Mullvad is apparently the main financier of a Swedish far-right party

4 months ago by Rindogang to c/privacy

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8915892

(original article in Swedish that reported this)

Posting this because I hadn't heard about it before and I'm probably not the only Mullvad user here, so might as well.

I'm not Swedish, but going off NATOpedia, it seems like the party is basically reinventing fascism from first principles:

The party claims to stand for a "class-conscious populism" which according to party leader Markus Allard takes inspiration from marxist ideology 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 such as those who, despite having an ability to work, live off social welfare benefits, as well as those who work "made-up services"[...]

The party differs from modern day left-wing parties by seeing the working class as co-dependent with people working in enterprise and business and instead sees the classes that "live off transfers", as specified, as a large economic net-negative and an obstacle for a functional society.

visible-disgust Their ideology is nonsense fake-marxist revisionism to redirect anger at capitalism and turn it against immigrants and people who need social welfare (though they do back some generally left oriented social policies, their main thing appears to be racism)

Even if you're comfortable with funding this, it still begs the question of just how trustworthy Mullvad actually is.

I guess this still beats any of the dozens of Israeli VPNs that definitely spy on you, but it's not great emilie-shrug

FriendOfDeSoto 210 points 4 months ago

This isn't good. It's also not entirely correct. Mullvad isn't financing this party directly. One of the owners took his money he made from the company and donated it to the loonies. He could've bought crypto with it, spent it in blow maybe, but he didn't. "Mullvad is financing this party" is not correct. "Your Mullvad fees may have ended up indirectly financing this party" is correct and an ongoing concern. So is their tepid response to the story breaking. I would still advise caution, hammer them with public outrage pressure on the socials, and hope they get rid of the loonie party donor before you bankrupt an otherwise serviceable VPN provider. If that guy is still there in a couple of months, by all means leave.

There is no shortage of c@<%s in the tech sector.

path: 0 24553767, hotness: undefined, score: 210, children: 83
Signtist 49 points 4 months ago

I mean, it doesn't really matter who actively takes the stance or not. The only question that matters is where the money you spend ends up, and whether you want it to end up there. If you don't want your money to end up in the hands of a far right party, you probably don't want to pay the company that pays the guy who pays a far right party.

Mullvad may say it doesn't support his views, but the main form of support is financial backing, and his own company is obviously going to pay him, so it does support him, regardless of whether or not it wants to take that stance. If you give the company money, then you're supporting it, allowing it to support him, regardless of whether or not you want to.

It's like Harry Potter; even if no corporate announcement is ever going to be made to agree with JK Rowling's anti-trans beliefs, your money spent on merchandise for the franchise still ends up in her hands, and is subsequently moved into the hands of the anti-trans organizations she supports.

path: 0 24553767 24555498, hotness: undefined, score: 49, children: 10
FriendOfDeSoto 34 points 4 months ago

You may be as outraged as you want. I just pointed out that Mullvad didn't do anything (to their detriment, at this point) like the title of the post suggested. That's misrepresenting the facts. If you feel like that distinction (a company endorsement vs. a private donation) doesn't make a difference, that's fine. I get that. I left Proton when their CEO was praising the regime of 47 for tech regulation. I just believe we should be mad for the right reasons. Facts are good.

It's been pointed out here in the thread that the majority of the donation to the horseshoe loonie party may in fact have come from other income streams, as Mullvad doesn't pay an awful lot. I don't know if that's true but that would put another spin on the story as well.

There is no shortage of c@>=s in the author community either. Let's not mention her name again. She's probably a lot richer and therefore a lot more impactful with her magic money than this mad meatball. In my estimation, a dollar spent in the famous magician universe will have a lot more negative impact on the trans community than a comparable amount of kronor at Mullvad for immigrants to Sweden. The bigger threat there are probably the Sweden Democrats and they're already in parliament as the second largest fraction.

path: 0 24553767 24555498 24556118, hotness: undefined, score: 34, children: 1
nevyn 1 point 4 months ago
path: 0 24553767 24555498 24556118 24585245, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
psycotica0 16 points 4 months ago

I don't care about Mullvad, but this is an interesting philosophical question. How far does that chain of money carry responsibility? Like, what if you donate to a hospital, and a nurse at the hospital uses their wages to buy bread, and the owner of the bread factory is problematic?

Definitely some fraction of my donation went to the bread factory owner's politics, but is it my responsibility? Should I withhold donations to the hospital until they've pressured the nurse to buy a different brand of bread, or let them go?

Definitely the bread factory owner has a bunch of money, and money is power, and that money was given by customers in exchange for bread, so at some point if we want their power to diminish steps must be taken. But is the hospital donor's money the right lever for that? Does it outweigh the benefits?

What if the bread factory's owner is fine, but has a worker who spends their money on a problematic cause. Is it still the hospital donor's responsibility?

path: 0 24553767 24555498 24556684, hotness: undefined, score: 16, children: 5
obelisk_complex 13 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553767 24555498 24556684 24558372, hotness: undefined, score: 13, children: 0
4grams 6 points 4 months ago

I don’t think it’s as hard to draw a line as you are portraying it. The hypothetical nurse and bread factory is a non-issue, we’re talking fractions of the bottom line of any of the involved parties. This mulvad thing is the majority of the financial backing of a party by one high level person, who’s made his money from this organization.

I’m quite comfortable putting them under the same umbrella, and quite comfortable ignoring the hypothetical.

But think there might be a philosophical question here, but I kinda think this is begging for one a bit.

path: 0 24553767 24555498 24556684 24567761, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 0
Signtist 5 points 4 months ago

I believe responsibility is a personal choice. How much something matters depends on how much it matters to you. The more important thing is that you ask the relevant questions to actually assess what matters and how you address issues that arise between what you're doing and how that affects the world around you.

Do you consider the fraction of your hospital donation that goes to the nurse to be significant enough to change how you donate? And do you consider the nurse's bread purchases to be a significant enough portion of the bread factory's profits? And do you consider the significance of that to outweigh the significance of the nurse having enough to eat? And if something about this does reach that level of significance to you, is changing your donation to the hospital the method by which you want to address the issues with the bread factory owner, or is there another action that might be more effective?

It's difficult to address these issues in daily life due to their emergent complexity, but the more we can do to be ethical, the more of a positive impact we can have on the world around us.

path: 0 24553767 24555498 24556684 24558270, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 0
godsammitdam 3 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553767 24555498 24556684 24573674, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
antrosapien 3 points 4 months ago

That's kinda similar question I had while learning about veganism. It's not possible in absolute sense to get rid of animal cruelty, there's always going to have some indirect connection cause the way we have designed our system. So the general answer for me is; as practicable as possible and not letting perfect be the archenemy of good

path: 0 24553767 24555498 24556684 24556855, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
ramble81 5 points 4 months ago

The only question that matters is where the money you spend ends up, and whether you want it to end up there

Serious question to that. How many degrees of separation does that account for? If I spent money at a random company, that does not endorse a far right candidate, but then it pays an employee and that employee then turns around and supports a far right candidate, is it still “my money”?

