingly, many of these right-wing parties and leaders are backed billionaires (and now trillionaires). Factor in the role of BigTech and their social media platforms, that have aided their rise, it does seem like even these corporate leaders who aren't necessarily enamoured by such political ideologies still feel the need to tacitly support them because they recognise that it provides them more opportunities for capitalistic exploitation ...
> takes inspiration from marxist ideology[42] and unites the "productive" classes of society against the "Transferiat", with the "Transferiat" being a term coined by Allard to describe the classes of society that lives off transfers that are a net negative for society
lmao This is like the song Tequila by The Champs but instead of a long instrumental it’s John Galt’s speech and instead of “Tequila!” it’s “Marxism!”
Love all the Godwinning in this thread, it just shows normal people how ridiculous it all is.
(By the way: I doubt most privacy advocates care much about this. Those of us who travel in the underground are used to running into not-so-great people, many of whom seem to do way worse things than donating to political parties! But feel free to expend more resources on your campaign.)
If you know that he will spend his money in support of that party, and you still buy services from him, you are helping him promote whatever views he holds. As simple as that. There is no cop out.
Article by a news media outlet that is considered very far left (communist). Try finding the same claim or description in any national Swedish media. You won't.
An important part of making "vote with your wallet" work is that people need an awareness of what their wallet is voting on. Telling people not to talk about problems with companies lets companies get away with way too much.
I've never really gotten the impression that Allard or the Örebro party support ethnic cleansing. What makes you say this? I'm not sure if any of their suggested policies would even be considered that controversial outside of Sweden.
That's because there are no nonwhite countries in the world that white people immigrate to en masse because living conditions there are better than in their own countries. There's a real racial asymmetry in the world between whites and nonwhites in terms of building countries people wish to live in.
"ethnic cleansing" is an emotionally charged term that conjures genocide in the popular imagination. It is not a good descriptive term for what can rightly be described as regressive or ultra-nationalistic migration policy.
What? I don't support a lot of the things they say, but to my knowledge, that is not what they have said. Are you Swedish, or did you come to that conclusion solely from a Wikipedia article?
> Markus Allard stresses that he does not see immigrants who behave themselves as a problem. On the contrary, he believes that the debate too often focuses on people who are already functioning well in society, while politicians fail to deal with the groups that are responsible for crime or long-term benefit dependency.[0]
> According to him, the focus should be on those who create problems for Sweden, not on people who work, follow the laws, and are a functioning part of society.[0]
He also explains that he believes that being born in Sweden alone should not automatically make someone Swedish, and that it should instead be based on ties such as culture, history, and identity. You can machine translate the article because I feel this comment would be too long otherwise. It should be pretty close to what he is saying.
and:
> He therefore advocates a greatly reduced influx of immigrants, repatriation for criminals and long-term welfare-dependent people, and reforms that make it easier for productive Swedes to start a family and have more children.[1]
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And here are the original statements in Swedish:
[0]:
> Markus Allard betonar samtidigt att han inte ser invandrare som sköter sig som något problem. Tvärtom menar han att debatten alltför ofta fokuserar på människor som redan fungerar väl i samhället, medan politikerna misslyckas med att hantera de grupper som står för kriminalitet eller långvarigt bidragsberoende.
> Enligt honom bör fokus ligga på dem som skapar problem för Sverige, inte på människor som arbetar, följer lagarna och är en fungerande del av samhället.
[1]:
> Han förespråkar därför ett kraftigt minskat inflöde av invandrare, återvandring för kriminella och långvarigt bidragsberoende personer samt reformer som gör det lättare för produktiva svenskar att bilda familj och få fler barn.
We've banned this account for posting flamewar comments and ignoring our request to stop.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
People who engage in these antics would quickly find that there isn’t a single company where all the employees align with all their values. They would then either need to accept their hypocrisy or reject society completely to live in the forest somewhere.
Revealing that capital is catastrophically misallocated to people whose deep desires are to inflict suffering on others? Oh no, please don't do it, that would be terrible. We could almost figure out a solution to this capital problem. Maybe something involving a common ownership and a sense of class.
The one time HN is accelerationist in the right one. Be proud, comrade, you're making the world better even if you don't know it
Considering their CEO is only supporting a party whose primary goal is mass deportation of undocumented and documented immigrants as well of legal citizens, it's going to be one of the easiest purity check of my life. A good fascist is a dead fascist.
I live in a "white" country and I like my nonwhite neighbors, some immigrant, some nth-generation, even ones who mostly socialize within their ethnic/cultural enclaves. I believe they belong here as much as I do. I don't want to give any money to racists who want to expunge them for some perceived ethnic transgressions. These parties are one step removed from extolling the virtues of the glorious Aryan race, and we all know where that leads.
This sentiment is just so utterly foreign to me that I can't comprehend how someone could rationally think this way. I mean, I'm a black man whose ancestors have lived in America since the slave ships, and I easily recognize that some people are more American than others. And Americans only have like 1% of the cultural and ethnic identity that most European nations have. Why are you blind to the importance of the deep historical roots that bind a nation together? Why do you think the very force (namely kinship ties) that has driven humanity forward for the last hundred thousand years has, in the blink of an eye, become irrelevant?
What happens when they start to see their ethnicity or culture as political and fight to impose it, including using violence? Because at some point it will happen - democracy incentivizes clientelism and tribalism.
The USA, which is often touted as a "successful" melting pot model, is rife with similar problems.
Not in my experience, at least not at the national level. It's been said that Obama deported more illegals than anyone that came before. But Democrats couldn't run on that record because it was toxic to the progressives.
The USA has never had a leftist president. No president of the USA has ever sought to end capitalism.
I think you know that, and that you are alluding to that with quotation marks. But I'm not sure how the person you are replying to is using the term "left." I feel it is important to clarify when discussing how the Left views immigration.
Yes, some immigration is good. That doesn't mean all immigration is good. Are you willing to identify positive traits and limit immigration to those with those traits? Or do you balk at being selective? The defense of immigration always treats immigrants as one undifferentiated lump. But this is just the lumping fallacy.
>The "homogenous countries" started 2 world wars, one of them to "preserve their culture, ethnicities, identities". Would this not support the worldview that immigration has net benefits?
Oversimplification to the point of bad faith
>Also, can you explain how ethnic cleansing preserves culture and identities?
Not a defense, but rather support for your opinion, just take one look at Europe. Previously, they welcomed Syrians and middle Easterners escaping conflict. But in the last years, right wing majorities have emerged and grown based on increased crime and general nuisance, many are now against immigrants. Just yesterday the Danes are insisting on eliminating these nuisance loud "calls to worship" from Mosques. Immigrants that are not really being hired by locals, or not successful starting their own legitimate businesses, too often turn to organized crime - - they have to make a living somehow. Witness the violent protests recently in Ireland against immigrants. Witness all the bombings in Sweden, and of course the rapes of local women. Many of these immigrants come from less lawful countries, where it's often "dog eat dog" for survival.
I can't speak for Europe but in the US crime has been on a downward slope since the 90s, all while the percentage of immigrants in the US has gone up.
A few studies have shown that immigrants have a lower incidence of crime, especially undocumented ones. I don't know of any reputable studies (in the US) that show otherwise.
I don't want to speak for European countries. Never lived there, and I think people living there should be responsible for deciding how they navigate such issues.
In the USA, where I live, there is not much of an ethical or cultural defense to prevent immigration. The dominant culture, white people, are themselves immigrants. To deny others the right to live and work here is selfish at best. If some people are allowed here and some people are not, the only logically coherent next step is to return all land and resources back to Native American hands. If we do not have the stomach for such a bold transition, then the next best thing is to welcome everyone. To do otherwise means allowing and denying people a life here on extremely arbitrary, hypocritical reasons (and usually racist reasons, frankly). So, at least in the USA (and I believe more broadly, North and South America), the political Left must necessarily be pro-immigration if they wish to be anti-racist.
Speaking even more broadly, Leftists have generally be in favor of internationalist cooperation (a la the famous song The Internationale). But how exactly that relates to immigration policies is debatable.
Legal immigration to the US for an every day person is nearly impossible. You can’t just decide one day that you will move to the US and try to make a life there. European countries are orders of magnitude more open than the US.
When it is about paying money for a commercial service I think it is valid point to vote with your wallet. Otherwise if it was a free service, it would not really matter as the whole VPN provider industry is dubious and comes down to the same tech stack and outcome.
"They should also be deported, even if they were born in Sweden, because they don't have a natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedes. I am prepared to walk over corpses here, and that is what separates me from these other damn politicians." [1]
What are some other ways they've been known to be "right-adjacent"?
The Örebro Party in question actually split from the Left Party and describes itself as leftwing. The founder describes himself as a Marxist.
> While Allard has described himself as a Communist, and a Marxist, at its founding in March 2014 he defined the Örebro Party as "broad left". At that time the party considered itself a "local party that wants to carry on the labour movement's ideals", and "not interested in administrating the current society".
Forced mass deportation of immigrants and anyone not ethnically swedish (= dark skin) even if they are citizens, as well as calling anyone using social safety nets parasites, is just your standard far-right racist populism. There is zero class consciousness if you throw the weakest people with the least influence in society under the bus for your populism.
It's almost definitionally entirely the opposite of Marxism, since that's precisely about recognizing social conflicts caused by things like immigration and poverty as a bourgeoisie plot to divide the working class, to deflect it away from the actual problem. That's why rich people donate to far-right parties in the first place, it's in their class interest to do so.
The relevance of this story does not come from a obvious "wrong" in the support of political value X. Infact Mullvad is clearly politically active, supporting "individual-privacy" in legislation processes multiple times. This is expected. The 'problem' is build from multiple assumptions.
1. Owner, Co-Owner, director, etc. Have direct immediate unchecked control over "the product"
2. The actual content of far-X Politics in inheritly unpopular. Else it wouldn't be "Far" from anything. This is also why propaganda and populism are necessary.
3. Far-X politics DEPENDS on direct control (information and excercise) because of (2.)
Therefore --> Owner Opinions become Company opinions. And owner(company) supports ideological politics that are fundamentally opposed to product and broader HN views.
Notice how these people almost never go after the management of major multinationals, or even places like car dealerships and real estate firms. It’s almost always companies and projects that are critical to freedom and privacy. That should tell you all you need to know.
A bit naive, but I'd guess that privacy supporting projects might tend to attract people on the political extreme so you see people are more passionate about this?
The average person who wants (or sells) a car probably doesn't have many strong feels on politics. The average person who goes out of their way to be to buy a specific privacy focused VPN is probably a bit more in tune politically and likely to have stronger feelings.
I know people who don't eat at Chick-fil-a because the owners are homophobic and donate to right wing politicians all the time. I also know people who don't shop at Hobby Lobby because the owners are right-wing christian extremists who materially supported ISIS by illegally buying antiquities. Both of these have been extensively covered in the news.
So no, it's not just companies that are "critical to freedom and privacy".
He's entitled to his political views and just as we're entitled to potentially use or not use his service because of them :)
Not sure why it's such an issue to discuss the political views of the beneficiaries of services we use. I understand it's mostly uninteresting as far as comment sections go, but it's always bizarre to see a defense of political association when often the impetus for sharing this type of information is for people/consumers to exercise their right to associate with business based on their political outlook.
> Isn’t he, like any one of us, entitled to hold the political views he wants and support the candidates or parties he wants?
He's perfectly entitled to hold whatever loony political views he wants. I haven't seen anyone calling for his arrest.
But customers are also entitled to decide whether or not to keep supporting a company for whatever reasons they choose, including the political ideology of its CEOs.
If we are going to allow elites to gather vast fortunes avoiding fair tax, and then use that wealth to exercise outsized influence on politics, it’s fair for consumers to factor this into how they spend their money.
Surely you can see the difference between “the personal life of founders” and “the founder of this company is by far the largest donor to a party in favour of ethnic cleansing and thus I don’t want to buy his products”?
you are saying that if that founder earned from scam websites while running Mullvad, then it would have been fine to sponsor that association with the crime money, but not Mullvad money, yes?
You have sources about Ethnic cleansing or you are just talking about immigration which has nothing to do with ethnicity? Of course criminal immigrants that just cross the border should be deported, that's common-sense. You would really cross Japanese border right now and genuinely think you aren't committing a serious crime?
Can you give some sources regarding the Ethnic cleansing?
You have freedom of speech to advocate for your politics. The rest of us have the freedom of association to not want to be involved with you in any way.
These are not contradictory - they are both essential freedoms.
And everyone is free to chose not to buy products from people who have opinions that differs fundamentally from their own?
And some opinions cannot be tolerated in a democratic society. An obvious example is anti-liberal/anti-democratic opinions as they threaten the system itself. You cannot have a free democratic society if a majority removes the freedoms of a minority.
Very weird interpretation of "voluntarily choose to not continue supporting them financially"
Presumably you want everyone to be forcibly compelled to finance the political parties they disagree with? And you would define this as a democratic society?
For most people, the concern is the money, not the voting. People don't want wealthy people reshaping politics to fit their interests through their wealth. They can vote for whomever they want.
This sounds a bit irrational. Where does "wealthy" start? Mullvad co-CEO donated ~ $500K, would him donating $100K have the same effect? What about $10K? What if a Mullvad _employee_ donated $500K?
In a free democratic society nobody is forced to do business with anybody they don't agree with, and free speech means they can talk about their decision without fearing repercussion.
Everyone is free to make up their mind and vote for what they believe.
And if I disagree strongly enough then I am free to take my business elsewhere. Especially if the money I hand over might go to support speech and parties I fundamentally disagree with.
Freedom swings both ways, and freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from people thinking you're an asshole and not wanting anything to do with you. That's their freedom.
Haters will now say that the far right will destroy exactly that: "our" democracy. The Western morality is a joke, and many HN readers comment like an infant. I feel ashamed.
I think this is more nuanced than this article or mullvad themselves present it as. What you give to mullvad as a form of payment will end up in the pockets of the funding members which allows them to make relatively large political donations, but it's also not as deep as presented. What gets seemingly glossed over how involved large companies are in pushing parties like orebro into relevancy.
As a basic example, youtube started pushing a LOT of anti-immigrant videos. I never watched them since after few minutes it's obvious that it is clear ragebait, but I keep getting them recommended without showing any interest in them and they're all clocking in anywhere from 300k to millions of views.
There is virtually no way to resist the temptation of being anti-immigrant/racist/whatnot when you see abusive behavior exploiting the good will of the european union especially when there is state level abuse to extract additional funding from the shared support pool. This being extremely unpopular gives motivation to keep all of this under wraps as much as possible which only fuels the fire when "information" is made available on social media platforms where you benefit from blowing this out of proportion and then if you try to question it you are labeled which naturally breeds resentment.
> The Örebro Party (Swedish: Örebropartiet, ÖP) is a political party in Sweden. The party was initially only a local party in Örebro, Sweden. Markus Allard is the party leader. According to Allard the party cannot be placed anywhere on the traditional left-right spectrum. Some of its key issues include lowered wages for politicians, ending the tax payer funding of various sculptures, monuments and art, large scale remigration, a stricter immigration policy, and free dental care.[3][4]
Mullvad has always been a bit suspect with regard to their settings or lack their of, however what are you trying to insinuate? That founders are not political? That one "wing" of some hypothetical bird is in some way disconnected from its mirror wing? Regardless making something such as a VPN is and has been commoditiezed in current year to such an extent that whatever may be your motives, you can only do good by encouraging the userbase to not pay for said services.
To the people using Mullvad I have two sincere and unpopular questions: do you actively scrutinize and examine the key people of every service and product you use, or is it just a reflexive change of footing whenever you happen upon news like this? Also, do you really switch, or is it just a heat of moment kind of thing and an opportunity to profess yourself?
There's nothing wrong with acting on new information as and when it surfaces in your life without obsessively staying up to date with every entity you engage with. That's the reasonable, pragmatic approach to trying to do the right thing without overwhelming yourself with the burden of being perfect.
It's not a gotcha if you're inconsistent from an outsiders perspective, we're all doing the best we can with what little insight we have into reality.
> There's nothing wrong with acting on new information as and when it surfaces in your life without obsessively staying up to date with every entity you engage with.
So you're saying the majority of the people here who say they're leaving Mullvad, have:
1. Not heard of Bezos' funding of the Trump family, or don't use Amazon at all 2. Not heard of Zuckerberg/Meta's [insert countless despicable things here], or don't have Facebook/Instagram/Whatsapp installed at all 3. Not heard of OpenAIs free pass on the Trump administration using their models for war purposes without limitations, or don't use OpenAI at all 4. And so forth?
Clearly, no. Because it has nothing to do with coming across information without obsessively staying up to date with every entity. The same people have come across much of the above information, yet continue not to act on it, despite most of them being magnitudes worse than this case.
I think that's what a lot of people in this thread are missing. There are alternatives to Mullvad, so it's pretty easy to take your money elsewhere if you're unhappy with where it's being spent right now.
The counter-reaction to the reaction is so dumb. If you think it's silly to boycott a company because of a co-founders political donations, fine. But it's just as silly to try to argue people into not boycotting. Live and let live.
It gives me an excuse to really examine why I started using their product or service and take the time to research alternatives. If the alternative is better, great. If not, what am I willing to lose? Money, convenience, reliability? These are questions you don't want a happy paying customer asking.
Generally speaking, if the mission of a company is privacy and then the actions of the c-suite or founders indicates that they are more than willing to compromise on that, then yes. Why shouldnt you scrutinize people whose product is not aligned with their goals?
And yes I do actively switch products. I left the Windows ecosystem for Linux and I will leave Mullvad for whatever else pops up. So it goes.
When it's about boycotting a product like Bud Light or Mullvad, there are so many equal offers from competitors that it isn't difficult to boycott and switch to another product.
Maybe companies in those kind of markets will simply bite the bullet and start marketing their products as for one side or for the other in politics instead of trying to be for everybody. Then they can lock-in strong goodwill from "their side", and stand on more certain footing. Or maybe most customers do not care as much as online activists.