Does it matter if they’re a front line worker or if they’re a manager or a C-level if it’s not done by the company directly? Do you have to vet out the buying habits of every employee at every company you spend money on?

I think of Chic-Fil-A, which is different because money from sales goes straight to the foundation, which is used against LGBTQ+ people, but if someone were to be paid via paycheck and then spent it at Chic-Fil-A, is it my money anymore?

path: 0 24553767 24555498 24557494, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 1
Signtist 8 points 4 months ago

The amount of degrees of separation is going to have different weights for different people. My point is more concerning the knowledge of the situation, and how that might impact decision making moving forward. This guy spent the money he got from us on the far-right party, which means we helped fund it, but we didn't know at the time that our money would be used in that way, so we can't say we were responsible for that support. Now we are aware of that pipeline, and so we can no longer claim separation from it moving forward. There's still a debate to be had about whether it matters enough for us to avoid putting more money into it, and that cutoff is going to be different from person to person, but the pipeline itself is there and must be factored into our decision making moving forward regardless.

path: 0 24553767 24555498 24557494 24558052, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 0
mathemachristian 32 points 4 months ago

They won't get rid of him if there is no threat of bankruptcy... "Lets not jump into action maybe they'll do the right thing" is not a good plan

path: 0 24553767 24554051, hotness: undefined, score: 32, children: 2
ExcessShiv 12 points 4 months ago

They can force him out as CEO, that can do nothing about his co-ownership though.

path: 0 24553767 24554051 24554119, hotness: undefined, score: 12, children: 1
mathemachristian 14 points 4 months ago

But that's even less reason to give them money, if he is a co-owner part of the profit directly funds fascism. It's not just about funding the parties, but having mullvad as the defacto gold standard, continuing to do business with them gives fascists co-ownership over parts of privacy-critical infrastructure. It's not a serviceable VPN provider if it's co-owned by fascists??

path: 0 24553767 24554051 24554119 24555243, hotness: undefined, score: 14, children: 0
Seleni 23 points 4 months ago

Yeah, but his donation was something like 72% of the donations to that party by money given. That’s not just a donation; that’s him funding his own private far-right party. And if he wants his own far-right party, it’s probably not just for looks.

This guy co-owns Mullvad. That all Mullvad is doing about it is wringing their hands and saying ‘oh, but it’s his money, there’s nothing we can do’ is, quite frankly, disgusting. It’s his money that he got from your company, in large enough quantities he can go out and buy himself some racists like Phil Knight buying himself a fucking basketball team.

If a lower-level employee makes some shit-ass racist comment on their own time, they tend to get canned immediately. Yet all this asshole gets is Mullvad shaking their heads and saying ‘well, it doesn’t align with our values, but what you gonna do?’ Bullshit.

path: 0 24553767 24563737, hotness: undefined, score: 23, children: 3
nevyn 4 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553767 24563737 24567819, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0
matlag 3 points 4 months ago

Well, if he's the co-founder and the co-owner, the only thing "they" (I assume the 2nd owner/founder) can really do is try to convince him to leave.

What else would you expect? That he shutdowns the company, drop their customers and fire their employees, then restart the same company with a different name without that individual?
That would be a guaranteed lawsuit, and could actually break even more trust form all parties.

Or just sells his shares and leaves, alone, so that Mullvad goes from "one co-owner funds a far-right nazi party" to "Mullvad now fully own by a nazi-fanboy"? (again: abandoning employees and customers to the good will of that charming individual).

path: 0 24553767 24563737 24568009, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 1
nevyn 2 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553767 24563737 24568009 24584968, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
prole 23 points 4 months ago

"Your Mullvad fees may have ended up indirectly financing this party" is correct and an ongoing concern.

Is it really "may have"? Seems pretty clear that they have.

path: 0 24553767 24559244, hotness: undefined, score: 23, children: 3
nevyn 3 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553767 24559244 24567872, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 2
matlag 2 points 4 months ago

As I wrote above: the "good" companies might actually be just led by nazis who are better at hiding their personal beliefs and donations…

path: 0 24553767 24559244 24567872 24568046, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 1
nevyn 2 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553767 24559244 24567872 24568046 24569015, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
AllNewTypeFace 16 points 4 months ago

Berntsson apparently gets most of his income from other companies that he owns (in investments), with Mullvad not being run primarily as a dividend source, so Mullvad’s contribution to the money he donated to the Nazis was probably small. Still, a small amount of shit in the punchbowl is still faecal contamination, though it may be good to keep the facts in mind if weighing up Mullvad vs. Proton vs. Kape and evaluating acceptable compromises (ethical consumption under capitalism and all that).

path: 0 24553767 24554605, hotness: undefined, score: 16, children: 7
michaelalf 1 point 4 months ago

lol. As if fucking Kape should even be a part of the conversation. Evil scum.

path: 0 24553767 24554605 24567630, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 1
nevyn 1 point 4 months ago
path: 0 24553767 24554605 24567630 24567912, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
pmk -6 points 4 months ago

I don't know how much you know about Örebropartiet, but they've been described as both left and right populist with nationalist and marxist ideas. A study made at Lunds University describe them as "authoritarian left-populism". What they have in common with the actual Nazis is that they want less immigration. We could decide that anyone who wants less immigration is a nazi, sure, but that's a bit dishonest. The founder of Örebropartiet has his background in the Swedish Left party, where he was controversial in part because he defended leftist violent activism.

path: 0 24553767 24554605 24554939, hotness: undefined, score: -6, children: 4
Melusine 4 points 4 months ago

Honestly, trying to descend from Marx and wanting to deport migrants is a sign of poor intelligence. At some point, the German, during WW2 also had some social benefits, and still, nobody with a working brain considers that thc nazis where somehow leftists. I'd even say it makes Örebropartiet closer to Nazis than let's say the RN in France.

path: 0 24553767 24554605 24554939 24558891, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0
nevyn 2 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553767 24554605 24554939 24567951, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 2
pmk 0 points 4 months ago

We don't have duopolies in Sweden, we have lots of parties and shifting constellations of parties pre and post elections, especially on a local municipality level.

Their key issues are 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.

Would you say these are typical left or right stances? Their leader say: neither.

path: 0 24553767 24554605 24554939 24567951 24571565, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 1
_stranger_ 13 points 4 months ago

Here's the fix for you: "Giving your money to Mullvad is like drinking at a Nazi bar. The bar's great, but it's full of Nazis".

path: 0 24553767 24564866, hotness: undefined, score: 13, children: 4
SupremeDonut 6 points 4 months ago

Sounds more l ike the owner of the bar is a nazi than the bar being filled with nazis

path: 0 24553767 24564866 24566126, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 3
godsammitdam 4 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553767 24564866 24566126 24573583, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0
_stranger_ 0 points 3 months ago

Feel free to drink at the Nazi owned bar I guess. Be prepared for when they go full Nazi on you and all that information you probably wanted private.

path: 0 24553767 24564866 24566126 24596661, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 1
SupremeDonut 0 points 3 months ago

Oh my god, shuuuut uppppp

path: 0 24553767 24564866 24566126 24596661 24599748, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 0
trackball_fetish 10 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553767 24566451, hotness: undefined, score: 10, children: 44
I_Has_A_Hat 4 points 4 months ago

How does this effect Mullvad's tech or privacy policies?

path: 0 24553767 24566451 24575592, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0
matlag 0 points 4 months ago

You know, during the backlash against Musk and Tesla, I was wondering how many nazis there were in the board or among the executives of other car makers, and how many among the shareholders.

What I'm getting to is there is no less reason now to trust Mullvad than before, and no less reason to trust more other VPN providers, just because you have no idea who their CEO/founders/owners are.

path: 0 24553767 24566451 24567927, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 7
trackball_fetish 6 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553767 24566451 24567927 24570404, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 2
matlag 2 points 4 months ago

Maybe I should have made myself clearer.

My point is you indeed have no way to know for sure what your money contributes to.

Large companies will have larger boards and many shareholders. That considerably increases tbe chances of giving money to nazis sympathizers. Up to what level would you screen thaem?

Even in this case, where the problematic individual is a prominent figure of the company, how long could they operate without the general public learning about his ideology?

You say you didn't trust Mullvad and they're not your provider of choice, and you do check compan=es. Do you mean you knew about their cofounder? Do you use a VPN service, and if yes, how did you vet it?

path: 0 24553767 24566451 24567927 24570404 24575430, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
nevyn -1 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553767 24566451 24567927 24570404 24571152, hotness: undefined, score: -1, children: 0
SGforce 6 points 4 months ago

So you did research, found nothing, and are still siding with Nazis?

path: 0 24553767 24566451 24567927 24570052, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 1
matlag 2 points 4 months ago

Funny how you could draw that conclusion from what I wrote.

path: 0 24553767 24566451 24567927 24570052 24575289, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
HereIAm 3 points 4 months ago

Sure, the product is still trustworthy and that it does what it says on the tin, the issue is knowing that part of your money goes to funding an extreme right-wing party.

path: 0 24553767 24566451 24567927 24572920, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 1
matlag 0 points 4 months ago

Exactly, thanks!

path: 0 24553767 24566451 24567927 24572920 24575456, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 0
nevyn -6 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553767 24566451 24567793, hotness: undefined, score: -6, children: 34
trackball_fetish 3 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553767 24566451 24567793 24570380, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 33
nevyn -4 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553767 24566451 24567793 24570380 24571177, hotness: undefined, score: -4, children: 32
Zerush 3 points 4 months ago

No, the Mullvad company isn't sponsoring a nazi party, but the company is owned by 50% of the one who did it, $500k, money gained with this company. This rest for me also at least 50% of trust in this company. Its not the same, if a company with 100 employees has an employee nazi, as when the owner is one. Because this mean, every money which pay the user for an service, 50% serve to support a nazi party. Stop fooling around with "he used his private money", it's money he earned with this company, by donations, VPN and services, paid by the users. Brendan Eich was fired by Mozilla for less.

path: 0 24553767 24584733, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 2
FriendOfDeSoto 1 point 4 months ago

Stop fooling around with "he used his private money", it's money he earned with this company, by donations, VPN and services, paid by the users.

What you call fooling around I call a factual distinction. It's also been pointed out that Mullvad money wasn't possibly a big bulk of the donation. Because they're not raking in the dough.

I'm not telling you not to be outraged. If I were a customer of theirs I'd be mad too. You draw your own line and that's just fine with me. Let me draw mine.

I believe facts matter. Facts like Mullvad didn't directly fund a Nazi party, but one of their owners did. And it wasn't per se a Nazi party becausre they are more of the horseshoe persuasion where they try to marry ideas from the extreme right with those from the extreme left, which is an unfortunate trend in European politics right now. And I've pointed this out before: the real threat is already in the Swedish parliament as the 2nd largest fraction. They are the Sweden Democrats and they are probably more deserving of the Nazi label.

path: 0 24553767 24584733 24586138, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 1
Zerush 1 point 3 months ago

I understand your point of view, but I can only speak mine. The advance of the far right in Europe and the rest of the world is more than worrying and must be fought, not facilitated. A company must also look at its image in the eyes of the public and show ethics and respect for the customer and user.

Mullvad is undoubtedly a technically good browser with excellent privacy-protecting features, but precisely for this reason it cannot be tolerated that its CEO supports a political party that promotes the exact opposite of what Mullvad claims to defend, because this takes away confidence in the future developments of this browser and what path it will take. The influence of someone who owns 50% of the company is surely not small and the influence and political orientation he has matters, even if it seems a good product.

Eg. Starlink, for sure very usefull to permit the connection in a lot of countries without infrastructure, in catastrophes, in trains, flights, etc. but I see also a worldwide network controlled by one person, Musk. Right populism always use the Honeypot methode for it's advance.

path: 0 24553767 24584733 24586138 24590589, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
nevyn 56 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553782, hotness: undefined, score: 56, children: 17
Seppo 21 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553782 24553879, hotness: undefined, score: 21, children: 13
ExcessShiv 29 points 4 months ago

Their statement reads

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.

They're pretty clearly saying that they as a company have no part in this political support.

path: 0 24553782 24553879 24553981, hotness: undefined, score: 29, children: 3
vas -3 points 4 months ago

True. But they did not say that they are _against_ the donation.