> do you actively scrutinize and examine the key people of every service and product you use
No.
> is it just a reflexive change of footing whenever you happen upon news like this
Yes.
> do you really switch
Yes.
What is the implication here? That because I did not know that a percentage of the money I give a company went towards supporting a party whose I that I find disgusting, I should keep supporting them now that I do know?
If alternatives exist some of us are willing to make changes to not support the worst of the worst when their behavior is revealed.
I used to like Musk, now I see Tesla and am disgusted. Maybe he was always like this but the personal line for me was the salutes. I’m sure many others have lines as well.
same here. and the so-called political left is anyway mostly pro surveillance and censorship to curb what they consider fake news or agitation. (so-called b/c the terms left and right are actually pretty meaningless nowadays imo)
There have been multiple posts about this and hundreds of comments, so there is clearly appetite to discuss it, although none of the submitted links have been very detailed.
I've merged the other threads into this one, so you'll see some anachronistic timestamps below.
The post linked has been removed, so I don't know what more we can speculate upon, 650+ comments in.
It's strange to see HN mods allow this much attention to a political, and contentious issue.
I don't think "appetite to discuss" should be a justification to override the guidelines against political submissions and discussion. There is far too much politics on HN and it leaks into unrelated discussions too. There are plenty of other places to discuss politics on the internet.
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The comment from the other Mullvad founder is here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48696800
What has been removed? The links I saw didn't have much information but as far as I can tell they're still up.
From an HN point of view the idea is to give the discussion a place, since the community obviously wants to have it.
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Well the title already says most of it, doesn't it?
I'm also surprised. Usually opinions opposing the far right are removed from HN.
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Hi,
Mullvad has two owners, founders, and CEOs - Daniel Berntsson, and me, Fredrik Strömberg. All posts I've seen yesterday and today, including the newspaper articles, talk about Mullvad as if Daniel is the single owner, founder and CEO. It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns you're welcome to comment on this thread, or email our customer support.
See below for the response you'll get from support:
-----
Mullvad is a political company. We fight for freedom of speech, freedom of information and the right to privacy. These are firmly held values of the founders of Mullvad.
Mullvad protects the right for people to express things we don't agree with. We protect the right of everyone to access views we don't agree with.
We also live these values by being tolerant in our daily work. Everyone is welcome to collaborate with Mullvad if they share these narrow core values. As employees, contractors, customers, suppliers, lobbyists, campaign partners or whatever it might be. No matter what their other opinions are and no matter whether the founders or anyone else in Mullvad dislike them. The founders themselves fundamentally disagree on several important issues.
This is what allows us to advance our common causes. Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment is also liberating and promotes truth seeking.
The more people do this, the better a place the world will be.
It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission, in the same way that someone's opinions on animal rights, taxes or public healthcare policy isn't.
That said, if you no longer want to be a Mullvad customer for philosophical reasons, we think it's important to honor that. In that case, reach out to support.
Fredrik, while acknowledging everything you said, the fact remains some of my money can end up empowering politics I find repugnant.
If it were a small amount of money, it wouldn’t be an issue. If the politics at stake were less important, it wouldn’t be an issue.
They’re not going to stop at immigration, look at other places in the world to see the future risk.
Sorry, I was a paying and satisfied customer, and now I’m out.
I'm sorry to hear that. I'm not defending his choice, but consider reading Daniel's rationale in the Flamman article. There's also his blog [1], which explains some of his views. I know he doesn't share all of Örebropartiets views, but I should let him provide that nuance.
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.
[1]: https://dberntsson.info
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If you bought the product, the money went to the company. You don't need to take personal responsibility beyond that, and the company isn't doing the thing you hate so much. By the same token that "some of your money might end up (after many twists and turns) empowering politics you find repugnant", a much bigger share of this money is paying for the food on the table of the employees, their families and their children.
How many people unrelated with your personal gripe, people that were doing a good job since you were paying and satisfied customer, are you willing to punish in order to "send a message"?
This is an impossible standard to live by and demand from everything you buy and every service you pay for. Doubly so if you need to announce to the world you're dropping a product because of something that isn't done by or responsibility of its employees.
I am sympathetic to the sentiment, but the argument does not hold water.
> the fact remains some of my money can end up empowering politics I find repugnant
are you paying taxes? are you using gasoline? are you paying for amazon?
Some ratio of your money will always go toward something you hate. The big question is: is for a mulvad subscription that ratio bigger than for the alternative? The next question is: how is the ratio for things you like?
> If it were a small amount of money, it wouldn’t be an issue.
I'm not speaking for or against anyone's views for or against anything here, but it's worth noting that Brendan Eich's $1K donation caused quite the stir.
I am so so disappointed with Mullvad and this founder. I can’t believe I let myself get suckered and then paid up-front for the year again.
The only influence I have is with my money.
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No offense, but you're being so dramatic for no reason. You're not that important, and it doesn't matter what you believe. Your comment just reeks of smugness and immaturity.
Hi Fredrik
I’m a long time Mullvad customer, likely paid Mullvad upward of 400€ in the past number of years, as well as recommended it to friends and family members.
What you seem to be missing in your comment, is that some of that money I paid, found its way to support an organisation that has extreme racist views.
I’ve reached out to support and requested a refund of my outstanding credit.
I’ll be moving on.
Not just “support”, it’s literally the main source of funds for the party. >70% of donations. If it was a small donation that would be sort of controversial but maybe defendable, but here we are talking about funding pretty much the whole party
Hi. I get what you mean. I made that post with limited time. Sorry to hear you're leaving.
Hi Kamaitachi,
What you seem to be missing is that every single € you've spent on virtually anything in the past number of years, some of it has found its way to support organisations that have extreme racist views.
I did the same, except I'm paying for Mullvad through the Tailscale partnership, so I reached out to them and expressed my desire for them to partner with other privacy focused VPN providers like Njalla, Airvpn and others. I don't feel great about my money funding ethno-fascists in my country.
Where will you move to?
Are there any alternatives left?
For me, Proton isn't one.. not sure what else there is.
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I'm a long-time Mullvad customer, and I respect what the company has been doing and the pro-privacy political stance it openly and publicly stands for.
I agree that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission, and shouldn't be.
But what I do care about, strongly, is that Mullvad as a company doesn't bow to pressure from pro-immigration activists who are attempting to impose social and financial consequences on people and institutions like Mullvad that tolerate anti-immigration political speech. Which is of course why people are publicizing this donation and publicly stating that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because of it.
I want to state publicly that what would make me no longer do business with Mullvad is if Mullvad, organizationally, attempted to pressure Daniel Berntsson into not donating to anti-immigration political parties because it induces pro-immigration activists to attempt to boycott the company. I don't want to live in a world where people trying to run a pro-privacy VPN feel pressure to police anti-immigration speech unrelated to the core mission among people in their organization, and that's the principle that my customer dollars are riding on.
> Which is of course why people are publicizing this donation and publicly stating that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because of it.
But you're doing the same thing, making the same threat. You've only escalated it from a conscientious protest to a Mexican stand off.
I'm not icked-out by immigration discussion, but I am concerned by business owners starting down a political path. VPNs are not a very glamorous segment of the industry, and Mullvad had carved out a niche in taking a neutral side and fostering trust through a transparent product. My former boss spoke well of them and visited their sites in-person after hearing the marketing line about their RAM-only VPNs. Their appeal was not in protecting politicized speech, but protecting all speech and defending it as an apolitical technological imperative.
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 your paycheck on inordinate political investments 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.
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> I'm a long-time Mullvad customer, and I respect what the company has been doing and the pro-privacy political stance it openly and publicly stands for.
Thank you.
The speech people are objecting to isn't anti-immgiration. It is pro crimes against humanity against people who previously immigrated, and their descendants.
A stance that Sweden should reduce the amount of immigration they accept would be utterly unremarkable and never result in outrage like this.
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> pro-immigration activists
literally translated, “humans with empathy”
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Hello Fredrik! As a heavy user of Mullvad in the past, easily spending hundreds of euros over the years, I was reserving my judgement to see what the official statement on this would be. Thank you, now I have my answer.
> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission.
It should be obvious that what people are concerned is their money being used to support these political causes, whether it was done in a way that keeps the company out of it or not is besides the point. Daniel, of course, is free to choose what to do with his money. I am, too, and based on this I will be making a choice to not spend any more money on Mullvad subscriptions. Nothing personal, and it's a shame because I have nothing but praise for the technical side of it. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
It should be obvious that he's perfectly fine with your decision because he wrote exactly that in the post you just replied to.
Of course. Sorry to hear you're leaving. Thank you for the compliment.
As a customer I can no longer support you.
But as someone that has been in a similar situation to you, I understand it's tough to end up building something big with someone who's politics you do not agree with. I would seriously urge you to consider building something new that rejects this kind of politics explicitly.
I'm sorry to hear that.
Oh, I definitely agree with some of his political opinions, the obvious ones being around free speech, free press, and privacy.
There are important issues where we don't agree. His values around empathy stretch to most sentient beings, and he believes I commit torture when I eat fish for lunch. And he's still willing to associate with me.
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Thank you for everything you do Fredrik. Very happy to be a customer of a company that supports freedom and privacy for everyone regardless of views.
> that supports freedom ... for everyone
Unless you happen to be of Somalian descent in Sweden. Then you should be ripped away from the only home you've ever known, indeed possibly the only country you've ever been in, and sent to a foreign country you have no citizenship in, where you have no home, don't understand the language, know no one, and be forced to try and survive.
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Thank you!
What you said makes sense, but what the founders do matters. I'll never buy a Tesla car because of Elon's actions. I cancelled my Amazon Prime subscription because of Bezos' actions.
There are plenty of people for whom it doesn't matter, but for some it does.
Indeed. It matters to me. In fact, most of my political opinions have atrophied, or rather I have self-censored. Daniel believes that is not the right trade-off to make in this case. I understand his point of view, and disagree.
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Thank you for supporting the civil liberties and individual freedom of expression!
Thank you. :)
> This is what allows us to advance our common causes. Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment is also liberating and promotes truth seeking.
Nope, that is what will get you taken over by the assholes. Reasonable defense is necessary in reality. There ARE bad actors, they must be kept out.
Everyone has their own definition of a bad actor. The fact that you're implying to know how to spot them says a lot about your tolerance for differences in opinion.
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> There ARE bad actors, they must be kept out.
There are very good (and well-documented) reasons to believe a large part of the recently immigrated foreigners in Sweden are exactly such bad actors.
Your arguments don't really work the way you seem to think they do.
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Of course sir, just like the chancellor of Germany's time on the board of Blackrock doesn't have anything to do with his full commitment to doing what's best for the German people as chancellor. I think it would be crazy to suggest otherwise.
Politics and the company you own somehow having to do with each other and influencing each other? Preposterous. Wouldn't happen!
That's great and all but can I have a refund for the portion of my mullvad subscription that went to supporting organizations who think that people like me don't deserve to live?
Can you point to the charter where the Örebro party ever said that you don't deserve to live?
The embellishments of what people actually believe is extremely exhausting.
FWIW, I'm an immigrant in Sweden and if they gained power I would be affected, but we talk about people with differing views to us as if they're actively violent in order to shut down conversation.
This catasphrophising language will eventually not help your cause, because ordinary people start to feel numb to it and the hard-right will not be defeated by it.
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Fredrik, thank you for a clear and honest statement of Mullvad's position rather than corporate word salad.
> Mullvad protects the right for people to express things we don't agree with. We protect the right of everyone to access views we don't agree with.
> That said, if you no longer want to be a Mullvad customer for philosophical reasons, we think it's important to honor that
Combining the above statements, would you have any recommendations on VPN providers for people who choose to leave Mullvad? As you will agree, anonymity and privacy are under attack the world over and even people who leave Mullvad deserve have access to tools enabling the same.
The VPN space is a cesspool of shady operators who seem to spend more on marketing than technology and it's really hard even for the HN audience to know which providers are legit. This is where your background and experience are really valuable, so any recommendations would be very welcome.
Yes, I am aware that the ask here is to endorse a competitor, however if someone has made up their mind to leave Mullvad, they are going to do so anyway. Enabling them to do so while retaining their anonymity and privacy will go a long way in advancing the political aims Mullvad stands for.
Hi! No worries. I haven't spoken with Nick Pestell of IVPN in ages, but he's always struck me as genuine and empathetic. We met the first time at RightsCon in 2018 I believe. TunnelBear and ExpressVPN were also there. We all wrote this thing together: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2018/10/17/signals-trustworthy-v...
Since those conversations I've always thought that IVPN is closest aligned with Mullvad's values. Again, I haven't spoken with Nick in ages, so I don't know what IVPN is doing now.
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Obviously there are not easy solutions here. Has Mullvad considered offering to buy out Daniel's shares?
The mission statement that Mullvad has promised it's users does (did) come with a duty of care.
In my eyes that mission statement is compromised, it either dies here and Mullvad is just another product financing political parties by proxy, or something is done.
I hope you find a way to protect Mullvad from actions that are counter to your mission statements.
> We also live these values by being tolerant in our daily work.
> The more people do this, the better a place the world will be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
The more people tolerate the far right, the worse the world will be because they will take your good faith and use it to extinguish tolerance for anyone but themselves. This is literally textbook. I don't know how you can invoke the word tolerance without understanding this.
A lot of the far right is using anger about too much tolerance of intolerant religions brought into a country via immigration
Oh what a complex web this business of tolerance is...
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I am really frustrated about that donation. I am an LGBT person, and I fear that a service I have paid for for many years will found someone who wants all my human rights gone. That I am supporting someone who just wants me to stop existing. I am not sure what VPN provider I could use that is even half as trustworthy as mullvad and I am not sure what to do.
Thanks for supporting civil liberties.
>Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment is also liberating and promotes truth seeking
I agree 100%, which is why the dehumanizing intolerance of the Mullvad CEO completely disqualifies your organization from being on the same side as that statement.
> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission
Why should this be obvious? I don't think that's obvious at all. The owner of a company could very easily decide to one day use their company to further their political beliefs/ideologies (see: Twitter, FaceBook, etc..). Why would Mullvad be any different?
I'm sorry to hear you'll be leaving us.
To answer your question, we started building this organization in the summer of 2008 for idealistic reasons, and we are still idealists who think privacy is fundamental to a civilized society.
The best strategy for achieving societal impact through entrepreneurship is consistent, long-term, and value-based ownership. For us, this disqualifies taking outside investment, either through venture capital or going public. Mullvad has instead been growing organically without outside investments.
Our principles have withstood the test of time. Our conviction has remained unchanged through multiple serious offers of acquisition and outside investment. Words are cheap of course, but consistent action over the course of almost two decades is not.
Mullvad is about privacy. Neither Daniel nor I have used Mullvad's brand to promote our personal opinions.
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Well said, You have a new paying customer from me and I will advocate for others to use Mullvad.
Going to sign up now through the tailscale partnership.
As a counter argument to your marketing fluff comment:
Name a single instance of right wing parties that did not violate all human rights the second they got in power. Name one, I dare you.
And no, historically such a fairytale world does not exist that you're trying to paint here. All right wing parties feed off aggression, painting humans as enemies, and populistic lies. It's always been this way, always will be this way.
Not a Mullvard customer anymore, and going to never recommend you again for any person that asks me in the future.
Go to history class if you still can't see the truth in my comment. I'm German, and that's our fucked up history, and our messed up ancestry of people "that just followed orders" that I have zero tolerance for. Your fairytale comment reads like the "Hitler just wants peace" protests during WW2.
There is always a democratic and peaceful option, and right wing parties never choose that option. It's unsystematic to how they fundamentally work.
For whatever it's worth I use Mullvad because it lets me pay in Bitcoin is super easy to re-up and is super anonymous.
I don't really give a darn who you voted for or what your founder did. I like the product I'll keep using it.
Do you happen to drive a Tesla?
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If you still wonder why there are sudden attacks on Mullvad, I "heard" there are Chinese (in addition to the others; dual- / triple- vendoring is key) LLM-based tools to check for swarm origins and campaigns.
Hi Fredrik, long time user of your service.
I have to say, this is a disappointing message. The thing about intolerant movements is that tolerance doesn't fix them, it makes them worse and lets them accumulate power until they can destroy the tolerant.
I'd recommend reading Karl Popper and his Paradox of Tolerance, which he formulated after seeing this exact thing play out in his native Austria with the rise of the Nazis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Hi! Thank you. Both Daniel and I are well aware of Karl Popper. We've both been interested in politics since we were teenagers.
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You may try to unsuccessfully hold this distinction, but at the end of the day money that I give to your company ends up being used by far-right politicians to oppose Mullvad's supposed mission.
Whatever what you say and so, it doesn't change the fact a part of my money is going to end up in an absolutely disgusting political party and other potentially terrible stuff. After so many years, I'm done with Mullvad.
Fredrik, can we expect you to start a new company with the same values without the bullshit?
I'm pretty familiar with these right-wingers that claim to fight for "freedom of speech" they all end up fighting for "freedom of speech for the things I want to say, jail for those who oppose me." The 2024-2025 swing was pretty extreme on that front.
Political extremists are all the same, left or right, nobody should be surprised because they seek power above all else.
I had been pretty concerned about the level of advertising for Mullvad I've seen recently, that's usually a really bad sign for a VPN type company. But seeing this comment, in combination with the news article linked here, tells me everything I need to know for trust.
VPNs are all about trust. Mullvad has completely broken all trust with me.
Do you think any of the people publicly claiming that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because Daniel Berntsson donates to an anti-immigration political party, wouldn't make donating to that party an illegal, jail-able legal offense if they had the political power to do so?
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This response completely fails to address what is the issue for me and many others, and frankly I find it quite offensive. The Örebro Party uses racist and transphobic rhetoric and dog whistles, and openly advocates for ethnic cleansing. Their political actions have already hurt people I care about. Berntsson's donation is explicitly meant to support the party in bringing their politics to the national level. This would bring material harm to me, to family and friends, and to many others.