The original comment should simply be reworded to "and Mullvad says it has nothing to do with the donation and wasn't aware of it" or something like that. Remove "claim to be against".

path: 0 24553782 24553879 24553981 24554304, hotness: undefined, score: -3, children: 2
ExcessShiv 5 points 4 months ago

They don't plainly say against it no, but they're still clearly distancing themselves from it. It's not as good as outright denouncing it, but much better than staying silent.

path: 0 24553782 24553879 24553981 24554304 24554748, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 1
nevyn 5 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553782 24553879 24554055, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 8
sudoer777 5 points 4 months ago

It isn't obvious though because it's the fucking cofounder that's doing it and they keep misrepresenting it as a speech issue. It isn't some random employee, it's the people who invented and make the decisions for the service, and it's a massive amount of money as well

path: 0 24553782 24553879 24554055 24569678, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 3
nevyn 0 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553782 24553879 24554055 24569678 24570012, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 2
JillyB 3 points 4 months ago

You're moving the goalposts. Claiming to be against it and saying they had nothing to do with it aren't the same thing.

path: 0 24553782 24553879 24554055 24568811, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 3
nevyn -2 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553782 24553879 24554055 24568811 24568812, hotness: undefined, score: -2, children: 2
M137 3 points 4 months ago

It has been here on Lemmy too, several threads on the front page without the misleading title. OP either did that on purpose (them not replying here at all gives that more weight IMO) or they didn't even try to see if it had been posted and didn't read anything in the article and posted without caring if the title is ture or not. The post should be removed.

path: 0 24553782 24557412, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 1
nevyn 0 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553782 24557412 24567265, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 0
daniskarma 1 point 4 months ago

But I need to be angry against something and isolate myself in a corner on society where everything is evil but me!

path: 0 24553782 24563410, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
geneva_convenience 45 points 4 months ago

Be CEO of privacy company

Donate $500k to a right wing party publicly

path: 0 24558859, hotness: undefined, score: 45, children: 0
TheKaul 39 points 4 months ago

Clickbait title. It's one of the coowners who has donated his personal funds to this party. The other owner and other members of the company disapprove of the decision.

path: 0 24561489, hotness: undefined, score: 39, children: 26
willington 35 points 4 months ago

So is the nazi coowner getting ousted soon?

Right now we're at "Mullvad is part nazi, nazi adjacent, nazi lite, moderately fascist, feudalism-curious" stage.

path: 0 24561489 24566807, hotness: undefined, score: 35, children: 7
mursejoy 29 points 4 months ago

A dinner table with one Nazi amongst five friends just makes a table of five Nazi.

path: 0 24561489 24566807 24567723, hotness: undefined, score: 29, children: 2
matlag 11 points 4 months ago

True but with enough backlash, he might be convinced to leave.

path: 0 24561489 24566807 24567723 24567807, hotness: undefined, score: 11, children: 0
TheKaul -1 points 4 months ago

I think the saying goes the other way around. Sit at a table with 5 Nazis, now there's 6 Nazis. A table with 1 Nazi is just an outlier and an embarrassment. A laughing stock.

path: 0 24561489 24566807 24567723 24577965, hotness: undefined, score: -1, children: 0
nevyn 9 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24561489 24566807 24567760, hotness: undefined, score: 9, children: 0
DharkStare 7 points 4 months ago

He owns half the company so I'm not sure if he can be ousted.

path: 0 24561489 24566807 24577654, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 1
willington 1 point 4 months ago

The company can be spun out into two.

Let the spun out Nazivad get their own customers separately, if they can.

Otherwise the whole company is now tainted.

path: 0 24561489 24566807 24577654 24585768, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
nevyn 2 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24561489 24566807 24584899, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
SpaceMan9000 16 points 4 months ago

Guess where part of your money is going to...

path: 0 24561489 24566593, hotness: undefined, score: 16, children: 14
petco34 8 points 4 months ago

If you buy most products, chances are some portion of it is going to a Nazi sympathizer.

path: 0 24561489 24566593 24569954, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 1
Prior_Industry 12 points 4 months ago

Once you get confirmation of this you have a choice. Free market and all that

path: 0 24561489 24566593 24569954 24570537, hotness: undefined, score: 12, children: 0
placebo -7 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24561489 24566593 24572788, hotness: undefined, score: -7, children: 11
godsammitdam 16 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24561489 24566593 24572788 24573428, hotness: undefined, score: 16, children: 10
placebo -9 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24561489 24566593 24572788 24573428 24575673, hotness: undefined, score: -9, children: 9
GaumBeist 7 points 4 months ago

Where does he get the money he donates?

path: 0 24561489 24577699, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 2
TheKaul -1 points 4 months ago

From his job? Working for an employer who cannot tell him how to spend his own money.

path: 0 24561489 24577699 24577937, hotness: undefined, score: -1, children: 1
GaumBeist 9 points 4 months ago

Who does he work "for"? He's a co-owner/founder according to most of the comments in her

path: 0 24561489 24577699 24577937 24578010, hotness: undefined, score: 9, children: 0
traxex 36 points 4 months ago

Insane amount of Nazi sympathizers in this thread. “Aw but poor baby is just the CEO!! It’s not his fault he’s a Nazi! Let him do what he wants!” Freaks.

path: 0 24575756, hotness: undefined, score: 36, children: 3
mathemachristian 23 points 4 months ago

As far as I’m concerned, ‘liberal’ is the most meaningless word in the dictionary. History has shown me that as long as some white middle-class people can live high on the hog, take vacations to Europe, send their children to private schools, and reap the benefits of their white skin privilege, then they are ‘liberal’. But when times get hard and money gets tight, they pull off that liberal mask and you think you’re talking to Adolf Hitler. They feel sorry for the so-called underprivileged just as long as they can maintain their own privileges.

Assata Shakur

path: 0 24575756 24576920, hotness: undefined, score: 23, children: 1
traxex 5 points 4 months ago

Quite a poignant quote.

path: 0 24575756 24576920 24577562, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 0
VonReposti 14 points 4 months ago

IIRC it is not the CEO but a co-founder. The CEO condemned it. But it's all the same, money flowing into Mullvad floes into a neo-nazi group.

path: 0 24575756 24576366, hotness: undefined, score: 14, children: 0
MangoPenguin 30 points 4 months ago

Title is incorrect, it's not Mullvad donating the money but one of the owners.

path: 0 24567456, hotness: undefined, score: 30, children: 8
HereIAm 31 points 4 months ago

This is true, but it a co-founder with 50% ownership. Musk has like a 15% ownership in Tesla, yet they are the modern day Nazi car. Surely if half the ownership of a company supports fascists that kind of makes it a racist company.

path: 0 24567456 24572848, hotness: undefined, score: 31, children: 1
nevyn 2 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24567456 24572848 24584855, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
GaumBeist 10 points 4 months ago

Where does he get the money he donates?

path: 0 24567456 24577706, hotness: undefined, score: 10, children: 1
nevyn 3 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24567456 24577706 24584722, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
architect 4 points 4 months ago

I wonder if people will do this for my business. “It’s not the business! It’s the owner!” (The owner is the business…) I could get away with a ton of shit.

path: 0 24567456 24577549, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 1
nevyn 0 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24567456 24577549 24584732, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 0
captcha_incorrect 2 points 4 months ago

They even released a statement regarding this.

path: 0 24567456 24570450, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
placebo -20 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24567456 24572760, hotness: undefined, score: -20, children: 0
ordnance_qf_17_pounder 27 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24554416, hotness: undefined, score: 27, children: 0
prole 26 points 4 months ago

Mullvad

Reverse credit card charge

Yeah... About that....

path: 0 24557998, hotness: undefined, score: 26, children: 4
SupremeDonut 7 points 4 months ago

You mailed in cash didn't you

path: 0 24557998 24566085, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 3
southsamurai 6 points 4 months ago

Kinda their best feature

path: 0 24557998 24566085 24566924, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 0
nova_ad_vitum 3 points 4 months ago

In the past they let you keep CC on file for monthly payments but now they're prepay only and they delete CC info after 40 days. I think I prepaid for like a year and half before I knew any of this. Mullvad's obsession with user privacy is completely unparalleled in 2026.

path: 0 24557998 24566085 24569536, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
prole 2 points 4 months ago

Monero

path: 0 24557998 24566085 24574318, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
Cowbee 19 points 4 months ago

Even bigger yikes.

path: 0 24556288, hotness: undefined, score: 19, children: 0
sorter_plainview 18 points 4 months ago

Mullvad issued a response. Which IMO is shitty.

Source

Statement from Mullvad

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, and will gladly refund you.

path: 0 24554685, hotness: undefined, score: 18, children: 0
bitwolf 18 points 4 months ago

So.. Is there any VPN provider without controversy?

I think Mullvad was the last one I knew of.

They're either lying about logging, lying about backdoors, or apparently Nazis?

path: 0 24582713, hotness: undefined, score: 18, children: 5
someonesmall 6 points 4 months ago

AirVPN is awesome, also port forwards are nice for p29p

path: 0 24582713 24583100, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 1
freddo 1 point 4 months ago

I just bought the 2/3 days and tried around 10 servers with wireguard and the best speed that I got was 500Mbit/s which is half of my speed.

Also, most of them did not even pass 100Mbit/s.

Am I doing something wrong? I had great speeds with mullvad with the respective set-up.

path: 0 24582713 24583100 24584851, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
starsoaked_lily 5 points 4 months ago

i would highly recommend ivpn
(recommended by privacyguides.org)

path: 0 24582713 24585380, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 0
AfricanExpansionist 2 points 4 months ago

SOCKS

path: 0 24582713 24587901, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
dektep 1 point 4 months ago

Windscribe have a good rep. Maybe

path: 0 24582713 24582844, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
sp3ctre 17 points 4 months ago

It's pretty easy in my opinion. We see, that right wing shit spreads around the world.

My consequences will be: Any company supporting this shit (even indirectly) will not be paid with my money in the future.

Too bad my subscription for a year has been paid a few weeks ago....

path: 0 24571604, hotness: undefined, score: 17, children: 3
gnate 9 points 4 months ago

They've offered refunds for those who are upset about the owner's actions. Not condoning anything, but maybe worth getting your money back.

https://mastodon.online/...

path: 0 24571604 24576035, hotness: undefined, score: 9, children: 2
nevyn 3 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24571604 24576035 24584689, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
sp3ctre 3 points 4 months ago

Yeah, I will take a look into that. Thanks!

path: 0 24571604 24576035 24581157, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
Mikina 16 points 4 months ago

That is a really difficult situation to be in, and I don't envy them. I'm struggling with coming up with a solution to this, when one of your co-founders, that you basically can't force out if I understand it correctly, is using his own money, he made from the company, but it's still his own, to go against your mission.

If they can't convince him to not do that, there's not much they can do.

I really like Mullvad, it's the only VPN that I feel kind of safe abiut and trust them, but if a part of my money goes directly to fund extremistic parties, then I simply won't do that and will be asking for a refund. I really hope they figure something out.

But Mullvad could also react a little better, by emphasizing that they would remove him if they could, and that they are working on a solution. Because it kind of isn't their fault, and it sucks to be in a position like this. Currently it's like Tesla or SpaceX saying that they don't agree with Musk's values, and that he's spending his own money they have no control over, as if that was an argument why it's fiine to buy Tesla or invest into SpaceX.

But unsubscribing from Mullvad is the best thing we can do now, hopefully the co-founder loosing his income will make him reconsider the PR of his personal spendings, and the dropping number will force him to reconsider.

path: 0 24554245, hotness: undefined, score: 16, children: 7
AllNewTypeFace 11 points 4 months ago

He owns 50% of the company. He would be legally within his rights to sack anyone moving against him. Short of him being visited by three ghosts and persuaded to change his ways/sell his share to someone more sympathetic to the company’s stated values/convert it to an employee-owned cooperative, there’s not much that can be done.

path: 0 24554245 24554639, hotness: undefined, score: 11, children: 1
Mikina 1 point 4 months ago

There's still the second owner who can maybe convince him, or strike a deal.

A lot of people boycoting Mullvad over it might be the motivation he needs, but it's not an easy position to be in, and I'm not getting my hopes up.

He can also maybe just take/sell his half and fork out? But even to me, who knows nothing about running this scale of business, that sounds like something unreasonable.

path: 0 24554245 24554639 24572674, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
irate944 5 points 4 months ago

But Mullvad could also react a little better, by emphasizing that they would remove him if they could, and that they are working on a solution.

Don't anthropomorphize companies mate. That's not how it works.

Think about it, from inside the company point of view: who, exactly, would write and post something like that?

Mullvad isn't a company with a board that can vote out a shareholder. Berntsson and Stromberg are the sole shareholders and co-CEOs, 50/50. There's no mechanism to "remove" a co-owner short of him voluntarily selling his stake or a negotiated buyout, and neither will happen because of some angry posts on the internet.

Mullvad isn't a separate entity with its own thoughts and ideologies. It's two guys who hire people to offer a service

path: 0 24554245 24559762, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 1
Mikina 3 points 4 months ago

You are right, that's what I was trying to say that there's not much they can do about it. I haven't mentioned it directly, but by "Mullvad", I mostly meant the second owner. It's now mostly up to him to either somehow deal with his co-owner, or just loose hopefully a lot of customers.

Lot of people boycotting Mullvad because of this is the only thing that may help in this regard, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

path: 0 24554245 24559762 24572643, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
whatiswrongwithyou 1 point 4 months ago

If it actually matters that you have privacy and anonymity it’s probably best to not switch.

You know what’s best for you, but the guilt of knowing one drop of your money goes to someone whom you find repugnant is preferable to losing life or safety.

path: 0 24554245 24577827, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 2
Mikina 1 point 4 months ago

I was judt thinking about this, especially considering that it's very probable that most of the money I spend are eventually financing lobyiing and who-knows what else, if you were to track them down simillarly.

But, if it's true that 75% of the donations the party has received is from the Mullvad co-owner, there is a chance that it would allow them to keep on surviving even when they shouldn't, and if they manage to get elected (which unfortunately seems to be more and more of a trend), it can cause a lot more harm than a little bit of lost privacy.