And Berntsson's ability to fund ÖP in doing that harm is directly linked to the financial success of Mullvad. Whether you or Mullvad agrees or disagrees with Berntsson or ÖP is irrelevant. Thanks to Berntsson, more money to Mullvad means more harm to us. So why on Earth would I pay you anything?! On the contrary, it would quite obviously be in our best interests if Mullvad fails as a company, if possible to such an extent that Berntsson is ruined financially and can no longer fund "nationalist socialist" parties such as ÖP.
It just doesn't matter whether Mullvad believes in free speech or not, not when Berntsson is making it so that giving you money causes us to be persecuted and harmed. And to be perfectly honest, I find your framing of this as "philosophical" to be profoundly appalling, and it tells me that you do not at all understand what is actually going on.
I'm sorry to hear that. Since writing that response I've added plenty more to this thread.
> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission.
No, in fact, the opposite of this is obvious.
An honest question: Would you like to live in a world where company/employer exerts more control over the views that are publicly expressed?
Do you actually want voting to happen via wallet?
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?
If you want to vote for or against Örebropartiet, then just do it at the booth.
Plenty of people here basically seem to indirectly advocate for company based censorship and some kind of budget-plutocracy, and no matter how "morally correct" your views are, that is under no circumstances a worthwhile endeavor.
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How do you figure?
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Is IKEA fascist? Because the founder was a Nazi supporter; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvar_Kamprad
I'm not saying this to dunk on IKEA, but sometimes even when there's a sole founder, the mission of the company and the mission of the person who founded it do not necessarily align.
EDIT: It also seems that the party is extremely left leaning but is anti-immigration, as a person who lives in Swedens third largest city (which is predominantly non-Swedish, like myself: I am also an immigrant) I can understand Swedes desire to minimise this, it's not a "far-right" topic anymore.
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Why does it say your comment was made 2 days ago, when the thread has only been up for 6 hours?
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48721551 and let us know if you have any questions.
(aftbit already mentioned this link downthread but perhaps it's helpful to say this explicitly.)
Edit: actually I should probably pin that to the top. Done now. Sorry for the confusion!
It's a HN thing, not down to the commenter. Sometimes threads are reactivated if the mods think a low profile discussion is worth a second chance or boost. The submission time doesn't always reflect the original submission. Sometimes it's due to a comment move or thread merge.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48721560
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PR companies have found that getting ahead of controversies is useful, so they invented time travel.
So you're a political company, but you don't want people to examine the politics of the people running the company? That seems naive.
>> Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment ...
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."
>> the same way that someone's opinions on animal rights, taxes or public healthcare ...
We're not talking about reasonable people disagreeing about tax policy, we're talking about free expression, the entire purpose of Mullvad.
When you make a large donation to a political party whose most fundamental policy is restricting the free expression of people, that is wholly incompatible with everything Mullvad says they stand for.
When a founder and executive with influence over Mullvad policy and operations is exposed actively and financially support restricting free expression of people, it's not "tolerant" to pretend that's somehow compatible with the mission and brand of the company.
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Allow me to provide some nuance.
I cannot speak for Daniel. I know there are some policies he likes and there are things he doesn’t like. Personally I am not a fan.
This morning Daniel explained his rationale to most of the company. Speaking for myself, I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues. Speaking as the co-CEO of Mullvad, we will continue to protect the universal right to privacy. People should feel safe using Mullvad regardless of their political affiliation.
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I don't see him saying he doesn't want people to look into that. What I see is an explanation for why he thinks the company is better for having a multitude of views and opinions on their staff, a correction of some lazy reporting in the media and stated tolerance for people who no longer want to use said company's products for perceived value incompatibility (which he also seems to disagree with though).
"Rules for thee, but not for me"
Classic
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Thanks Fredrik, will actually be switching to Mullvad.
Indeed I see this as a positive. There is a common meme that the CIA might well run VPN companies. It would seem less likely for Mullvad.
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It’s called voting with your wallet. People in America do this, and are told to do this, all the time.
What would you like them to do? Roll over on the co-CEO and throw him under the bus, signaling to everyone that there is a “correct” point of view to have that Mullvad as a company is going to push and promote?
Individuals should be allowed to think and do what they want as an individual, as long as it isn’t compromising the company. The fact that they have 2 CEOs with differing political views seems like a healthy thing.
Freedom of speech is a political view that shouldn’t be tied to any one party.
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> What a dismissive way to treat your customer. Basically the equivalent of someone on the American right saying “if you don’t like it you can get the hell out”, which tracks given Mullvad’s party of choice.
I'm sorry to hear that. We didn't mean to come across as dismissive. We're simply saying that if you disagree with our stance on the matter, you are welcome to reach out to support, and they can hopefully sort out a refund.
> Mullvad’s party of choice
Daniel, not Mullvad.
Isn't that how all businesses operate? If customers don't like it then they can find an alternative vendor.
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> Promoting ethnic cleansing
Do you have a source for this? I haven't seen this mentioned elsewhere.
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It’s time to create nullvad, Fredrik.
People in this thread are slowly (or maybe not so slowly) realising "… this was also a business after all… just with a different "model"… huh". There's caring, there's caring PR, and then there's caring theatre.
> We fight for freedom of speech, freedom of information and the right to privacy.
OK, but the far right, like all totalitarians, has an agenda that is thoroughly opposed to this. That leads to the tolerance paradox: You must be intolerant to agendas that would put an end to tolerance.
FTR. The reports I have seen have always made it clear that Mullvad has two owners/founders/CEOs. And while the donations may be private, they obviously come from money earned as part of being one of the founder/owner/CEO of Mullvad and thus raises questions on corporate responsibility.
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You can't post like this here, no matter how wrong someone else is or you feel they are.
You may not owe founders whose cofounders you feel are behaving badly better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
I'm Swedish, but never heard of Örebropartiet before. I tried looking into their website and it doesn't say a lot.
Translated from Swedish wikipedia: --- Örebropartiet was founded by Markus Allard in the spring of 2014, when he was recently expelled from the Left Party and the Young Left. [...] Among the party's main issues are reduced politicians' salaries, reduced bureaucracy, civil servant responsibility, assimilation policy and the repatriation of people who do not adapt. ---
I think it is very reasonable to demand that people try to integrate when coming to a new country - learn the language, get into the culture. As a Swedish person I think this is missing from our integration politics, which is an often talked about topic in the last years.
In the end this is a political question and sadly instead of engaging in dialogue the reaction to these questions feels like it most often leads to polarization and division. Inclusion means also including people with different beliefs and respecting their opinions, even if we don't share them. Through understanding comes empathy.
Can recommend "The Righteous Mind" by moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt who discusses this in a book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Righteous_Mind
Fun fact: we get a dopamine release when taking an opposing stance and then seeing (subjective) proof of our stance. It requires self-discipline and fighting your impulses to avoid polarization.
I don't think it's reasonable to "demand" integration. What should happen is that the existing cultures should be open and welcoming enough so that new-comers want to take part. Also, I like the idea of immigrants bringing their culture with them (and in some cases, that may be the last representation of that culture) and welcoming people to learn about it.
Multi-culturalism should be about championing different cultures and not forcing everyone into a cultural homogeneity.
Why is the burden always on the host nation and never the immigrants?
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> I don't think it's reasonable to "demand" integration
Yes, it is reasonable to demand people who come into a country adapt to rules - written and to a certain extent also the unwritten, of which Sweden has many - of that country. When in Rome, act as the Romans. This adaptation will never be 100% but that is not the point, what is most important is that newcomers learn to assimilate to such a level that the natives are open and willing to maybe integrate some parts of the newcomer's culture.
People who 'are the last representatives of [their] culture' can write a book about it while becoming part of their new culture since it is clear that their old one did not stand the test of time. They're much better off that way instead of living like cultural fossils for the likes of NPR and PBS to make documentaries about. By all means document what that extinct culture had to offer but life is for the living and culture is the commonly agreed upon set of rules how to live it.
Multiculturalism is a pipe dream, something dreamt up by people who listened to one too many version of John Lennon's Imagine. It has been shown not to work time and time again, it makes it harder for people coming in to a new country to assimilate and integrate because there is no clear target to aim for. Culture is not a fixed thing, it evolves through time by adopting new things and getting rid of old customs. Multiculturalism does not call for cultural evolution, it calls for revolution: here's a whole new culture, now deal with it. Revolution hardly every works and when it does it tends to go badly for those on the wrong side of it.
GP literally addresses your points. I think we’re very welcoming in most of Europe, adopt others’ traditions, and are not too imposing. Just, you know, leave women alone and don’t aim fireworks at ambulances.
Dismissing any amount of integration is chicanery. We’re pro-social creatures, and knowing the lay of the land makes your life better.
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I think it is very reasonable to demand _some_ integration: get a job, pay taxes, learn the language as best as you can, don't do crime.
But at the same time, you should not be expected to give up your culture (as long as it is not doing something against the law).
> What should happen is that the existing cultures should be open and welcoming enough so that new-comers want to take part
I'm an immigrant to the EU/NL (naturalized, now a citizen), and I also lived in Sweden for a short stint. If Swedes are anything, they're open and welcoming, I'd even say too open and welcoming, which is part of why these issues keep cropping up.
Some context so I'm not immediately written off as ignorant or as carrying some kind of agenda: I grew up in Indonesia. My family is largely atheist, but we lived in Aceh (look up Qanun Aceh, it's Sharia law territory) and various other places around the country. I've been immersed in Islam, every sect of Christianity, Buddhism (I went to a Buddhist school as a kid), and Balinese Hinduism. I went to an international school with people from literally everywhere, and I'm still close with many of them, scattered across the globe as they now are. I say this to establish that I've actually lived among a wide range of people, cultures, and religions, this isn't an abstract opinion.
This isn't unique to EU immigrant communities either, I've seen the exact same pattern in Indonesia. Many (I want to stress: many, not most, but certainly too many) immigrant groups are remarkably insular and resist integrating in any meaningful way, even multiple generations in. They don't learn the language, don't adopt the host country's customs, and make essentially zero effort to become part of the society they live in. This gets worse where there's already a large existing community of the same background, those often calcify into enclaves where you're functionally not living in the host country at all anymore.
At a certain point, we also have to admit that some immigrants are the source of the problem.
Where I land is this: host countries should expect integration from long-term and permanent residents, and should actively support it via language access, civic education, real investment in helping people become part of the society they're settling into, rather than leaving newcomers to sort it out alone or quietly tolerating permanent parallel communities. What that integration looks like has to be specific to the country in question, because "host culture" isn't one universal template, integrating into Aceh's legal and religious framework is a very different thing from integrating into Sweden's secular, liberal one, and I'm not pretending otherwise.
But in both cases, multiculturalism shouldn't mean a one-way street where only the migrant's culture is expected to remain untouched and is treated as a holy thing while the host culture is expected to bend indefinitely until it, too, warps into something it never was. If you've chosen to build a life somewhere, the society you've moved to should welcome you in, but you should also be expected to actually become part of it. We shouldn't have to walk around on eggshells when we say that people should integrate, this should be the expectation for anyone looking to form a permanent life in a country they live in.
Refugees are a different case, since they didn't choose displacement, but even there once return is no longer realistic and a person has built a long-term life in the host country, the same logic on integration eventually applies to them as well even if the urgency and framing should differ from voluntary migration.
On a side note (and this is more of my own personal problem), I'd rather not see any kind of Sharia-like culture anywhere near me ever again, that crap is stone-age level bullshit that deserves to go extinct forever.
> I think it is very reasonable to demand that people try to integrate when coming to a new country - learn the language, get into the culture.
What kind of things might be involved in a mandate for people to "get into the culture?"
It’s a hot topic, but in Belgium some people are taught how to take the bus, do their taxes, and not harass women. One of my Dutch teachers led the integration course and said this stuff was really difficult to land.
If you come from a culture of groping women, not doing is gonna be a challenge. I get it. But we’ve also built mosques and have pagan festivals and allow public servants to wear their choice of religious attire. I think it’s a balance, but nobody is ever happy with wherever you set the balance.
When I learn the local language, I’m happier; it’s nice to talk to people. Not everyone agrees.
Tja.
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> Translated from Swedish Wikipedia [...] I think it is very reasonable
When I looked into this party when news broke a few days ago, I was surprised to find that the English article was comparatively longer and included the more appalling statements. Seems worrying that their narrative on the native version appears to be working
Would this change your mind?
https://x.com/AllardKlipp/status/2060109271635771457
Don't we also get a dopamine release from empathy, or is it just no fun?
I’ve read a few books about dopamine/motivation/common neurotransmitters and this has never come up. In my amateurish view I think empathy is more connected to oxytocin (which afaik does release during social connections, which The book ”The molecule of more” covers a bit).
Depends on if Atlas Shrugged is your Bible or not.
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> Inclusion means also including people with different beliefs and respecting their opinions, even if we don't share them.
Does this apply to immigrants?
I not just agree ... I can't even fathom how one can not agree with your comment.
"Mullvad AB and its parent company Amagicom AB are 100% owned by founders [1 person] and Daniel Berntsson [...]"[0]
So I'll assume he owns about 50%. Well, that ends my usage of Mullvad.[1] I appreciate that probably many of Mullvad's employees have different views, and obviously Berntsson has every right to his opinions and to express them, and I also appreciate that someone can have control over an opinionated company and run it for one particular set of reasons but not for other causes that someone believes in, but in the end I just don't want my money supporting anti-people causes.
[0] https://mullvad.net/en/about
[1] If it was a small amount, say less than 5% or maybe 10%, I might have decided differently. But it's still millions, so probably not.
Lets remember for a second that Mullvad has enabled people on all side of the political spectrum to communicate online, anonymously. This is more noble than almost anything else. Mullvad has enabled freedom for yourself, and millions of others, regardless of their political or personal leans.
Let's find another tool that enables the same, while not doating money to a racist political party.
I'm sorry to hear that. Yes, Daniel and I own 50% each.
> obviously Berntsson has every right to his opinions and to express them
Indeed.
> and I also appreciate that someone can have control over an opinionated company and run it for one particular set of reasons but not for other causes that someone believes in
That is exactly the case.
> but in the end I just don't want my money supporting anti-people causes.
As is your right. Daniel made his choice and now you make yours, as a number of other people in this thread has done. Some believe this party is left-wing, others right-wing. Some approve of it, others don't. Personally I don't, and as I've said elsewhere in this thread I wish he hadn't donated. As do many of our colleagues. To be fair though, there are also colleagues who do seem to approve. And then there are those who don't seem to care either way.
Still, I'm glad you recognize the possibility that Daniel and I are able to keep our personal opinions separate from the mission of our company. This is something we live in our daily work as well. As a workplace I'm glad we're not a monoculture of 100% like-minded individuals.
> As a workplace I'm glad we're not a monoculture of 100% like-minded individuals.
But if you're tolerant of someone in your workplace that wants to make it a monoculture, and then succeeds in doing so, will you remain glad?
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I would like to add one note: if I were an activist in Iran, or in any other way my livelihood would depend on strong privacy services, I might keep using your service and even be (slightly) more certain of the company's resolve to keep my privacy protected. Although I would be very aware of the irony. But choosing for one's own safety can override other concerns. Very few things in life are black and white.
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Ironically, remigration is a means to achieve a monoculture.
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> Some believe this party is left-wing, others right-wing. Some approve of it, others don't.
For a company that puts political principle so fundamentally at the core of its marketing strategy, it's astonishing to see this kind of stance being taken.
The man who owns half the company seemingly choosing to funnel his share of its profits to a political party that advocates the mass deportation of people is, in that context, something with significant consequences.
I understand how awkward the position you're in must be, but it's obscene to present this as somehow being a thing that one can be morally neutral on. In the context of rising fascism across the continent, it's dismaying to see a company that a lot of us rely on so decisively pick the worst possible side.
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> the possibility that Daniel and I are able to keep our personal opinions separate from the mission of our company
This isn't about opinions. Very large political financing is not a mere opinion. It has a much larger material effect.
I don't think it's possible to separate "mission of our company" from "large scale political financing", for purely structural reasons.
I think the legal and fiduciary concept of Conflict of Interest is relevant here, but perhaps only by analogy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest is quite informative.
In some business, political and legal roles, we deem certain structural relations to be a conflict of interest regardless of what people on those roles actually do..
The mere potential for excessive improper influence arising from the structure of their relationships and roles is what creates the deemed conflict.
As the owners of a company making substantial profit like Mullvad, you always had the potential capability to financially influence political outcomes on a scale which most your customers cannot, in ways that may seriously harm some of your customers and to be potentially against the stated mission of your company.
I think the relationship between running a company with an openly advertised public mission, or even an implied mission in the minds of customers, while in another role (wealthy private citizen) being able to make a substantial material action against the same mission, should be recognised as inherently a conflict of interest. But obviously it's one we can't avoid, as long as we allow people to get rich from a mission-driven company.
What we can do, is recognise that if someone actually takes a large material action against the company's mission, then they have gone a step further and demonstrated the conflict of interest.
We generally favour free speech, including political donations. But when the money for very large political financing comes mostly from customers who, by virtue of the advertising and marketing of the company's mission, are led to believe they are supporting the company's mission?
In my view, at that point the customers are being tricked into paying for something while their money is paying for something else which opposes the thing they thought they were funding.
At the least, it should be dealt with in a similar way that conflicts of interest are dealt with when, for example, directing multiple companies: By making sure everyone knows, so other people are able to consent or not on the major conflict issues those other people might have a view on. The analogy for customers is their consent shown by their informed decision to become or remain customers.
In Mullvad's situation, that would mean Mullvad should explain to customers, embedded clearly within it's public marketing of the company missions and values, that one of its current major owners receiving customer funds by way of profit, is the main financier of a political party which sponsors remigration in Sweden. Because that is clearly a thing some customers care about when evaluating whether to pay for Mullvad's services from now on. You know that, I know that, so there's no legitimate excuse for not letting customers who would care know.
Then, as you said, customers will be free to choose.
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Time for a new VPN co then, right?
The thing is, you can't be pro freedom of speech and pro privacy yet support right wing extremists. They are totally against that.
It can only means that Daniel is setting up a trap with Mullvad.
Who sees the party as left wing? Its seems like a disingenuous argument to make.
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Is your buddy incapable of speaking on his own behalf? Im sure he's aware of the reputational damage he's caused your company by now...
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> People who failed so spectacularly that the country became the rape capital of Europe and has more crime than El Salvador today.
> the rape capital of Europe
I’ve read that this is because Sweden changed how rape is counted - instead of multiple votes instances within the same relationship being counted as “one rape”, each instance of non-consensual intercourse is counted individually.
> and has more crime than El Salvador today
I couldn’t find any reliable data here other than Sweden’s homicide rates are a little higher than historically, but still pretty low. And the comparison to El Salvador is off the mark in general because the murder rate there has fallen dramatically from where it was historically.
The crime rate in El Salvador is allegedly quite low these days, and I don't think Sweden has had a left-wing government since 2022.
https://elsalvadorinfo.net/homicide-rate-in-el-salvador/
Wikipedia of the party in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party#
Doesn't really sound all that far-right to me. Nationalist, sure.
I'm not Swedish though, so I would be interested in the thoughts of those who are actually affected by Örebropartiet's policies.
>Doesn't really sound all that far-right to me.
To me too, then I got to the leaders quote on TV: "We must deport these damn parasites who sit and live at our expense."
Yeah, okay. I know some politicians who speak like that, I feel I get the picture.
I think you'd be surprised at how quickly that sentiment has moved from the far-right to close to the center. People are (rightly, in my opinion) pretty upset at their governments for letting mass migration happen with pretty much only downsides for their actual citizens. People are all about the idea of helping the downtrodden when it's just an ideal, but when they realize it's having negative consequences for them that can easily change.
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You have to consider the context which is that Sweden does have an awful lot of fake refugees mixed in with the real refugees. "Parasite" is harsh but unfortunately all too accurate for some of the migrants who are essentially gaming a system intended for people in real distress.
I think it’s quite important to understand in what context that have been said. The ”parasites” are immigrants that have not integrated, entire families and generations living off welfare and the ethnic group basically have a super high unemployment rate of maybe 50% or more.
I’ve listened a lot to talks from the party leader of Örebropartiet, and while I think he would benefit from slowing himself down, yell and insult less, I really can’t see he being racist or far-right. More leftist actually. I think he’s simply VERY motivated/obsessed around questions like to get government less corrupt, much more efficient governence, and to stop major ethnic groups from very poor parts of the world get an unreasonable high amount of the governments welfare spending.
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Maybe he was talking about beltway bandits, do they have those in Sweden?
It's funny that reading the Wikipedia has they have:
>"class-conscious populism" which according to party leader Markus Allard takes inspiration from marxist ideology
which would have been called far left not long ago. Still I guess "far-right" means anti immigrant these days?
Funny, I usually hear that sentiment from left wing sources complaining about billionaires.
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> To me too, then I got to the leaders quote on TV: "We must deport these damn parasites who sit and live at our expense."
Firstly, you should probably cite that. Searching for it leads here. Hopefully, you didn't manufacture it.
But, while the language is unfortunate, do you really think natives should tolerate migrants who are not a net positive?
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Spot the odd one out:
> Some of its key issues include lowered wages for politicians, ending the tax payer funding of various sculptures, monuments and art, large scale remigration, a stricter immigration policy, and free dental care.
To understand why there might be a desire to limit spending on art;
There was a recent case where city of Malmo was building a hospital; during the building of the hospital it was decided that a splice of the oldest tree in the world would be installed.
A very expensive life-support system was developed and an enormous amount of money paid for the splice. (not including the life support system, which was also an inordinate amount).
The tree didn't take, and needs to be replaced.
It's called "Spruce Time": https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/skane/region-skane-har-lag...
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For context, from wiki:
> Remigration is a far-right concept referring to ethnic cleansing via mass deportation of non-white minority populations [...] to their place of racial ancestry
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> large scale remigration
which is literally kicking out people who don't look or sounds like me, out of the country.
Whenever that has happened it has been rather bad for most parties.
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We want everyone here to be exactly like us, but we do recognize we have bad teeth.
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Interesting for a European party to choose red and black as colors and be right of center.
Not without precedent. Maybe they are big fans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
It's not an accident.
i can think of one notable right-of-center European party that featured those colors heavily.
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> Nationalist, sure.
That's pretty far-right by itself. The fact that they want mass deportations should solidify it for you though.
It's definitely possible to be a left-wing nationalist
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> Some of its key issues include lowered wages for politicians, ending the tax payer funding of various sculptures, monuments and art, large scale remigration, a stricter immigration policy, and free dental care.
Limiting immigration along with generous government benefits for citizens is an interesting new space for political parties not fitting the traditional left right axis.
just "stricter policy" is an understatement. they want mass expulsions
It’s not a new idea. I’d put it at around ninety years old.
"The party has also been described as both right-wing populist and left-wing populist as well as left-conservative."
Well that clears things up
Lol, that quote really reads like "we have terminal direction-brain and can't place these people in our arbitrary categories"
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The horseshoe still going strong
Fascists always incude left wing policies to try to appeal to the "working man".
There's a reason the Nazis included "socialist" in their name. It's not because they give a crap about the plebs.
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I suppose how extreme a party seems to a person depends on the context they're in
They are a really strange party revolving around their leader who got a personality. It can be seen more as Trump where ideology isn’t as important as what the leader says.
In my understanding its far-right or right-wing and definitely a populist party. See also the Ideology Section from the link you added.
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Slightly tangential on Swedish society, there are similarities between USA and Sweden. There's a large segment of society that is white and very blond, and there's a largish segment which is not. Along that same line there are all kinds of divisions: economic, education, religious, sets of values, and of access to things and possibilities. What pisses me off is that the cast of "CEOs of successful companies" live in an sphere of privilege where they really are not bothered at all by the brown people. They in fact have plenty of places to go, a vast archipelago, out of reach for anybody who can't afford a boat. Though they get all the benefits, including cheap qualified labor from people who had to leave their homelands displaced by poverty, conflict and war. I'll switch VPN provider too.
One of these days we will elect somebody who is corrupt and morally corrupt, incompetent and poorly educated and who'll promise to screw us over many times and in many positions, and we will let him just do so so that there are concentration camps for the brown people.
What's the relationship between race and immigration status?
It's not entirely clear what the argument which unites them is supposed to be. This unification is always in the mind of the white matry not the person opposing immigration. In the UK polish immigration was opposed, en mass, poles are white.
SUPPOSE there are large numbers of poorly assimilated people in a country, whose culture of origin is very different than that of the host country. What does the minor coincidence of their common lack of european ancestry show, other than to prove the point, they lack such ancestry?
White skin evolved in europe, with the peoples of europe, as with european culture -- that whiteness tracks this culture is a conincidence. (There's less-and-less european diaspora in america -- which, if imported en mass, might also enrange europeans).
The refusal to treat large scale immigration as a cultural and economic phenomneon, to try and insult opponents of this position with a slander of racism -- this tactic doesnt work any more.
All you are doing is driving those people to say, "OK, so its racism. We'll vote for that then." And the result is real racists are elected.
Do you have any analysis of the issues people opposed to large scale immigartion, from non-western cultures, and who would reverse at least some of it -- do you have any arguments that engage the issues they actually raise?
It is strange, because this party’s platform seems to mirror the positions of the blackest Swede I know (Malcolm Kyeyune, a Marxist writer who is also often accused of being a right-winger). I suspect that the divisions in Sweden are much deeper than race.
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> The refusal to treat large scale immigration as a cultural and economic phenomneon
> and insult opponents of this position as racist
On the other hand, you treat the negative effects of current immigrant milieus as eternal and innert to their ancestry (dare to say: genes).
This way, you can look at integration as if it has to happen in a single generation and also, allows you to ignore the more important part of diminishing social mobility, which effects the natives as much.
Look at germany, where after WW2, alot of turkish "guest workers" were invited and stayed. After several generations the descendant of those immigrants are as german as you can be. They are still soft muslims, drink alcohol, engage with german bureaucracy, have a heavy turkish accent -- some of them are even candidates for the far right AfD. Please note, they migrated into an economic boom.
Isnt that utterly ridiculous? When time proves you wrong, it reveals your narrow mindedness.
And when you reduce immigrants to percieved negative innert properties, isnt that racist? When you broaden your scope, youll see the bigger problems are elsewhere, dont get distracted by bigotted populists, that are as clueless about problems or their solutions.
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> a vast archipelago, out of reach for anybody who can't afford a boat
No. That is just false. There is a very well developed ferry/commuter boat network. [1] The cost on some lines are included in the Stockholm public transport pass. A five day ticket is €12/day. No need to buy a boat.
[1] https://images.ctfassets.net/4l7cjdaypzcu/UrqsczDUUVXP3wS6rU...
Sweden wasn't like USA until politicians decided to make Sweden a "humanitarian superpower" by establishing the most liberal refugee policy in the world, without thinking of how they can actually integrate and offer a better future for all those refugees. I guess the real motivation may have been getting cheap labor, rest of the society be damned.
In any case, Sweden's policies on humanitarian migration have been an utter failure, and I can't really blame Swedes for wanting to make it stricter. Obviously refugees are not the ones to be blamed here, but politicians who took in more than they could successfully integrate.
>Slightly tangential on Swedish society, there are similarities between USA and Sweden. There's a large segment of society that is white and very blond, and there's a largish segment which is not.
There are no similarities at play here. Swedes are the native, indigenous people to Sweden. "White people" in the US are not native nor indigenous to the US.
Only if you pretend the Sami's don't exist, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1mi_people
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> Slightly tangential on Swedish society, there are similarities between USA and Sweden. There's a large segment of society that is white and very blond, and there's a largish segment which is not.
Do you have a source for that? I tried searching, but didn't find anything supporting this notion. I can find numerous sources pointing to the high prevalence of blonde hair in Sweden and other Nordic counties, but the US rarely even makes an appearance in those rankings. If anything, it seems like a point of difference rather than a similarity
I lived in Stockholm for seven years. One of the biggest mistakes was not buying a boat. They‘re not as expensive as people make you believe; you can get a really nice day cruiser for around $10k, which you can sell again for $9k after a few years. Used boats have very little depreciation. Yes, you can go fancier; a nice weekender like a Nimbus 250 sets you back $60-70k, but that’s just like cars. You can get an Audi or BMW, or you start with a Kia.
The problem with boats isn’t that they’re expensive - the Stockholm archipelago can largely be considered like a lake, not like the sea. It’s education. And I don’t mean university.
I mean: which boat is appropriate? How do I navigate? On which cliffs can I stop, and how? How do I prepare for a nice day out? Which insurance do I choose, which parts need repair and when, what Mai tweets must I do myself vs pay someone, how much should I expect in upkeep costs, etc
These are all very manageable things to learn, but if you’re not used and not exposed to boat culture you won’t do it.
But the problem isn’t money. $10k isn’t free, but it’s less than most used cars, and annual upkeep is less than a car, too.
It took me 5 years to get the boat - a 22ft daycruiser with toilet. That was 15 years ago, haven't looked back. Got a daycruiser from the UK. Drove there, bought a trailer there, drove it home. Arbitrage during the financial crisis - half the price of the same boat in Sweden at the time.
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If it's a nice country, you should expect people to want to go there.
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If you think about what you said for just a second, you'll realize that, even ignoring how off-putting it is, it makes absolutely no logical sense.
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Please make an effort to engage with this forum in good faith, instead of posting flame bait.
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I understand Mullvad has historically been a leader in privacy among the big VPN options. What are some other equally affordable and user friendly options that you all have been satisfied with? Think for someone who saw Mullvad advertised during the Super Bowl but looking to leave because of this news.
I've been quite satisfied with AirVPN [0].
[0] https://airvpn.org/
+1 on AirVPN. They are amongst the handful of companies which successfully resisted the war on torrenting (targeting VPNs that allowed persistent ports) and still allow for port reservation.
Mullvad, like most other VPNs gave in in the end and removed port reservations.
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I haven’t used Mullvad, so can’t say how it compares to ProtonVPN but I’m happy with Proton.
It is super easy to set up, even on Linux and iOS devices.
I've used both, and for me mullvad has worked a lot better. They seem more focused on VPN as core to what they do and don't leak data when reconnecting to a different server, and with proton I often experience that my connection stops working if my laptop gas been closed for some time, and the only way to make it work again is to reconnect to a new server. And then it leaks connections for a few seconds.
Do they have a CLI?
Does Proton keep logs? I’ve heard good things.
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It’s worth noting that Proton’s CEO is also known to be a supporter of right-wing causes.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. I keep along the effort, but it just continues to be impossible.
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What is the general consensus on NordVPN? They are frequent sponsors on youtube but I haven't heard much substantial about them either way.
I think they're relying on the fact that "Nord" sounds like "Nordic", so consumers think "they must be a Swedish company, I hear some Swedish techies are hardcore on freedom, e.g. the PirateBay is Swedish!".
In reality they're based in Panama, and their parent company is Dutch: https://support.nordvpn.com/hc/en-us/articles/19441152966161...
By any chance are you using any Apple products and are you a supporter of Donald Trump? Because if the answer is yes and no singling out Mullvad seems be rather hypocritical?
Based on his actions Tim Apple openly is an ardent supporter of Trump. So effectively everyone here who has a MacBook was supporting a company run by by a pro MAGA ceo...
Of course greed and corruption might be considered a mitigating factor by some people (instead of seemingly doing it purely due to one's personal convictions and without any coercion which is presumably the case here
Without wishing to defend Tim Cook at all, there is a difference between a corporation donating to an incumbent government that seems unusually receptive to bribes (including to be left alone) and an individual CEO being the main financial backer of a local fringe far right party he wants to make a national force, presumably because of his enthusiastic support for their policies which include the 'remigration' of citizens deemed excessively brown...
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You’re doing the “we should improve society somewhat” meme guy thing. People are allowed to do better without being perfect.
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ivpn
Örebropartiet is not a extremist far-right party. All their policies is extreme far-left except immigration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
Seems more complicated than that, in reading the wiki.
This sounds very much far right and not left at all to me
> Markus Allard takes inspiration from marxist ideology[32] and unites the "productive" classes of society against the "Transferiat", with the "Transferiat" being a term coined by Allard to describe the classes of society that lives off of transfers that are a net negative for society such as those who, despite having an ability to work, live off of social welfare benefits, as well as those who work "made-up services"[33] that the party deems serve no societal function, such as bureaucrats, consultants, public sector communications specialists, strategists and HR-specialists.
It's practically a copy and paste of the ideology behind "doge".
Sounds like a branch of the Technocracy movement which Musks grandfather helped found.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_N._Haldeman
"The technocracy movement proposed replacing partisan politicians and business people with scientists and engineers who had the technical expertise to manage the economy"
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This is just a rephrasing of the lumpenproletariat, coupled with the professional-managerial class. You could also refer to the latter as a modern version of the lumpenbourgeoisie (although this term is applied rather broadly). It sounds more like pro-labor, pro-work, anti-lumpen Marxism. In no way “right-wing” unless you want to call North Korea “right-wing”, which is a very ultra-left thing to do (what orthodox Marxists call left deviationism).
This is actually very far left, just not the current wealthy-urban-lgbtq far left. USSR marxists and Maoists held the same views, where the individual's main function was to work and refusal to work or low productivity required either reformation (aka often, Gulag) or hunger.
"Those how do not work, do not eat" - Mao
Interestingly, psychoanalysis in the USSR was aimed at helping the patient to go back to work, for instance.
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By your logic USSR was far right.
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Marxism, communism and socialism are all extreme far-left ideologies.
Being anti-immigration doesn't automatically swing the party to the right. As written on Wikipedia, "left-conservative" is probably the best label.
The Swedish far-left loves to, for instance, brand the governing party in Denmark as far-right, but they are actually also left-conservative.
It is possible (shocker) to be liberal and progressive, whilst also being pro-assimilation, pro-deportation, anti-immigration.
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Wild. I spent about 3 months living in Örebro while on contract with a company based there.
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Try radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists
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There are many flavors of national socialism, in reality nazis should be called hitlerians because of this.
>they're pro-ethnical cleansing of people already living there
source?
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People living there that should not be living there. It was basically an invasion.
Is it so hard to imagine that someone willing to take such a principled stance on privacy that they start a company to provide a privacy focused vpn company that they also hold other extreme views?
It takes a certain kind of personality to become a founder especially more do for such a strongly principled company and adhere to it.
What counts as an "extreme view" is relative. If my country had seen such a surge in gang violence as Sweden has, I too would support mass deportations of migrants with a criminal record, and much harsher migration policy. It's not that extreme of a stance considering how bad the situation has got in Sweden. I don't want to live in a society where teenagers are regularly hired as hitmen and shootings & explosions are a weekly, if not daily thing.
For real tho, I think the current crime wave has more to do with power struggles in the drug market than anything else.
Sweden has had terrible integration policies coupled w segregating all immigrants in the suburbs.
The drug consumption of everyday Swedes is fueling the crime wave. Cocaine consumption is at an all time high. The former prime ministers son was caught w coke at home. But only the marginalized are penalized for it and forced to work supplying the rich inner city kids who get off the hook..
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Can it really be called "extreme" anymore? Europe is swinging strongly towards being anti-migration at the moment. Other parts of the world like Japan are also going through such swings. Many countries never opened their borders to begin with. This political party sounds like it's closer to the average than people would like to admit.
I was mostly going by the “far-right” classification in the title. If indeed the whole spectrum has switched it will be less extreme when viewed from within the spectrum.
They're so populist, in fact, that they require CEOs to donate them millions of dollars to constitute the backbone of their party. Oh wait, that's what political interest groups do.