I don't know. I don't want to stop supporting Mullvad, but if that means also giving a far right party a better chance at surviving, then it sucks.

path: 0 24554245 24577827 24589205, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 1
whatiswrongwithyou 1 point 3 months ago

Whatever you decide, don’t fall into the trap of bearing responsibility for the actions of others.

path: 0 24554245 24577827 24589205 24596056, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
blueworld 16 points 4 months ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48696800

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.

path: 0 24553719, hotness: undefined, score: 16, children: 16
umbrella 30 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553719 24553841, hotness: undefined, score: 30, children: 13
paranoia 6 points 4 months ago

Well, it's not like the other founder approved his political donations. I think it's a fair enough point to make, it is a private donation, and not a company donation.

path: 0 24553719 24553841 24553939, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 1
umbrella 7 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553719 24553841 24553939 24564876, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 0
nevyn 6 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553719 24553841 24554044, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 10
TheFermentalist 15 points 4 months ago

“shitty to hold Mullvad accountable for this “ No. It’s not. Hold them accountable. Co-founder must have known that Berntsson has fascist tendencies. That’s kinda hard to hide

path: 0 24553719 24553841 24554044 24554417, hotness: undefined, score: 15, children: 4
AllNewTypeFace 2 points 4 months ago

By all accounts, he seems to have been a fairly standard TESCREAL-adjacent high-decoupling libertarian until now, like a lot of tech founders. While some of these end up steelmanning fascism and coming to the conclusion that it’s pretty neat, it by no means follows.

path: 0 24553719 24553841 24554044 24554417 24554667, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
nevyn -3 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553719 24553841 24554044 24554417 24567543, hotness: undefined, score: -3, children: 2
umbrella 5 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24553719 24553841 24554044 24565120, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 4
nevyn 1 point 4 months ago
path: 0 24553719 24553841 24554044 24565120 24567232, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 3
TheFermentalist 22 points 4 months ago

Don’t tolerate the intolerant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Berntsson hides his fascist tendencies behind a thin veneer of free speech.

Strömberg obviously knows his bedmate and tolerates his tendencies.

Fuck them both. Delete Mullvad (which I used until very recently)

path: 0 24553719 24554375, hotness: undefined, score: 22, children: 1
jdr -3 points 4 months ago

Don't rely on a totschlagargument to to save yourself from thinking about the complex consequences of your choices.

Even if you think Popper was right that doesn't mean you can just draw a line down the middle of humanity dividing the intolerant-because-evil and intolerant-but-only-to-other-group.

path: 0 24553719 24554375 24557046, hotness: undefined, score: -3, children: 0
JigglySackles 15 points 4 months ago

I can't keep track of all the assholes. Going to need an asshole tracker soon.

path: 0 24586151, hotness: undefined, score: 15, children: 2
r3plic 2 points 3 months ago

That would be a fun website. Asshole tracker for Companies & Politicians and others?

path: 0 24586151 24618611, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 1
JigglySackles 2 points 3 months ago

Could do an Assholes Wiki and make it community contributions lol

path: 0 24586151 24618611 24618726, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
SupremeDonut 13 points 4 months ago

Consumers are nothing but fish in a barrel these days

path: 0 24566133, hotness: undefined, score: 13, children: 0
paultimate14 12 points 4 months ago

I would love to take my money elsewhere, but... Where? Everywhere else is just as bad or worse. Half the VPN's are owner by one Israeli billionaire. I'm running out of options here.

path: 0 24582310, hotness: undefined, score: 12, children: 2
someonesmall 2 points 4 months ago

I'm using AirVPN since two years and I'm very happy with them.

path: 0 24582310 24583107, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
starsoaked_lily 1 point 4 months ago

i would highly recommend ivpn
(recommended by privacyguides.org)

path: 0 24582310 24585375, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
judgy_jackdaw 10 points 4 months ago

How many degrees of separation do y'all deem acceptable and why? If Mullvad donated that money directly, that's bad. If the owner donated that money, that's also bad. What if the owner instead bought something from another company and the owner of the company donated the money? What if this second owner then bought something else from yet another company and the owner of that company donated the money? When can you stop saying "my money is used to fund this thing I don't want"? Because money will spread so fast in the economy that inevitably, no matter what choices you make, your money will fund things you don't like. For example, should the "true scotsman" vegan never buy anything because it is pretty much guaranteed that their money will end up in the pocket of someone who will spend it on meat? Again, I am not criticizing anyone, I am simply asking: where do you draw the line, why, and why not draw the line one step further than you currently are?

path: 0 24580249, hotness: undefined, score: 10, children: 1
Dalkor 5 points 4 months ago

I think information is useful. I see no problem giving people the information and vehicles for making decisions... but as a society I do think we need to get to a place where we acknowledge that everyone has their own line and trust they are making the best decisions they can be, given the information they have.

I've asked the same question for situations where the court of public appeal has changed the donation decisions and yet people choose to castigate because they believe repreations to counteract their donations are due. I believe progress is progress and it should be rewarded, that is my line. Others will disagree and that's fine.

path: 0 24580249 24581155, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 0
Tidesphere 9 points 4 months ago

God dammit, I already switched away from Express VPN because they're owned by Israel, now I gotta switch away from Mullvad too??

path: 0 24554323, hotness: undefined, score: 9, children: 7
AllNewTypeFace 22 points 4 months ago

There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism, just a weighing of compromises and complicities.

path: 0 24554323 24554615, hotness: undefined, score: 22, children: 5
Prunebutt 4 points 4 months ago

That's the most important bit: Allard had private property (his capital) and he did with it however he pleased. This is a structural issue, which wont be solved by cancelling Mullvad.

path: 0 24554323 24554615 24554784, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 4
chortle_tortle 6 points 4 months ago

I think this is too quick to absolve the individual. Yes these are structural issues, but apparently his 5 mill kronor was 72% of the party's total donations from 2025. There is tangible effects that boycotts can have, and to me it seems worth choosing another VPN if the gold standard is funding a party that will strip away privacy rights the moment it has power.

path: 0 24554323 24554615 24554784 24562531, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 3
Prunebutt 0 points 4 months ago

I don't think this'll seriously impact MullvadVPN. But don't let me stop you from trying.

I'm simply a bit weary. It seems a bit to me like a -irtue-signaling liberal cancel-culture move about a party that most people don't understand, because they don't speak swedish.

I've read a bit about them in swedish until I found the damming policy propositions.

path: 0 24554323 24554615 24554784 24562531 24563233, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 2
starsoaked_lily 1 point 4 months ago

i would highly recommend ivpn
(recommended by privacyguides.org)

path: 0 24554323 24585477, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
AlteredEgo 9 points 4 months ago

That ideology sounds wild lol. Almost literal "national - socialism"?