Mullvad's principle was that they protected speech. It wasn't a political imperative, and they enjoyed business from all sides of the political aisle perusing this product.
Now the apolitical appeal is fading. It's not hard to understand why VPNs, one of the most commodified businesses on the internet, struggle to find customers without that kind of niche reputation that Mullvad once had.
This comment reminds me of Sweden < 2015, where any critique of immigration labeled you as a supporter of the Swedish Democrats (SD) and possibly a Nazi.
I pay for and use Mullvad VPN. I believe they value everyone's privacy and I believe they are competent technologists.
I don't care about politics. I will continue to buy and use Mullvad VPN.
you value privacy, but you don't think privacy is a political topic? VPNs, encryption, and other privacy tools are regularly under attack or protected by legislation and policy that is actively debated and lobbied for.
I think that you do care about politics, you just don't care about this particular topic or policy. That's your prerogative of course, but don't pretend you are wholly above the fray. I suspect if a company's founder had donated millions to a party aiming to mandate backdoored encryption you would suddenly find yourself to be a very political person.
And what does that have to do with the guy leaning right? He runs a VPN. If you care about privacy, that should be sufficient to support it, his other opinions aside.
Agreed. I use mullvad because I believe they are the best off the shelf choice. If I stopped using things because of the owners opinions, then I'd live in a cave.
Their stance seems to be "people can do things on their own personal time":
https://mastodon.online/@mullvadnet/116822244689326681
And we can choose not to fund those things.
Some commentary here: https://korben.info/en/mullvad-cofounder-funding-far-right.h...
Daniel Berntsson is still involved with Mullvad and part-owns Mullvad's parent company with his co-founder.
That article calls the party far-right, which for US based readers will imply they have the same ideology and policies as the US “far-right” concepts.
Is that actually the case? I’m not familiar with this party, and it’s difficult to get a grasp on whether they are Nazi-level pure evil, or an otherwise reasonable party with stricter views on immigration policy.
I try to turn it other way in my head, like if Mullvad got to know somehow political views of some of their customers and say "We don't like what you say, so we decide to end our business with you. We don't want our infra to be used to spread opinions like yours."
They could do it, some people would align with that stance, and some wouldn't. Exactly how it plays out being a customer: now we've discovered he supports a far-right party here in Sweden, I can choose to not support the CEO with my money and let others know about their political leaning to decide by themselves if they want to support him and his business aware that their money might got to far-right parties.
I don't see any issue with your flipped argument, it's the same thing, no?
I imagine that if a company really denied a customer due to disagreement on some views there would be similar flood of comments like "my views is my problem, I pay you money you must do business with me". Maybe I'm wrong though
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You’re not taking it far enough. What if Mullvad has someone you disagree with as a customer, and does nothing about it. Does this mean that Mullvad is supporting them? Does this mean that you have to stop supporting Mullvad? What about Mullvad’s landlord? The company that provides them their electricity? Their internet provider? Their internet provider’s internet provider? Should you boycott the entire internet because Mullvad has not been given the BGP death penalty?
What are you trying to say with this? This is absurd.
The outrage has nothing to do with Mullvad itself supporting people with certain opinions or not.
The problem I and many others have, is that if the founder takes our money and gives it to causes that I (edit: or rather we) find reprehensible, we don't want to give them our money anymore. Simple as that.
I will not try to stop you from using Mullvad by any other means than my arguments. Hopefully you understand now where we are coming from and agree. If not, just do your thing.
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It's almost like there's a difference between selling services to someone and directly donating to a political party.
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If the far-right parties they're supporting are similar to MAGA in the U.S., what they're doing is taking customer money and funneling it into a political effort to do just what you're describing - just in a different way. "We don't like groups X, Y, and Z, so we're going to fund a political effort to take their rights away by using government."
As I understand it, the Örebro party pushes for deporting immigrants and has a "Sweden belongs to the Swedes" policy that includes deportation for even those born in Sweden if their parents were born in, e.g., Somalia. So basically, "we don't like certain people, so we want to use customer money to force them out of our country". That really doesn't paint Mullvad as the victim, here.
When it comes to publishing anti-human, genocidal rhetoric, I hope they would say "we don't want your blood money."
Flipping that back around, I'm glad I'm not a Mullvad customer that would say "I'm okay with a portion of the money I give you being used to call for genocide."
Admittedly I had never heard of this party before, but after looking into them calling them far-right seems to be quite a leap.
If you didn't know, Sweden used to be extremely welcoming to asylum seekers and refugees about a decade ago. What they got out of it were gangs, their youth being exploited to enact crimes (due to leniency towards minors), and neighborhoods that even the police doesn't dare drive through. Having a party that calls for integration and adaption to Swedish values, and at worst remigration, seems rather tame. Especially so if you just take a look across Øresund and see what's happening in Denmark.
You're confusing causation and correlation. There are no links between asylum seekers, refugees and gangs, and crimes.
What leads to crime is not welcoming refugees, it's leaving people on the back in a state of precariousness.
>There are no links between asylum seekers, refugees and gangs, and crimes.
Criminal statistics and per capita would disagree
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> leaving people on the back in a state of precariousness.
What do you mean? Don't they benefit from Sweden's generous educational and welfare systems in addition to extra support for migrants?
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I’m not Swedish. Does Mullvad do what it says on the tin? That’s all that matters.
The CEO’s extracurricular activities are none of my business.
He's not just the CEO, he's a co-owner... Meaning that the profits from the business acrue to him... and therefore enable this party.
So, it's a question of "am I ok paying for this service, knowing that a portion of that money will flow to this political party and how do I feel about the results of that funding?"
How do you feel about providing value to Hacker News, a plattform made by Y Combinator funding several startups, many of them destroying our society and benefiting from mass surveillance? You can do this argument with every company.
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Let's draw this to its ultimate conclusion.
Would you subscribe to an excellent VPN service, if it was run by [insert universally abhorred brutal dictator from history here]?
We can easier look at conclusion people make about banks and stock options. Will people invest money into index fonds and pension fonds if those fonds invest money into companies that produce and sell weapons to abhorred brutal dictators? What about buying stocks from telecommunication producers who operate in abhorred brutal dictatorships and who helps those dictators to control their population?
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A thought experiment:
Let's think of the other extreme as well: exactly the same excellent VPN service, is run by an almost-the-best-person-in-the-world who has just one small quirk that makes them not 100% perfect for you (they pat kittens not as often as you'd like them to do). Obviously there is a border between your extreme and mine, which border defines "use" and "no use" cases for you. And now: wherever this border is - should it be the same for everyone?
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Next iteration of this smear article: “Mullvad is basically HitlerVPN”
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holy shit a sane person
all this “cancel mullvad!” nonsense is 2020 cringe all over again
You are responsible for the consequences of your actions
I saw this a couple of days ago, here's the original article that broke the news, in Swedish: https://www.flamman.se/techprofil-ger-miljoner-till-orebropa...
It includes a short statement from the CEO.
The party in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party. Doesn't sound extremist far-right to me. Many of its positions would be considered center-left or even far left in much of the world.
Where in the world is calling refugees parasites considered a neutral statement? Legit curious where this "much of the world" would be since I can't imagine this of an average person
"They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish"
For all the stuff about free dentists this sounds pretty right wing to me.
What's wrong about it? You expect me to be a jap citizen if I just over-stay there and have my children born there?
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Everyone hating, I hope you check every company you use to make sure their political stance align with yours.
No AWS or Google Cloud if you're pro-abortion, for example:
"Together, Amazon, AT&T, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, Comcast, CVS, General Motors, Google, T-Mobile, Walgreens, Walmart, Wells Fargo and Verizon have spent at least $15.2 million to support anti-abortion politicians, according to publicly available political spending disclosures." from https://truthout.org/articles/companies-like-amazon-and-cvs-...
I am surprised that people are surprised, all these services are by people for people who are marginalized. Therefore, they are either far-right or far-left. When its business, its more likely to be a far-right since they are more business-oriented. The far left folks usually make a repo and give it away or try to organize some collective effort.
> for people who are marginalized. Therefore, they are either far-right or far-left.
There are many types of marginalised groups, and many other reasons to want to use VPNs. Putting everything on a left-right political axis seems more than a tad reductive.
Sure but far left and far right is a crude default way to generalize, the left folks will be especially annoyed by this but its still useful when the specifics don't matter.
mullvad's mistake was to respond. it's all universally performative, the only reason it elicits reactions (1000+ comments here) when the view of a megacorp don't is because people anticipate the ability to elicit a response from a smaller company like mullvad.
rule number one: ignore any and all political controversies, don't respond in any way. deviation is nearly always punished. unless it's part of some PR campaign with a side-risk of backfire.
Mullvad did not respond, as far as I'm aware. One of the owners has chimed in with their opinion, but I have not seen any official acknowledgement from Mullvad, the business entity.
> mullvad's mistake was to respond. it's all universally performative, the only reason it elicits reactions (1000+ comments here) when the view of a megacorp don't is because people anticipate the ability to elicit a response from a smaller company like mullvad.
You're underestimating the large influence of paid actors/FUD here. It's no coincidence that in this very thread, normally supposedly intelligent people conveniently forget that about half the companies they buy stuff from have blatant MAGA-like CEOs. HN didn't suddenly suffer from a 20 point IQ drop.
I get that this is in the news (or at least the nerd news), but really...do y'all canvass the companies you buy things from, figure out on net who the people who work for them support in politics, ask whether that's what you like, and move your business around based on that?
It seems crazy to me. Part and parcel of having a pluralistic society is that we treat each other the same in public-facing parts of life without regard for stuff like sex, political positions, etc.
You gonna refuse to accept mail from the postman who supports something you don't like? What about the ice cream shop?
I don't know the verb canvassing (I'm not a native speaker) but assuming you mean something like vetting each company I buy from: that seems impossible. One can only do so much. Seems important to do what you can, though. I could understand the viewpoint that this person's earned money is theirs to spend; I can also understand people that don't want to fund this and are happy to have heard of it (even if the damage has been done now)
The argument, if I've understood it correctly, sounds a bit like the common pattern of asking someone who tries to buy ethical products whether they're impeccable/perfect themselves. Like asking someone who is in favor of a local wind turbine whether they've ever flown or such. You can only do so much as an average individual
It's different. There are things you can reasonably vet, and things you reasonably can't vet. For example, "is the diamond in the wedding ring I'm buying lab grown". "Is the fish I'm buying endangered". In many countries, "what kind of conditions did the chicken who laid these eggs live in". "Is this shirt I'm buying made to last or going to fall apart after a few washes".
Whether $0.01 of every $1 you spend to a company goes to someone who donates to far-right views, is absolutely impossible to vet and this news changes nothing about it. Would every $1 given to ExpressVPN lead to less $ ending up with someone who promotes such views? The truth is, we have absolutely no clue, we can't know, and there are so many factors in play here that this news doesn't move the needle. Pretending otherwise is performative behavior to make one feel better about themselves.
This guy isn't just the CEO (someone who "works for them"), it's a cofounder with 50% ownership. Personally, I avoid buying anything from the KKK bake sale.
That's a pretty unfair read in my opinion. Whatever the Mullvad guy supports (it is...a bit difficult for me to understand), it isn't the KKK. It isn't even close to the KKK. Not comparable. And he owns half the company, which means he has a lot of control...but the company is much more than ownership. It employs a lot of people and does a lot of good work. The good work it does is totally unrelated to the guy's political leanings. Whereas, a KKK bake sale is by and for the KKK. You buy muffin, $ from muffin less muffin costs --> KKK.
Did anyone actually look into the "far-right" party that this purports to be?
The Örebro Party (Swedish: Örebropartiet, ÖP) is a local populist political party in Örebro, Sweden, led by Markus Allard. It holds seats in the Örebro municipal and regional assemblies, focusing on local populist policies such as reducing politicians' salaries, stricter migration, and free dental care.
Sweden has undergone a horrible transformation in the last several years where gang warfare and especially bombings have skyrocketed. Most of the new gang violence in the last several years is from migrants from North Africa and the Middle East, after Sweden implemented a generous immigration policy.
https://nct-cbnw.com/an-explosion-a-day-in-sweden-what-is-go...
There's nothing to indicate that this party is "far right" at all. It's a populist-based party but the stance on immigration is definitely linearly correlated to the violence that was brought in by immigration. Lowering politicians' salaries and free dental care doesn't sound very far right to me.
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Swede here. That's not even close to accurate. Örebropartiet is not extremist, but I would absolutely label them radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists. Please do some research and make up your own mind. They're a tiny local party active in Örebro municipality where their founder and leader loudly points out clearly wasteful use of government funds, or more or less corrupt decisions made by leading party figures in other parties on local matters. The party leader is known for ridiculing competing parties party members on debates.
Where the Örebropartiet (Örebro Party) usually are called extremist is in questions regarding immigration. They are of the opinion that people that move to Sweden should not integrate but also assimilate, and quickly, find a job. For some people, this might sound extreme, but I would argue that more than half of the Swedish population (and its parties) nowadays share this view, similar to how Japanese people and society broadly want people that move their to assimilate.
> similar to how Japanese people and society broadly want people that move their to assimilate
And it's super racist there too, I can assure you. My father in law is Korean but lived in Japan his whole life. There's no way to describe what he experienced except racism. People just hated him for being Korean.
I have no respect for people that concern troll about some vague cultural purity to disguise their prejudices.
A friend of mine who is a non Japanese Asian lived in Japan and when asked said there's no racism. There's mild cases but if you are careful to follow the customs and speak the language, you are generally accepted as a Japanese in daily life.
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Racism != rightism. It is even possible to be both Communist and racist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_the_Soviet_Union
Racism is one of those things that unfortunately crosses political and social boundaries. Some groups just hide it better than others by enforcing anti-racism as a group norm.
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> Swede here. That's not even close to accurate. Örebropartiet is not extremist, but I would absolutely label them radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists. Please do some research and make up your own mind.
This sounds like you expect very few people to do this. I can't speak for others but this was exactly the first thing I did upon hearing about it, and
> Where the Örebropartiet (Örebro Party) usually are called extremist is in questions regarding immigration.
is exactly the conclusion I came to, based on their statements about "parasites". Not the integration aspect indeed...
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To be fair, Örebropartiet can also be called an extreme left party. It’s complicated…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party
Does it matter if they are left or right?
The point is, they want to round up lawful citizens and turf them out of the country because they have the audacity to be slightly foreign, or worse born to someone foreign.
that is the issue, not how much tax/spend big/little government.
Exactly, the problem is not left/right it's the authoritarianism, which is again a huge threat to the world after being held mostly in check in Western democracies for many years.
People tend to forget about the "Last Man" part of Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man", but we are definitely in the phase of the Last Man seeking conflict and fighting against our hard-won freedoms.
That's not at all what they want. It's comments like yours that create unnecessary controversy, based on nothing but lies.
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I matters because a lot of people will only read the headline and then get a skewed view of the political landscape.
I did not post my comment to defend him or the party. All I wanted was for people to understand the situation a bit better than they would by just reading the title and post content.
>The point is, they want to round up lawful citizens and turf them out of the country
The US isn't the only country in the world. Sweden does not have birthright citizenship. Many (most?) of those to be remigrated are not Swedish citizens.
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Most people agree that immigration over X% amount is undesirable.
Many governments ignored people's will for many years.
Some new political parties want to fix that, is reasonable enough.
I don't see how, given their answers to simple questions as described in the "2026 run up to the elections" section, this party could ever be considered a leftist party.
Maybe the issue is that mapping political ideologies onto a 1-D line doesn't work if you have more than two distinct ideologies.
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They are very pro education. But that's basically the only thing, all the other answers are enthusiastic right wing answers
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Horseshoe Theory strikes again:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
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Sounds like the logical evolution of left/right-populism into 'absolutist-populism' ;)
To add to the context. The founder of the was the chairman for the youth organization of Vänsterpartiet (English name: The left party), the furthest left party in the Swedish parliament, and he recruited members primarily from the same organization when he was kicked out. The reason he got kicked out was that he was seen praising the Revolutionary Front, a far-left extremist political and militant network in Sweden.
It should be added that the area where they are active is in the local government of Örebro Municipality, a place with a total population of 160,143 people. Looking at the political leanings of parties for a small local government with the lens of national parties might not give a very clear picture. Their strategy is also directed toward local voters, not national voters, through a strategy called the 12% line.
That's typical for extremist parties, AKA Horseshoe theory. IRL Erdogan's party went so far to the right that they started actually adopting very socialist/communist policies. The party names is AKP which stands for "justice and development party" but many people are calling it "Allahs Communist Party" since in Turkish communist is written with K and they are islamists doing communist stuff.
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It doesn't seem that complicated to be honest with you. That is how they self identify but none of their policies seem particularly left wing. At least not from that Wikipedia page. Extremely left wing dental care is the best I will give them.
> Extremely left wing dental care is the best I will give them.
Free dental care is considered "extemely left wing" now? That's just bizarre tbh.
If a country would decide to use tax money to provide health care services for free to everybody that's not much different than using tax money to maintain an infrastructure network that's free to use (like roads), or free police and firefighting services - and I think none of those examples are considered particularly 'left-wing'.
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What about more social housing, reductions in working hours, and opposition to privatisation? Sounds left wing to me.
They have been called Marxist-Lenninist by more mainstream politicians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party#2021_bus_rap...
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This discussion is completely and irrevocably poisoned by the lack of general understanding of the distinctions between citizens, non-citizen permanent residents, legal immigrants, illegal immigrants, asylum seekers, economic immigrants, and war refugees under temporary EU protection (Ukrainians). Especially the differences between the situations in the US and the EU. This whole comment section is, sadly, full of people writing pure nonsense. Please educate yourselves on this big and important topic before posting.
I disagree. This thread contains tons of empathetic people who seem to understand each other, and disagree with each other. It's a breath of fresh air. Sure, there are also some angry posters who don't seem to lean into curiosity, but together we can make them the minority.
Given your understanding on these topics, can you give your opinion on whether this party (in particular their immigration stance) is as far-right extremist as the articles claim?
Well guess I won’t be renewing my subscription this month then.
Any other verified sources?
Somewhat of a verification, here's Mullvad's response to the post on Mastodon: https://mastodon.online/@mullvadnet/116822244689326681
(Mullvad reply content copied here)
>> Mullvad is a political company fighting for free speech, free information and privacy, with two equal co-founders, co-owners and co-CEOs who fundamentally disagree on many issues. Daniel's donation to a political party is private and not part of Mullvad's mission. We protect the right to express and access views we disagree with. We welcome anyone sharing these core values, whatever their other opinions. We are happy to refund others who don't, where we can.
To be fair... I'm not sure how you could take any other position as a privacy-first VPN. By technical nature, you have to believe pretty hard in 'people's business is their own business and not mine.'
I'd rather have a founder who believes whatever, but supports others rights to disagree vehemently, than one who agrees with what I believe but is less flexible on allowing others choice.
Thanks. Also fuck.
The other founder made a comment on another HN submission.[1]
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48696800
Will you be creating a VPN?
Yes. With blackjack and hookers.
Once I meet a Swedish girl whose parents were from XYZ.
She went on a rant on how new refugees from XYZ were ruining everything.
That’s the immigration debate in most of the world. The moment a new immigrant gets their citizenship they often feel they’re the last good one and all pathways need to be shutdown.
I’ll switch to a different vpn. It’s one thing to donate a nominal amount as a private citizen. It’s a whole different matter to be the primary source of funding.
The party in question seems to be an anti-immigration strongly secularist left wing party with Marxist roots. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party
I am not sure "far right" is an accurate label. Maybe populist? Its a mix that would probably get a lot of support in other European countries.
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It is a sensible combination to me. If you first believe that the government should provide a bunch of free stuff, but it doesn't at the moment because it's too expensive, it kind of makes sense that you would then think there need to be fewer people getting the free stuff so it remains affordable. The first people on the exclusion list would naturally be noncitizens.
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As it turns out you can't have strong socialist policies and also open borders.
Also they are anti EU and NATO. Lot of astroturfing here.
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its not uncommon. The overtly racist parties in the UK (e.g. the BNP has quite a lot of left wing policies (e.g. nationalisation of utilities), ending NHS outsourcing to the private sector, and free healthcare.
Its a combination that appeals to the worst off who compete with unskilled immigrants for jobs and rely on free healthcare etc.
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
A right to say something is not the same as the right to say (and do) something without being called out on it.
He has the right to do what he’s doing. Other people have the right to react and say “That sucks, it’s against my values, I no longer trust you or want to do business with you.”
but if Mullvad did that to you, you would (rightly) be angry. Hence the irony.
There are some things that I won't ever defend your right of saying them, to be honest.
Agree. This is more of a "ST Voyager 'Nothing Human'"-case.
But does this swedish Party say any things like that?
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People always conflate this statement. Only government can take "right" from people. Just opposing people don't make them lose their right. Otherwise it is taking away the right to say against what you say.
Okay - but that doesn't mean I'm not going to weigh up what you say when I'm choosing a business to support; especially if it's not in a professional context.
brave! but fortunately you are safe because no one is challenging his right to say it.
I wish there were more people like you in the world. Have a great day.
We need to add something to this nice rule about using services that are good from people we don't (fully) agree with.
I'm not personally inclined to be so strict about this, but there are people with objections against the Proton CEO who once agreed with Trump on twitter, or DHH (there is this one blogpost about his extreme views). Etc.
A big question I suppose is what Mozilla are going to do in reaction?
As Mozilla VPN is white labelled Mulvad I think
They already ousted their own ceo over a political contribution so I'd imagine they'd do something here too, sadly
Discussed three days ago (251 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48696800
Aren't far-right parties opposed to government control and censorship? Ideally a provider should be politically neutral, but I'm wondering if it's preferable to have one that is opposed to government control and censorship.
> Aren't far-right parties opposed to government control and censorship?
They say they are, but their behaviour once they get into power suggests otherwise.
> Aren't far-right parties opposed to government control and censorship?
Not more consistently than other parties.
The wikipedia article about the party is pretty interesting [1]. "The party has also been described as both right-wing populist and left-wing populist as well as left-conservative"
The party was founded after the founder was thrown out of the Left party for liking a far-left extremist group on Facebook and not backing down from that. Since then the party has evolved to also include goals traditionally attributed to the right, like large scale remigration and a stricter immigration policy.
The party also seems inconsequentially small, even at the municipal and regional level. They have 0 seats at the national level
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party
I thought people were paying for Mullvad for a service. "Oh, my money is going to fund a political party I disagree with". You pay for a service, and thinking you now have a say on how the service provider decides to use the money they've received is such hubris. "But instead of using the money I gave the company to buy healthy food for his kids, he chose to buy processed food. I'm out." It's sad, almost immature.
previously discussed[flagged: 251 comments]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48687508
Thanks, we'll merge that thread hither.
Including a statement from the other founder.
This one's gone too.
Any suggestions for a VPN service with similar security standards as Mullvad?
Welp, that vanishes my support for mullvad, despite I did recommend it to many of my friends who doesn’t want/can setup their own.
Im not against people having different political opinions, I personally agree with things from each side and disagree with them both too on other matters, plus having my own third option that doesn’t fit any side. But I am certainly against a company marketing itself as a “defender of personal and human rights and freedom”, yet they are sponsoring a party that obviously doesn’t hold these values, this company will report individuals in the future to deport them maybe, 5 years later they are reporting others for disagreeing with whatever agenda that party is having, it’s always a slippery slope, never think it will end at xyz and that’s it.
Goddammit it’s like companies are ALWAYS destined to turn to evil one way or another, it’s just how long it will take is the question. It’s a reminder that you should always host your own, trust nobody, none.
> But I am certainly against a company marketing itself as a “defender of personal and human rights and freedom”, yet they are sponsoring a party that obviously doesn’t hold these values
No. Daniel made this donation privately. I own and lead the company too. Both I and several of my colleagues don't like that Daniel made this donation. You are misrepresenting the facts.
> this company will report individuals in the future to deport them maybe, 5 years later they are reporting others for disagreeing with whatever agenda that party is having, it’s always a slippery slope, never think it will end at xyz and that’s it.
You can choose to believe that, but it doesn't make it true.
> Goddammit it’s like companies are ALWAYS destined to turn to evil one way or another, it’s just how long it will take is the question. It’s a reminder that you should always host your own, trust nobody, none.
I'm sorry you hold this world-view.
This is a bizarre thread.
People are surprised that a privacy-oriented businessman is right-wing is very strange.
"Millions" in the title is also misleading in this context - it's millions in Swedish Kronor, which is roughly $500K USD. A lot, but the title seems intentionally misleading.
I've also never really understood the cycle of boycotting things because you don't like how an individual spends their own money. Almost every company will employ people who have values you severely disagree with, and put money toward those causes. And turning to Proton as the alternative is... a choice?
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You're misinterpreting what I said. Being dense, honestly.
The start of this thread was primarily people saying they were taking their money elsewhere - and then suggesting Proton, whose CEO was in the hot seat for praising the Republican party. It makes no sense to have such a violent reaction to something like this and not consider that competitors could be similar.
The reality is that in general, your money is always going to somebody you don't want it to go to.
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Örebropartiet is like the weirdest party in Sweden. It's named after "Örebro", a Swedish city with 125k population. The party's founder, Markus Allard, used to be far left politician before turning far right.
Their party program is all over the place. They stand for free dental care, direct democracy and deporting immigrants.
Marcus is also known for profanity and foul language in council meetings.
An oddity in Swedish politics is that if a local party manages to get 12% of the votes in a constituency they are eligible for getting a seat in parliament, and can skip the regular 4% popular vote rule.
Örebropartiet actually has a chance to get into national government next election (Fall 2026) since their local support is quite strong. Times are weird
> Markus Allard, used to be far left politician before turning far right.
Less weird than you might think, Mussolini was one of the most prominent socialists in Italy before turning fascist.
A question to everyone who’s cancelling their subscription over this because “my money ends up financing politics I disagree with”
How many hands does the money need to pass through before it’s considered okay?
No one is free until everyone is free. Daniel Berntsson is acting against freedom, he has chosen to vote for and support a party that protects only the /freedom/ of a small part of the world and seeks to “defend” it at any cost—through racism, stereotyping, and the criminalization of people fleeing exploitation and war. Europe is rich only because every corner of the world is exploited by Europe and the US. Now the tables have turned, and they want to protect what they have stolen.
Does not feel good to support such a cause. Will cancel mine and give ivpn a go. It really is a shame, I was happy with mullvad and their mission. I just wouldn't sleep well if I kept using it
I'm sorry to hear that. Thank you for the compliment. Good luck.
Still waiting to cancel Big Tech for donating to Trump [0] and they donated more than a million+.
So why haven't we cancelled Big Tech yet?
[0] https://www.commoncause.org/articles/big-tech-is-donating-mi...
I wonder if it's because "we" are not an amorphous hive mind thinking face emoji
Or maybe most of the "we" here do not care to do it. (Because they pay your bills)
I will be buying a Mullvad subscription because of this. Keep up the good work! Private individuals should have the right to free speech/expression, whatever that is, and that is a value I admire this VPN company for standing up for.
Too many companies pay lip service to the current political fad du jour, and it's annoying. I like an apolitical company that does its thing and doesn't pretend more.
Oh no :-( but why the far right? You can sponsor sensible politics and politicians so that we get more of those.
I am a very happy customer since the service is extremely very good, the vpn problem was solved and I am so sorry but the smallest amount that I pay even if it is 0.01 cent cannot go to support the far right(or the far left).
Sorry.
But now the problem is to find a decent vpn service that is not private equity or malware.
I am anti-racist, son of immigrants, son of a mixed race couple, yet what scares me is the mobbing of people against other that have a different opinion than yours, as seen in this thread.
Plenty saying they cannot in good conscience support Mullvad, while directly and indirectly giving money to people like Bezos, Musk or Cook, among others, or supporting politicians from both aisles, who have the power to do much worse at a greater scale. I call this hypocrisy, and it is widespread in social media driven mob mentality. Intolerance about intolerants turns you an intolerant.
I like Mullvad the company, and I know that people might support politics I find despicable. Such is life outside of silly internet echo chambers.
> what scares me is the mobbing of people against other that have a different opinion than yours, as seen in this thread.
I am dismayed by the anti-intellectual climate in the world as well, but HN is an oasis of empathy and curiosity compared to other platforms. Look at the people I've engaged with. Many of them vehemently disagree with Daniel, and with my position. They understand it, compliment Mullvad, and say they unfortunately have to leave. That's the way political discourse should work.
> Plenty saying they cannot in good conscience support Mullvad, while directly and indirectly giving money to people like Bezos, Musk or Cook, among others, or supporting politicians from both aisles, who have the power to do much worse at a greater scale. I call this hypocrisy, and it is widespread in social media driven mob mentality.
Good point. We should probably be more open about how much good Mullvad has done over the years. I've been so focused on just doing stuff, and not telling people about it.
> I like Mullvad the company, and I know that people might support politics I find despicable. Such is life outside of silly internet echo chambers.
Thank you.
There's nothing wrong with promoting or protecting the interests of native or indigenous people over those of immigrants or foreigners. This is not a far-right fringe belief, though some are trying to paint it so.
Where do you have documentation of this party even doing this thing? The Wikipedia entry linked elsewhere does not talk about this perspective at all
You reply to the wrong comment?
A headline and 20 comments and no mention of what this party actually stands for. Only simple labels such as "far-right". Ehh. The Republican Party in America is EXTREMELY far right by Swedish standards. So maybe one should base this on the actual substance rather than labels?
does it change your trust in the company?
For some people, the answer is obviously yes. For others, they'll judge Mullvad purely by its track record, audits, and technical design.
Honestly, you could say the same about the CEO of ANDURIL in the US - the Oculus guy...but he just cares about the US and wants to make money by making weapon systems etc.
Is he a bad person? Is he a patriot? Who knows, I ain't gonna play the ultimate judge game - but he did release a cool gameboy clone which is literally the closest I will ever get to his work... [1]
[1] https://modretro.com
It's not only about trust, but also about not wanting to give money to an entity that will pass it on to a political party you don't want to support.
Yes, not only trust but my willingness to contribute money towards his paycheck. I don't want my money to end up in far-right parties.
Look at Zuck and Musk. Their platforms are still used by millions. It's only "us" that care about the pedigree of our tech founders, most people couldn't care less.
I commend your correct use of “couldn’t care less”. It’s so rare to see people get this one right these days.
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There has to be some reason that so many projects are started by right wing people. Something in their personality that makes them both RW and willing to start lots of projects.
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Wanted to mention the Analogue since ModRetro was mentioned.
https://www.analogue.co/products
https://www.analogue.co/editions
I think these look a lot cooler, though they're less hackable.
In some ways I would say it could even increase trust: if the guy is a privacy absolutist, ultra-libertarian, "my business is not the state's business" type, his VPN products are likely to be pretty good.
On the other hand, he might have other strong right-wing views that users don't agree with, and which might take precedence in one's set of priorities. If I like football and they like football, but they also want to kill me because of <other reason>, I don't think I'd want to give them my money.
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Why are leftists so histrionic? If we had a thread made every time an executive espoused far left opinions we'd overload the HN servers. Why is an executive being far right even news?
I am leftist [1]. It’s not a coincidence that leftist groups in the world always devolve to infighting and splintering, while right-wing parties have no issue getting their radical ideas through because they don’t spend all their energy deciding who is part of the ingroup and who should be cancelled for wrongthink.
1: this is why I don’t usually label myself as such, as I am aware that the world is more complex than red and blue thinking.
Because their puppeteers know exactly what buttons to push when they need a good smear campaign. (And because lumpens despise the pro-labor left.)
It is getting almost impossible to consume media or use tech products without supporting a nazi sympathizer or supporter or downright nazi himself nowadays
I used Mullvad before this because they passed a bunch of tests and legally denied claims to user data. I don’t have the reference but it was on HN.
So who do people recommend now?
Proton
Mullvad does an excellent job, and I support them.
Thank you.
I wonder, if you model political positions as nations, whether trading benefits you all or whether autarky leads to long term relevance.
Oh yes, sure, the party started by avowed Marxist Markus Allard is 'far-right'. For those who can read (or know how to translate) Swedish here's an article [1] on marxist.se - well-known hidey hole for far-right extremists - on how the expulsion of Markus Allard from the communist party (they call themselves 'the left party' but they're one of several communist parties in Sweden) is an 'attack on the left'.
Allard is a traditional leftie, someone who thinks in terms of class struggle and power to the people. He also happens to be rather outspoken about the failure of Swedish parties on all sides to handle the problems related to the excessive migration Sweden and Europe have been dealing with for the last few decades. This has put a target on his back for the everyone-I-don't-agree-with-is-Hitler crowd so his party is of course 'far-right'. Well, if that is what 'far-right' means it doesn't seem all that problematic so I wonder why people always complain so much about the claimed rise of the 'far-right'. See what that leads to, you obsessive labellers of those who dare to question the desired narrative? When everything is far-right the term has lost its meaning just as claims of 'racism' or '*-phobia' have lost theirs.
[1] https://marxist.se/uteslutningen-av-allard-en-attack-mot-van...
The mechanism of VPN is pooling together many users and making them indistinguishable to the outside, providing plausible deniability. Outsiders can see a user belongs to the pool, but they can't tell if they are 'good' or 'bad'.
It's a similar mechanism that cryptocurrency, or money laundering uses. It's very possible for 'good' users to be recruited into the pool for no other reason than to provide plausible deniability for the 'bad' members. If I wanted to run an ilegal operation like cybercrime or drugs, I would probably use a VPN and a crypto pool, and try to get legitimate users to desire using VPNs for reasons like gaming latency, or avoiding taxes on 1K/month income.
It's well known that Mullvad provides lower than market prices when compared to competitors, and that they offer stricter no logs policies. Yeah, maybe they are providing a basic privacy right, or maybe they are providing shelter for criminals. Tradeoff old as time. But with prices possibly being subsidized, it makes sense that their incentive model is not to collect fees for usage, but to provide a wide enough user pool such that the anonimity is more effective.
What's interesting is that both far-right free-market anarchist users and far-left Not for profit Free Software socialists appear to be shocked that their anonimity pools contains them both. Kind of like how the lights went up at the club at 6 am and you realize who you've been smooching in the dark.
You're ignoring the other main economic foundation of VPNs: the service is in fact run by the cops, at a loss.
> far-right free-market anarchist
There's no such thing as rightwing anarchism. In the entire history of anarchism, it's always been a strictly and explicitly leftwing movement.
I know what type of anarchism you are referring to, spray paint a circled A, live in a farm, free love anarchy.
but what about free market capitalism, anarcho capitalism, the austrian economic school, the chicago boys, Milton Friedman, Javier Milei..
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Such a convenient time frame with all think-of-the-children bs wave to point fingers at the one of the best VPN services our there with spotless reputation and raise a hysteria with duplicated stream of posts, isn't it?
Surely just a coincidence.
Sad that I had to scroll down so far to see someone pointing this out. This is the least organic comment section I've ever seen on HN. Also very convenient that the manner of moderation has kept this on the front page for most of 3 days, quite unheard of.
Mullvad does more for internet privacy than any other company. There are a lot of people saying that they will not use Mullvad anymore. What are they going to do? Support ExpressVPN or some spyware VPN with unknown owners? To achieve what – reduce the roster of companies fighting for a free internet to 0?
Remember, currently individuals elected by you, from parties ranging from goodest to kindest, are voting for passport internet and chat control, with little to no well-funded opposition.
I dislike that Mozilla is spending their money sponsoring random political organizations while asking for money here and there. I dislike that EFF is sometimes busy with American politics more than internet freedoms, and I dislike that Alexandra Elbakyan believes in some kind of esoteric stalinism.