The issue is rich people using undemocratic power to fund things like this. Which ironically sounds exactly like the “Transferiat” siphoning money and power from VPN users to funnel it into unwanted, fringe channels.

path: 0 24578114, hotness: undefined, score: 9, children: 13
justaman123 2 points 4 months ago

I was just thinking, the "transferiat" sound exactly like the wealthy ownership class

path: 0 24578114 24579610, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 12
AlteredEgo -6 points 4 months ago

To be fair, much of this could be flak, deliberate distortion and slander by the neoliberal forces in Sweden. You can't trust the mainstream media not to trash anything that isn't neoliberal.

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,[4] ending taxpayer funding of what it sees as wasteful sculptures, monuments and art and introducing free dental care.

This all sounds great.

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 I suspect a clear majority of Europeans are also against immigration or reducing how many refugees we take in thanks to fucking imperialist wars by the elite. There is nothing "far right" about this. I'm also for sending refugees back (EDIT: After it's safe to send them back!) and strictly limiting immigration in my country. The only real issue is that "remigration" is apparently code word for ethnic cleansing.

The larger issue is that this ideology sounds pretty half baked and too simple for the complexity of the current state of things.

path: 0 24578114 24579610 24580449, hotness: undefined, score: -6, children: 11
kossa 9 points 4 months ago

Erm..."remigration" is the dogwhistle for concentration camps, though? I mean, you do you, but as far as classifying something as "far right"...talking about remigration easily tops that list ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

path: 0 24578114 24579610 24580449 24585187, hotness: undefined, score: 9, children: 2
AlteredEgo -1 points 4 months ago

From what I read remigration is ethnic cleansing by mass deportation. I hadn't even heard of the term before. I guess detention (or concentration?) camps are then inevitable too, we're seeing remigration right now in the US. Everyone just watches and lets it happen.

It should go without saying that I'm sarcastic and absolutely against such inhuman policies and that it's an entirely different thing from being against immigration and unlimited refugees in Europe. Different to the USA which is still mostly empty and an immigration country.

Sweden is now 8.1% Muslim. Even if most are moderate or non-practicing, that's well past a limit where you can expect "assimilation". Whatever that is supposed to mean, are we the Borg?

Does your own country and it's culture mean anything? Are you allowed to have and preserve a cultural identity? Does ideal diversity and internationalism mean homogenity globally? I don't think so.

So yeah, remigration is a far right dogwhistle, but calling anyone in favor of sensible limits on immigration/refugees a racist or xenophobe is a neoliberal talking point.

Anyway, climate change could create something like a billion refugees until the end of the century. That would make ideology pretty much irrelevant.

path: 0 24578114 24579610 24580449 24585187 24586918, hotness: undefined, score: -1, children: 1
cheeseharlot 6 points 4 months ago

The only real issue is that "remigration" is apparently code word for ethnic cleansing.

Yeah, just the small issue of genocide, but other than that, the rest of their policies are only moderate white supremacist ones.

path: 0 24578114 24579610 24580449 24586339, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 5
AlteredEgo 1 point 4 months ago

Calling everything genocide robs the word of all meaning.

path: 0 24578114 24579610 24580449 24586339 24587123, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 4
justaman123 5 points 4 months ago

Didn't the swiss banks enrich themselves with Nazi gold?

path: 0 24578114 24579610 24580449 24580906, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 1
AlteredEgo 0 points 4 months ago

Sure, it was acceptable in the 1930s. But what does that have to do with what I wrote?

path: 0 24578114 24579610 24580449 24580906 24581898, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 0
RoddyStiggs 9 points 4 months ago

Nobody using Mullvad is going to have their credit card tied directly to it. Much less are they going to start calling financial institutions and government agencies and tell them they're a Mullvad user.

You need to get way more subtle with your propaganda, corpos.

path: 0 24555525, hotness: undefined, score: 9, children: 18
mathemachristian 13 points 4 months ago

Sure lets entrust our privacy with infrastructure owned by a fascist...

path: 0 24555525 24557182, hotness: undefined, score: 13, children: 17
Artemis_Mystique 2 points 4 months ago

clearly you don't know how Mullvad works

path: 0 24555525 24557182 24559526, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 7
mathemachristian 4 points 4 months ago

Enlighten me how under a fascist takeover it couldn't be undermined to track undesirables... even if, the owner is a fascist?! Clearly your life wouldn't be in danger when tracked by a fascist...

path: 0 24555525 24557182 24559526 24560718, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 6
starman2112 3 points 4 months ago

Technically they could be lying about their privacy policy, and technically it's not impossible that they've colluded with the government to lie about police finding nothing in raids, and saying "well they will lie about it because they're fascists" is myopic and stupid. Moreso than being fascist, they're fanatical about privacy. Everything runs on RAM. They couldn't track you if they wanted to

path: 0 24555525 24557182 24559526 24560718 24562278, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 5
RoddyStiggs 1 point 4 months ago

Explain to me how you activate an account on Mullvad. Right here.

Don't Google it. Just explain it.

path: 0 24555525 24557182 24585310, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 8
mathemachristian 1 point 4 months ago

You create that id number thing and send them money. Do you think that means that your identity is completely secure?

path: 0 24555525 24557182 24585310 24588762, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 7
RoddyStiggs 1 point 3 months ago

Send them money in what form?

path: 0 24555525 24557182 24585310 24588762 24591462, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 6
Zerush 8 points 4 months ago

With this the only European browser is Vivaldi, by its own structure as a cooperative, owned by the employees, quite far from the right. The only thing they sponsor is a local football club in Iceland.

I hope that KDE would improve one day its independent Konqueror browser (KHTML/ Qt engine, ancestor of WebKit and Blink, Linux only), to have some more alternatives in the EU. It works as browser AND file manager, but due to a good improvement very slow nowadays.

path: 0 24573294, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 4
marcie 5 points 4 months ago

Mullvad browser is still mostly maintained by the Tor project and doesn't phone home, still one of the best choices for a no fingerprint browser even if you use a different vpn for it. Biggest downside imo is it's not on Android. It's entirely FOSS and again, no phoning home on an action, so it doesn't matter what the creator thinks.

My personal use case for tracking is different from others, I mostly want to avoid surveillance capitalism. It's genuinely a problem for my PTSD, if I talk about my PTSD on a corporate app I'll get spammed with triggering shit 24/7 because they like to spam you with "solutions" and self help and news for crimes against women like it's my special interest. Obviously I would love to avoid state surveillance but you're not getting that from any vpn server domiciled in the west, it'd have to be in a geopolitical enemy of the west e.g. Russia or China or Serbia and most people would not like the latency that involves.

path: 0 24573294 24574258, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 3
Zerush 4 points 4 months ago

FOSS nowadays is less and less a guarantee, since Google, M$, Amazon and Fakebook are one of the biggest contributers of FOSS (naturally all with their corresponding tracking APIs). Currently the company ethics, transparency and trust are a very important. At least for me, it's not acceptable when a service is used to sponsor right wing or nazi parties. It's not direct Mullvad, but their CEO paid by this product. Faschism is advancing in a creepy manner and at least I'm not willing to support it in any way.