But despite all that, I still support all of them! Because they are doing good things that nobody else does.
There is a "what kind of American are you" meme that is usually applied to people who have zero tolerance for people with different political views. Of course, it applies only to evil people???
No! If you think that "canceling" organizations on the matter that their leadership is kinda suspected of maybe supporting something that doesn't 100% align with your last ballot is a good deed, this meme is actually about you!
> Mullvad does more for internet privacy than any other company. There are a lot of people saying that they will not use Mullvad anymore. What are they going to do? Support ExpressVPN or some spyware VPN with unknown owners? To achieve what – reduce the roster of companies fighting for a free internet to 0?
Exactly. This blatantly obvious fact being conveniently ignored by hundreds of comments here, is not organic.
I'm still amused that so many people got brainwashed into thinking that VPNs give privacy :D
If my house isn't a fortress I should just leave my doors open :D
I'm so clever, everyone else is stupid
Nah. But for the supposed "privacy" you swap one "dumb pipe" for another pipe, which you have no clue about its operations beyond "trust me bro". Of course they may behave with good intentions and actually keep their promises but that's a rather huge IF.
And then quite often people will still use their regular tracking-browser to access tracking-websites xD
This "far right" slur on any party that is anti immigration makes me immediately suspect this party probably isn't far right.
It's a shame, because real racist extremists/nazis benefit from this lumping together of legitimate concern about immigration and actual Nazis.
It’s a far left party based on what I read online. Their only right wing stance seems to be on immigration
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> Being anti-immigration in a country that is shrinking is just stupid.
No, it's not.
What if the focus of their pro-remigration stance is families deemed impossible to integrate due to their persisting criminal activities and rejection of functional societal norms? Because that's the exact demographic this one policy of that party is concerned with.
Already had this topic discussed several times this week.
Aren’t Swedish political parties mostly publicly funded?
Parties get goverment funding based on election result, with a minimum floor of 2.5% votes in national elections. This party is way too small for that, and is primarily focused on local election.
Ok so it’s basically a political startup.
It sounds like once the party gets actual influence, its real funding will be determined by the Swedish people.
Doesn’t this make the situation less harmful, or at least fundamentally different from say Elon Musk?
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The Örebro Party seems similar to Bundnis Sara Wagenknecht in Germany. They are a splinter group of mostly older Linke who are anti immigrant. There is also this super weird fringe on the legit extreme left here, the Anti-deutsche antifa who are pro-Israel and islamophobic.
Frankly I am suspicious of anyone throwing money into politics; left / centre / right.
Small scale donors dont even get off without drawing my ire - finding out someone you know donated to a politician / party is like finding out they sent money to a nigerian prince to unlock their share of the inheritance.
The party seems to have some bizarre policies, but on migration can't really blame them considering how badly Sweden has failed to integrate humanitarian migrants. There is so much gang violence, so many people of migrant background marginalized and living on welfare without any hope of a better future.
I will gladly continue buying from Mullvad. There is nothing wrong with forced deportations. Without them anyone can come, claim asylum, and stay indefinitely if their country of origin doesn't want them back. That is simply idiotic waste of tax payer's money, and in case of criminals, also a hazard to public safety. Pretty much every Western European country does forced deportations, especially those of criminals.
Why doesn’t Apple just make a built in iOS native vpn that can be toggled (effectively) from the swipe down menu control and is paid monthly or part of iCloud
I doubt they’ll go beyond the currently bundled Safari iCloud Private Relay, which I quite appreciate actually.
And which they disable in any country with significant internet censorship, where having a VPN actually matters.
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The real far right are talking about melting down immigrants and using them to fill pot holes.
This guy is your best blocker to this and will surely restore balance.
lack of nuance in human affairs - is what ends up killing these conversations & making them explosive.
What's going on? Proton faced a similar scandal recently. I think in their case sponsored a video by a far right vlogger. After that I saw people recommending Mullvad as an alternative.
Tweet from Proton's CEO last year: "10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned."
He repeatedly said his statement was politically neutral.
archive link? the post got deleted
They might be having some capacity issues, it was 404 for me for a while but now it's back.
Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20260629105534/https://det.socia...
thanks, i got to the actual article that was linked: https://web.archive.org/web/20260628170131mp_/https://www.fl...
I use Mullvad because it physically prevents anyone from logging my data.
What a co-owner does with his personal money in a local Swedish municipal election has zero impact on the code protecting my traffic.
Did a quick research - calling a party that campaigns for a 30-hour work week and socialist dental care 'far-right' just because they have a strict immigration policy shows how carelessly people throw labels around these days.
Remigration is more than a strict immigration policy. And calling legal immigrants parasites is going too far.
Why? It is perfectly possible to be a legal immigrant and a parasite. It's even possible to be a completely homegrown native and a parasite. Wouldn't you call essentially all career criminals parasites?
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How does it physically prevent Mullvad from logging your data?
They're known to run everything in RAM, nothing gets stored. You pull the plug and everything is gone.
Of course, you have to trust the company on that.
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One option is to use Obscura, so then you at least spread the trust to two parties (one of which is Mullvad). Not great, but better.
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The Örebro Party (Örebropartiet) split from the socialist Left Party in 2014.
Some of its key issues include lowered wages for politicians, ending the tax payer funding of various sculptures, monuments and art, large scale remigration, a stricter immigration policy, and free dental care.
> While Allard has described himself as a Communist, and a Marxist, at its founding in March 2014 he defined the Örebro Party as "broad left". At that time the party considered itself a "local party that wants to carry on the labour movement's ideals", and "not interested in administrating the current society".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party
Damn. Well, if that gets confirmed I'm going to get my company off mullvad.
It's confirmed. And the party in question is quite extreme, at least by Swedish standards.
They are not “extreme”.
According to polls[0] the party gets ~20% votes in their region. IMHO 20% of voters can't be "extreme" [0] https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/orebro/orebropartiet-nast-... (swedish)
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But that Bill Gates [Foundation] is a larger sponsor to WHO than all nations short of the US (at least prior to the currently elected govt) wouldn't dare making the news this far left into the interwebs... Just sayin' - figured I'd invest a few karma points into self reflection ;) love y'all
Left/right doesn't matter much for a no-logs VPN.
Up/Down (authoritarian/libertarian) is what matters there.
If he has high allegiance to the extant power structure then promises should be questioned.
If he is for radical decentralization and antiwar then I'm more likely to trust promises made about privacy and autonomy.
Then there's international confusion about left/right. Scandinavia is known as a good place to run a business because businesses regulation is much lighter than places like the US which are heavily regulated. In the US business regulation is "left wing" in Scandinavia it's "right wing".
We'd use a 14-dimensional vector for political positioning if we wanted to be studious but most folks are just looking for a friend/enemy distinction. Even many of the comments here looking to dump a well-regarded service if either "tastes great" or "less filling" is confirmed. The false dialectic as means of control and all that jazz.
So, where are we moving? Proton? Need some good recommendations!
Any of the Swedes in here can corroborate the claims in the article about this right wing group? Especially about the extreme anti-immigration statements and put that in full translation and context?
Also what this group leader has done in Örebro to contextualize this quote
> ”I hope they will do similar things on the national level as in Örebro”, writes Daniel Berntsson to Flamman.
Tried to find something from the party itself, but found nothing on their homepage other than that they plan to publish a party programme "gradually, starting some time during the summer of 2026".
https://www.orebropartiet.se/var-politik/
The claims in the social media post is pure bullshit. The party is a tiny (read: one person elected) radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists. They have gained popularity for pointing out wasteful use of Örebro's municipalities resources, and their leader's fondness of lengthy ridiculing other parties politicians in lengthy debates, that he often publish on Instagram and YouTube.
> read: one person elected
No, they have 8 people elected: 3 in the region, 5 in the municipality.
They got 4,46 % of the votes in the region, and 7,92 % in the municipality. And who knows, maybe they'll use that 5 million SEK to get more seats in this years election.
Thank you for providing context.
Are his public stances on immigration precisely stated as remigration, or does he describe a thing such as remigration without explicitly naming it as such?
About his quote from wikipedia "They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish." which links to this video tweet https://x.com/AllardKlipp/status/2060109271635771457 can you give full context/translation?
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Fredrik,
I just wanted you to know that while I dont support Daniels views, I believe you guys at Mullvad are doing the right thing.
I despise cancel culture, but I understand people want to "vote with their wallet" . I will be staying a Mullvad customer.
Seems to be intentionally defamatory
From the Wikipedia article on the Orebro party
“ Split from the left
The initiative to found the Örebro Party was taken in early 2014 by Markus Allard, who is also the first party leader. Allard had previously held positions as substitute member of the Örebro municipal council and district chairman of the Young Left in Örebro; in December 2013 he was expelled from the Left Party and its youth wing Young Left for "liking" the Revolutionary Front, a militant revolutionary socialist and anti-fascist organization, on Facebook and refusing to disavow it when questioned.[6] Allard has stated that the real reason for his expulsion was that he was perceived as a threat to the established party bureaucracy.[7][8]
While Allard has described himself as a Communist,[9] and a Marxist,[8][10] at its founding in March 2014 he defined the Örebro Party as "broad left".[9] At that time the party considered itself a "local party that wants to carry on the labour movement's ideals", and "not interested in administrating the current society".[11]”
Colours:
Red Black
This sounds like a socialist, anarchist or Ancap group that believes in borders
This is like the third duplicate I saw in a week
Far right? It's run by a literal marxist communist.
People change. Mossulini was a socialist in his youth.
And then he became a Socialist with power. Seems to me he remained a Socialist.
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What does he or she want to do with immigrants?
Lol. Not all communists are Marxists on immigration
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Sigh, people that bring politics to the forefront with everything are so miserable.
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OK, but please don't post low-substance comments on HN. Telling us you “don't care” about a topic achieves nothing other than instigating a generic tangent, which is against the guidelines. Please take a moment to read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them if you want to participate here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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From the wikipedia article on the Örebro Party:
"Some key issues for the Örebro Party locally include strong secularism, a 30-hour workweek with retained pay, lowered wages for politicians, expanded social housing, abolishing preschool-fees, making public transport free of charge, ending taxpayer funding of what it sees as wasteful sculptures, monuments and art and introducing free dental care. Nationally the party has set out large-scale remigration, closing the Swedish borders to immigration, a stricter assimilation policy and ending taxes on energy and fuel as some of its key issues."
And the party leader has described himself as a Communist and Marxist.
What makes them far-right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Örebro_Party
Now, the usual cry from blue sky spoiled rich kid fascists that are unable to understand that some people live in the real world, with real problems and because of that have ideas different from them.
Interesting. My friends and I were recently discussing the rise of right-wing parties and leaders around the world, and we observed that many of these controversial elected leaders also have an "Anarchist" trait. These leaders have enacted policies that deliberately cause a lot of social and / or economic upheaval - bordering on anarchy - which have ultimately resulted in mass transfer of wealth from the lower classes to the rich, and widened the gap between the poor and the rich. And, unsurprisingly, many of these right-wing parties and leaders are backed billionaires (and now trillionaires). Factor in the role of BigTech and their social media platforms, that have aided their rise, it does seem like even these corporate leaders who aren't necessarily enamoured by such political ideologies still feel the need to tacitly support them because they recognise that it provides them more opportunities for capitalistic exploitation ...
> takes inspiration from marxist ideology[42] and unites the "productive" classes of society against the "Transferiat", with the "Transferiat" being a term coined by Allard to describe the classes of society that lives off transfers that are a net negative for society
lmao This is like the song Tequila by The Champs but instead of a long instrumental it’s John Galt’s speech and instead of “Tequila!” it’s “Marxism!”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=U_JFLb1IItM
It is amazing that if you say “Marxist” after any possible combination of words some people will go “oh wow that is leftism”
Utter gibberish, like a picture of Ayn Rand wearing an ironic Hugo Chavez shirt.
Nice to see some tech leadership with strong moral fibre. I'll definitely renew with mullvad too in the future.
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Love all the Godwinning in this thread, it just shows normal people how ridiculous it all is.
(By the way: I doubt most privacy advocates care much about this. Those of us who travel in the underground are used to running into not-so-great people, many of whom seem to do way worse things than donating to political parties! But feel free to expend more resources on your campaign.)
If you know that he will spend his money in support of that party, and you still buy services from him, you are helping him promote whatever views he holds. As simple as that. There is no cop out.
And what if he is also donating to a hospital in Ethiopia?
Indeed, "There is no ethical consumption under capitalism" but some is still more ethical than others.
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It seems like there is someone or some group, that doesn't want people using the best VPN available.
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"a racist", you haven't even read anything, that's straight defamation and a dumb take.
And let's play along, why can't you trust a racist with your privacy?
> why can't you trust a racist with your privacy?
Isn't it obvious? They might use that data against you. Even asking such a naive question raises an eyebrow.
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"Here's an explanation by AI.
<Explanation>
Now if someone could give us a trustworthy explanation."
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Article by a news media outlet that is considered very far left (communist). Try finding the same claim or description in any national Swedish media. You won't.
I have Mullvad to avoid age check gateways, not super anonymity. I'll absolutely be taking my business elsewhere.
Because of hyperbolic headlines?
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An important part of making "vote with your wallet" work is that people need an awareness of what their wallet is voting on. Telling people not to talk about problems with companies lets companies get away with way too much.
It's not a "witch hunt" to be against ethnic cleansing and not want to financially support that.
I've never really gotten the impression that Allard or the Örebro party support ethnic cleansing. What makes you say this? I'm not sure if any of their suggested policies would even be considered that controversial outside of Sweden.
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It's funny how remigration never involves sending white folk back to europe.
That's because there are no nonwhite countries in the world that white people immigrate to en masse because living conditions there are better than in their own countries. There's a real racial asymmetry in the world between whites and nonwhites in terms of building countries people wish to live in.
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Nice to know, I'm gifting right now a subscription for all the member of my family.
Do you live in Sweden, do you know the context of the mass migration it ocurred there? the social economic effects?
Apparently it's not criminal to stay illegally in a country, they are delusional.
>ethnic cleansing via mass deportation
"ethnic cleansing" is an emotionally charged term that conjures genocide in the popular imagination. It is not a good descriptive term for what can rightly be described as regressive or ultra-nationalistic migration policy.
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As economies shrink and jobs become scarce, we may reach pre-ww2 order.
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There are literally dozens of us that either live outside the US or are from other countries
I'm just saying for me personally its even further moved into the box of "why would this bother me as a user of their service"
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in a global market, principles don't stop at the border
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A lot of people in Sweden have strong opinions about American politics.
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Just a friendly warning from an American; surveilling you is a bipartisan effort.
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Uh, according to Wikipedia this party wants to kick out all the non-native Swedes from the country (aka "remigration"). That's definitely far right.
What? I don't support a lot of the things they say, but to my knowledge, that is not what they have said. Are you Swedish, or did you come to that conclusion solely from a Wikipedia article?
Here is a recent interview with Markus Allard (the party leader for Örebropartiet): https://samnytt.se/markus-allards-plan-for-sverige-utvisa-kr...
Where he says:
> Markus Allard stresses that he does not see immigrants who behave themselves as a problem. On the contrary, he believes that the debate too often focuses on people who are already functioning well in society, while politicians fail to deal with the groups that are responsible for crime or long-term benefit dependency.[0]
> According to him, the focus should be on those who create problems for Sweden, not on people who work, follow the laws, and are a functioning part of society.[0]
He also explains that he believes that being born in Sweden alone should not automatically make someone Swedish, and that it should instead be based on ties such as culture, history, and identity. You can machine translate the article because I feel this comment would be too long otherwise. It should be pretty close to what he is saying.
and:
> He therefore advocates a greatly reduced influx of immigrants, repatriation for criminals and long-term welfare-dependent people, and reforms that make it easier for productive Swedes to start a family and have more children.[1]
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And here are the original statements in Swedish:
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> Markus Allard betonar samtidigt att han inte ser invandrare som sköter sig som något problem. Tvärtom menar han att debatten alltför ofta fokuserar på människor som redan fungerar väl i samhället, medan politikerna misslyckas med att hantera de grupper som står för kriminalitet eller långvarigt bidragsberoende.
> Enligt honom bör fokus ligga på dem som skapar problem för Sverige, inte på människor som arbetar, följer lagarna och är en fungerande del av samhället.
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> Han förespråkar därför ett kraftigt minskat inflöde av invandrare, återvandring för kriminella och långvarigt bidragsberoende personer samt reformer som gör det lättare för produktiva svenskar att bilda familj och få fler barn.
Left wing parties historically are not pro immigration as it increases the labour pool and reduces individual worker powers.
Right wing should be boosting immigration to give businesses cheaper labour and erode worker rights.
Explains why they UK immigration rose massively with the tories.
Many parties outright lie about this to grow their voter base, but the difference in policy vs promise is huge.
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We've banned this account for posting flamewar comments and ignoring our request to stop.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
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People who engage in these antics would quickly find that there isn’t a single company where all the employees align with all their values. They would then either need to accept their hypocrisy or reject society completely to live in the forest somewhere.
Maybe we can start with not supporting companies that have cofounders that directly financially support ethnic cleansing.
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I think that’s the point
Revealing that capital is catastrophically misallocated to people whose deep desires are to inflict suffering on others? Oh no, please don't do it, that would be terrible. We could almost figure out a solution to this capital problem. Maybe something involving a common ownership and a sense of class.
The one time HN is accelerationist in the right one. Be proud, comrade, you're making the world better even if you don't know it
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It doesn't take much purity to not be a fascist.
Apparently that's asking too much of people these days, if the not at all suspicious flood of comments defending ethnic cleansing is any indication.
Considering their CEO is only supporting a party whose primary goal is mass deportation of undocumented and documented immigrants as well of legal citizens, it's going to be one of the easiest purity check of my life. A good fascist is a dead fascist.
You quite literally invented almost all of your comment just to create a strawman you could get mad at, then morally grandstand about.
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Politics is how a society organizes itself. That seems relevant to a message board that discusses society and technology.
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I live in a "white" country and I like my nonwhite neighbors, some immigrant, some nth-generation, even ones who mostly socialize within their ethnic/cultural enclaves. I believe they belong here as much as I do. I don't want to give any money to racists who want to expunge them for some perceived ethnic transgressions. These parties are one step removed from extolling the virtues of the glorious Aryan race, and we all know where that leads.
>I believe they belong here as much as I do.
This sentiment is just so utterly foreign to me that I can't comprehend how someone could rationally think this way. I mean, I'm a black man whose ancestors have lived in America since the slave ships, and I easily recognize that some people are more American than others. And Americans only have like 1% of the cultural and ethnic identity that most European nations have. Why are you blind to the importance of the deep historical roots that bind a nation together? Why do you think the very force (namely kinship ties) that has driven humanity forward for the last hundred thousand years has, in the blink of an eye, become irrelevant?
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What happens when they start to see their ethnicity or culture as political and fight to impose it, including using violence? Because at some point it will happen - democracy incentivizes clientelism and tribalism.
The USA, which is often touted as a "successful" melting pot model, is rife with similar problems.
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> It's always taken as an axiom by leftists that immigration is an unconditional good, but never actually defended.
I'm not sure that is correct. Before Trump, "left" politicians (in the U.S.) campaigned on controlling immigration and deporting illegal immigrants.
Not in my experience, at least not at the national level. It's been said that Obama deported more illegals than anyone that came before. But Democrats couldn't run on that record because it was toxic to the progressives.
The USA has never had a leftist president. No president of the USA has ever sought to end capitalism.
I think you know that, and that you are alluding to that with quotation marks. But I'm not sure how the person you are replying to is using the term "left." I feel it is important to clarify when discussing how the Left views immigration.
Clarification aside, I agree with what you said.
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Yes, some immigration is good. That doesn't mean all immigration is good. Are you willing to identify positive traits and limit immigration to those with those traits? Or do you balk at being selective? The defense of immigration always treats immigrants as one undifferentiated lump. But this is just the lumping fallacy.
>The "homogenous countries" started 2 world wars, one of them to "preserve their culture, ethnicities, identities". Would this not support the worldview that immigration has net benefits?
Oversimplification to the point of bad faith
>Also, can you explain how ethnic cleansing preserves culture and identities?
Obviously a disingenuous question
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Not a defense, but rather support for your opinion, just take one look at Europe. Previously, they welcomed Syrians and middle Easterners escaping conflict. But in the last years, right wing majorities have emerged and grown based on increased crime and general nuisance, many are now against immigrants. Just yesterday the Danes are insisting on eliminating these nuisance loud "calls to worship" from Mosques. Immigrants that are not really being hired by locals, or not successful starting their own legitimate businesses, too often turn to organized crime - - they have to make a living somehow. Witness the violent protests recently in Ireland against immigrants. Witness all the bombings in Sweden, and of course the rapes of local women. Many of these immigrants come from less lawful countries, where it's often "dog eat dog" for survival.
I can't speak for Europe but in the US crime has been on a downward slope since the 90s, all while the percentage of immigrants in the US has gone up.
A few studies have shown that immigrants have a lower incidence of crime, especially undocumented ones. I don't know of any reputable studies (in the US) that show otherwise.
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The violent protests in Ireland were explicitly enflamed and coordinated by Musk and other right-wingers over social media: https://newrepublic.com/article/211936/elon-musk-race-war-be...
I don't want to speak for European countries. Never lived there, and I think people living there should be responsible for deciding how they navigate such issues.
In the USA, where I live, there is not much of an ethical or cultural defense to prevent immigration. The dominant culture, white people, are themselves immigrants. To deny others the right to live and work here is selfish at best. If some people are allowed here and some people are not, the only logically coherent next step is to return all land and resources back to Native American hands. If we do not have the stomach for such a bold transition, then the next best thing is to welcome everyone. To do otherwise means allowing and denying people a life here on extremely arbitrary, hypocritical reasons (and usually racist reasons, frankly). So, at least in the USA (and I believe more broadly, North and South America), the political Left must necessarily be pro-immigration if they wish to be anti-racist.
Speaking even more broadly, Leftists have generally be in favor of internationalist cooperation (a la the famous song The Internationale). But how exactly that relates to immigration policies is debatable.
Thanks for replying. I can see your point of view.
Legal immigration to the US for an every day person is nearly impossible. You can’t just decide one day that you will move to the US and try to make a life there. European countries are orders of magnitude more open than the US.
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NetBird doesn't use Mullvad
They are considering which is enough for me to not use Netbird.
https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird/issues/1138
I am now open to suggestions for a good VPM that isn't Mulvad. Or Proton.
Why not Proton: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48447103
ssh -D
(really, that's what I do)
About that... https://www.reddit.com/r/degoogle/comments/1tzbizh/proton_is...
:/
Perhaps the alternative is to self host, but my friends can't do that.
It is about time we compile a list of VPNs to avoid.
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Don't be silly, everyone knows that left wing extremists are broke, and have no funds.
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When it is about paying money for a commercial service I think it is valid point to vote with your wallet. Otherwise if it was a free service, it would not really matter as the whole VPN provider industry is dubious and comes down to the same tech stack and outcome.
Both far-right and far-left are bad, and often in many ways actually quite close to each other.
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Yes very far left.
"They should also be deported, even if they were born in Sweden, because they don't have a natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedes. I am prepared to walk over corpses here, and that is what separates me from these other damn politicians." [1]
[1] https://x.com/AllardKlipp/status/2060109271635771457
I hate how right wingers are constantly trying to normalize viscous, abhorrent rhetoric like this. Ironically, they often claim to be religious...
If any of my peers spoke like this, I'd cut them out of my life in an instant.
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What are some other ways they've been known to be "right-adjacent"?
The Örebro Party in question actually split from the Left Party and describes itself as leftwing. The founder describes himself as a Marxist.
> While Allard has described himself as a Communist, and a Marxist, at its founding in March 2014 he defined the Örebro Party as "broad left". At that time the party considered itself a "local party that wants to carry on the labour movement's ideals", and "not interested in administrating the current society".
Forced mass deportation of immigrants and anyone not ethnically swedish (= dark skin) even if they are citizens, as well as calling anyone using social safety nets parasites, is just your standard far-right racist populism. There is zero class consciousness if you throw the weakest people with the least influence in society under the bus for your populism.
It's almost definitionally entirely the opposite of Marxism, since that's precisely about recognizing social conflicts caused by things like immigration and poverty as a bourgeoisie plot to divide the working class, to deflect it away from the actual problem. That's why rich people donate to far-right parties in the first place, it's in their class interest to do so.
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Yeah, that must be it. No other possible explanation.
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At face value: yes of course.
The relevance of this story does not come from a obvious "wrong" in the support of political value X. Infact Mullvad is clearly politically active, supporting "individual-privacy" in legislation processes multiple times. This is expected. The 'problem' is build from multiple assumptions.
1. Owner, Co-Owner, director, etc. Have direct immediate unchecked control over "the product" 2. The actual content of far-X Politics in inheritly unpopular. Else it wouldn't be "Far" from anything. This is also why propaganda and populism are necessary. 3. Far-X politics DEPENDS on direct control (information and excercise) because of (2.)
Therefore --> Owner Opinions become Company opinions. And owner(company) supports ideological politics that are fundamentally opposed to product and broader HN views.
Notice how these people almost never go after the management of major multinationals, or even places like car dealerships and real estate firms. It’s almost always companies and projects that are critical to freedom and privacy. That should tell you all you need to know.
A bit naive, but I'd guess that privacy supporting projects might tend to attract people on the political extreme so you see people are more passionate about this?
The average person who wants (or sells) a car probably doesn't have many strong feels on politics. The average person who goes out of their way to be to buy a specific privacy focused VPN is probably a bit more in tune politically and likely to have stronger feelings.
I know people who don't eat at Chick-fil-a because the owners are homophobic and donate to right wing politicians all the time. I also know people who don't shop at Hobby Lobby because the owners are right-wing christian extremists who materially supported ISIS by illegally buying antiquities. Both of these have been extensively covered in the news.
So no, it's not just companies that are "critical to freedom and privacy".
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well yeah, would be kinda funny if people started exposing oil and tobacco companies as ethically questionable
He's entitled to his political views and just as we're entitled to potentially use or not use his service because of them :)
Not sure why it's such an issue to discuss the political views of the beneficiaries of services we use. I understand it's mostly uninteresting as far as comment sections go, but it's always bizarre to see a defense of political association when often the impetus for sharing this type of information is for people/consumers to exercise their right to associate with business based on their political outlook.
> Isn’t he, like any one of us, entitled to hold the political views he wants and support the candidates or parties he wants?
He's perfectly entitled to hold whatever loony political views he wants. I haven't seen anyone calling for his arrest.
But customers are also entitled to decide whether or not to keep supporting a company for whatever reasons they choose, including the political ideology of its CEOs.
If we are going to allow elites to gather vast fortunes avoiding fair tax, and then use that wealth to exercise outsized influence on politics, it’s fair for consumers to factor this into how they spend their money.
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Surely you can see the difference between “the personal life of founders” and “the founder of this company is by far the largest donor to a party in favour of ethnic cleansing and thus I don’t want to buy his products”?
What?
The reason he has those millions to give is because of the money he made from Mullvad, no?
If he separates that, I’ll happily separate my judgement as well.
you are saying that if that founder earned from scam websites while running Mullvad, then it would have been fine to sponsor that association with the crime money, but not Mullvad money, yes?
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There's "personal life" and then theres being 75% of the funding of a party calling for ethnic cleansing...
You have sources about Ethnic cleansing or you are just talking about immigration which has nothing to do with ethnicity? Of course criminal immigrants that just cross the border should be deported, that's common-sense. You would really cross Japanese border right now and genuinely think you aren't committing a serious crime?
Can you give some sources regarding the Ethnic cleansing?
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What does that mean?
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guess I'll cancel my tailscale mullvad sub
I love how we pretend to live in a free democratic society where everyone is free to make up their own mind and vote for what they believe...
...as long as they don't have opinions that differ from ours, in that case we might punch em in the face...
You have freedom of speech to advocate for your politics. The rest of us have the freedom of association to not want to be involved with you in any way.
These are not contradictory - they are both essential freedoms.
And everyone is free to chose not to buy products from people who have opinions that differs fundamentally from their own?
And some opinions cannot be tolerated in a democratic society. An obvious example is anti-liberal/anti-democratic opinions as they threaten the system itself. You cannot have a free democratic society if a majority removes the freedoms of a minority.
> "punch em in the face"
Very weird interpretation of "voluntarily choose to not continue supporting them financially"
Presumably you want everyone to be forcibly compelled to finance the political parties they disagree with? And you would define this as a democratic society?
Punishing a company because someone does something in their free time with their own money ....
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For most people, the concern is the money, not the voting. People don't want wealthy people reshaping politics to fit their interests through their wealth. They can vote for whomever they want.
This sounds a bit irrational. Where does "wealthy" start? Mullvad co-CEO donated ~ $500K, would him donating $100K have the same effect? What about $10K? What if a Mullvad _employee_ donated $500K?
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What's wrong with choosing who you give your money to?
Is that somehow undemocratic?
Is anyone censoring the guy?
So far in this thread you’re the only one mentioning punching anyone in the face.
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> in that case we might punch em in the face
Nobody is calling for violence though?
In a free democratic society nobody is forced to do business with anybody they don't agree with, and free speech means they can talk about their decision without fearing repercussion.
Everyone is free to make up their mind and vote for what they believe.
And if I disagree strongly enough then I am free to take my business elsewhere. Especially if the money I hand over might go to support speech and parties I fundamentally disagree with.
Freedom swings both ways, and freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from people thinking you're an asshole and not wanting anything to do with you. That's their freedom.
Haters will now say that the far right will destroy exactly that: "our" democracy. The Western morality is a joke, and many HN readers comment like an infant. I feel ashamed.
If this is real I will stop my monthly subscriptions.
I think this is more nuanced than this article or mullvad themselves present it as. What you give to mullvad as a form of payment will end up in the pockets of the funding members which allows them to make relatively large political donations, but it's also not as deep as presented. What gets seemingly glossed over how involved large companies are in pushing parties like orebro into relevancy.
As a basic example, youtube started pushing a LOT of anti-immigrant videos. I never watched them since after few minutes it's obvious that it is clear ragebait, but I keep getting them recommended without showing any interest in them and they're all clocking in anywhere from 300k to millions of views.
There is virtually no way to resist the temptation of being anti-immigrant/racist/whatnot when you see abusive behavior exploiting the good will of the european union especially when there is state level abuse to extract additional funding from the shared support pool. This being extremely unpopular gives motivation to keep all of this under wraps as much as possible which only fuels the fire when "information" is made available on social media platforms where you benefit from blowing this out of proportion and then if you try to question it you are labeled which naturally breeds resentment.
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Scrolled for few minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6-zhxpNsVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARKZMX4iGZ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmlI4ICp-OI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX-IKLSFH_I
> The Örebro Party (Swedish: Örebropartiet, ÖP) is a political party in Sweden. The party was initially only a local party in Örebro, Sweden. Markus Allard is the party leader. According to Allard the party cannot be placed anywhere on the traditional left-right spectrum. Some of its key issues include lowered wages for politicians, ending the tax payer funding of various sculptures, monuments and art, large scale remigration, a stricter immigration policy, and free dental care.[3][4]
I see no problems
me neither ... Mullvad is fantastic.
This is great news. New Mullvad subscriber here!
It is a trend now, loby your way to lawmaking. Then set the laws as you need. No surprises.
Companies funding far-left parties seem to be much bigger problem.
Which companies fund Deutsche Wohnen Enteignen? Let me know so I can boycott them
Steven Schuurman (Elastic) has given millions to left parties in Germany and The Netherlands.
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Mullvad has always been a bit suspect with regard to their settings or lack their of, however what are you trying to insinuate? That founders are not political? That one "wing" of some hypothetical bird is in some way disconnected from its mirror wing? Regardless making something such as a VPN is and has been commoditiezed in current year to such an extent that whatever may be your motives, you can only do good by encouraging the userbase to not pay for said services.
To the people using Mullvad I have two sincere and unpopular questions: do you actively scrutinize and examine the key people of every service and product you use, or is it just a reflexive change of footing whenever you happen upon news like this? Also, do you really switch, or is it just a heat of moment kind of thing and an opportunity to profess yourself?
There's nothing wrong with acting on new information as and when it surfaces in your life without obsessively staying up to date with every entity you engage with. That's the reasonable, pragmatic approach to trying to do the right thing without overwhelming yourself with the burden of being perfect.
It's not a gotcha if you're inconsistent from an outsiders perspective, we're all doing the best we can with what little insight we have into reality.
> There's nothing wrong with acting on new information as and when it surfaces in your life without obsessively staying up to date with every entity you engage with.
So you're saying the majority of the people here who say they're leaving Mullvad, have:
1. Not heard of Bezos' funding of the Trump family, or don't use Amazon at all 2. Not heard of Zuckerberg/Meta's [insert countless despicable things here], or don't have Facebook/Instagram/Whatsapp installed at all 3. Not heard of OpenAIs free pass on the Trump administration using their models for war purposes without limitations, or don't use OpenAI at all 4. And so forth?
Clearly, no. Because it has nothing to do with coming across information without obsessively staying up to date with every entity. The same people have come across much of the above information, yet continue not to act on it, despite most of them being magnitudes worse than this case.
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>do you actively scrutinize and examine the key people of every service and product you use
Yes
>or it just a reflexive change of footing whenever you happen upon news like this?
No (only when my personal screening didn't already flag it)
>do you really switch
Yes, where it's feasible
> Yes, where it's feasible
I think that's what a lot of people in this thread are missing. There are alternatives to Mullvad, so it's pretty easy to take your money elsewhere if you're unhappy with where it's being spent right now.
The counter-reaction to the reaction is so dumb. If you think it's silly to boycott a company because of a co-founders political donations, fine. But it's just as silly to try to argue people into not boycotting. Live and let live.
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It gives me an excuse to really examine why I started using their product or service and take the time to research alternatives. If the alternative is better, great. If not, what am I willing to lose? Money, convenience, reliability? These are questions you don't want a happy paying customer asking.
Generally speaking, if the mission of a company is privacy and then the actions of the c-suite or founders indicates that they are more than willing to compromise on that, then yes. Why shouldnt you scrutinize people whose product is not aligned with their goals?
And yes I do actively switch products. I left the Windows ecosystem for Linux and I will leave Mullvad for whatever else pops up. So it goes.
When it's about boycotting a product like Bud Light or Mullvad, there are so many equal offers from competitors that it isn't difficult to boycott and switch to another product.
Maybe companies in those kind of markets will simply bite the bullet and start marketing their products as for one side or for the other in politics instead of trying to be for everybody. Then they can lock-in strong goodwill from "their side", and stand on more certain footing. Or maybe most customers do not care as much as online activists.
> do you actively scrutinize and examine the key people of every service and product you use
No.
> is it just a reflexive change of footing whenever you happen upon news like this
Yes.
> do you really switch
Yes.
What is the implication here? That because I did not know that a percentage of the money I give a company went towards supporting a party whose I that I find disgusting, I should keep supporting them now that I do know?
If alternatives exist some of us are willing to make changes to not support the worst of the worst when their behavior is revealed.
I used to like Musk, now I see Tesla and am disgusted. Maybe he was always like this but the personal line for me was the salutes. I’m sure many others have lines as well.
How do you know the political party of the story is "the worst of the worst"? You don't.
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You expect to discuss ideas with a mob? :)
It's like the meme of nuclear energy help with climate change and the answer is "I don't want to solutions, I want to abolish capitalism!"
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same here. and the so-called political left is anyway mostly pro surveillance and censorship to curb what they consider fake news or agitation. (so-called b/c the terms left and right are actually pretty meaningless nowadays imo)
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