PD. TOR was developed by the US army and secret services and they still owned the onion server. The future and free internet will not be the Onion, but I2P and decentralized networks, out of the reach from big brother corps.

path: 0 24573294 24574258 24577012, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0
G_M0N3Y_2503 2 points 4 months ago

If you cut out buffer bloat it's easy to forget that everything is only slightly slower, it's the inconsistency in the latency that makes you really notice. With a base of ~130ms when it doubles for those first couple of packets of every page load you really feel it, as long as it's smooth, your brain can adjust.

I have it for my whole house and no one notices/complains.

https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat https://github.com/lynxthecat/CAKE-autorate

That said, it's kind of niche then more niche to run it on the VPN too, I wish it were more accessible.

path: 0 24573294 24574258 24575607, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
whatiswrongwithyou 1 point 4 months ago

The person talking about bufferbloat is making a good point and if your router can run even something like freshtomato then you can use cake aqm and make life better.

path: 0 24573294 24574258 24579846, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
obvs 7 points 4 months ago

That moment when you literally sent Mullvad a bunch of cash like two weeks before all of this came down and you know there's literally no way to get your money back and it takes 2-4 weeks for money to get from your country to Sweden so you haven't even started using the service.

path: 0 24570251, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 8
gnate 6 points 4 months ago path: 0 24570251 24576180, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 7
whatiswrongwithyou 7 points 4 months ago

That doesn’t help the cash in an envelope with no return address crowd. Mullvad also doesn’t have any way to associate an account with a person.

path: 0 24570251 24576180 24577488, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 6
gnate 2 points 4 months ago

So then their offer may not be genuine...bummer.

path: 0 24570251 24576180 24577488 24579012, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 4
nevyn 2 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24570251 24576180 24577488 24579012 24584868, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
whatiswrongwithyou 1 point 4 months ago

It’s less of an ingenuine offer issue and more of a “there’s a way to pay thats anonymous and untraceable” problem.

There’s no way to privately and anonymously confirm that the person who paid cash and is asking for a refund is who they say they are. If you have them do that then now you have a record of who they are and that can be used by the cops when they cleverly hit you with a subpoena the month after your big scandal broke.

So if you’re committed to protecting customers privacy you can’t do refunds on cash.

path: 0 24570251 24576180 24577488 24579012 24579225, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 2
nevyn 1 point 4 months ago
path: 0 24570251 24576180 24577488 24584866, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
chicken 6 points 4 months ago

So, what are good alternatives? Anything that accepts anonymous crypto payments and doesn't have accounts?

path: 0 24554108, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 2
nevyn 8 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24554108 24554246, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 0
starsoaked_lily 1 point 4 months ago

i switched to ivpn, personally

path: 0 24554108 24585486, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
T0RB1T 6 points 4 months ago

Once again, it feels like too much money and power just makes people into freaks. None are completely immune, too few are effectively resistant.

When money makes you complicit in the system where money is power, there is no way to leverage money to fix the system unless you're somehow completely insulated from direct personal gain.

Morality, ethics, humanity... These must be maintained, have we all just moved on? Maybe it's just me that's given up.

path: 0 24587189, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 0
Zerush 2 points 4 months ago

I use sometimes only an Proxy to skip country restrictions, I don't use a VPN. If I need an VPN, I would probably use the SPN from the Portmaster which I use anyway.

path: 0 24563282, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
airikr 2 points 3 months ago path: 0 24590777, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 2
nagaram 4 points 3 months ago

So long as Daniel is paid from Mullvad, Mullvad financially supports the far right by proxy.

path: 0 24590777 24593872, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 1
airikr 1 point 3 months ago

That is true, but since the other employeers at Mullvad don't like Daniel's donation, they don't take his side. Of course it's very shameful that he did that donation, and I truly hope he gets fired.

But one thing must be clear: facts should be just that: facts! Daniel took his own money and personally donated it to that shitty party - not Mullvad!

path: 0 24590777 24593872 24600395, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
inkblade 2 points 4 months ago

Yeah, I am not doing that.

path: 0 24554570, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
NigelFrobisher 2 points 4 months ago

You can really tell how cut-throat and efficient the free market is when founders just have millions spare knocking around to play at Blackshirts.

path: 0 24589197, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
oyzmo 1 point 4 months ago

Like people care 😅 look around, Meta and Tesla are doing great! Both companies are sooo much worse, nazi and earning money on child sex ads .. people don't care, most are to hypnotised by their mobile.

path: 0 24588567, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
starman2112 1 point 4 months ago
path: 0 24562419, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
Tenderizer78 1 point 4 months ago
path: 0 24557438, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 2
Melusine 16 points 4 months ago

Far right needs to track their targets. The nazi had IBM census machines to better identify jews, and right now, Palantir fucking exists, and its founder is well aligned on left-right.

path: 0 24557438 24558617, hotness: undefined, score: 16, children: 0
ZeroHora 7 points 4 months ago

I'm very confused by what you mean with this. It's like saying human basic needs doesn't aligns with left-right spectrum, like no shit!

path: 0 24557438 24558022, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 0
Doomsider 0 points 4 months ago

Keep giving corporations your money, what could possibly go wrong.

path: 0 24568726, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 0
lithiumground 0 points 4 months ago

Use librewolf browser

path: 0 24563137, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 2
chortle_tortle 1 point 4 months ago

Do they have a VPN?

path: 0 24563137 24563605, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 1
lithiumground 0 points 4 months ago

Protonvpn

path: 0 24563137 24563605 24574806, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 0
87Six -2 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24577094, hotness: undefined, score: -2, children: 3
madcaesar -3 points 4 months ago

I stepped in shit with my left foot! Therefore it's ok to step into vomit with my right foot!

path: 0 24577094 24577248, hotness: undefined, score: -3, children: 1
nevyn 1 point 4 months ago
path: 0 24577094 24577248 24584858, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
architect -6 points 4 months ago

Most Americans do not pay an income tax. That’s how broke bitches be. Paying social security etc is not a tax.

So there’s nothing for them to stop paying.

path: 0 24577094 24577501, hotness: undefined, score: -6, children: 0
gleaminggoat -4 points 4 months ago

This seems pretty sensationalized. Wikipedia does not classify them as a far right 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,[4] ending taxpayer funding of what it sees as wasteful sculptures, monuments and art and introducing free dental care."

Yeah those Nazis are always for sure advocating for social housing and a 30 hour work week. /s

path: 0 24582539, hotness: undefined, score: -4, children: 4
kossa 14 points 4 months ago

Very convenient how you skipped the next sentence:

Nationally the party has set out large-scale remigration

Oh, wow. Remigration is a link to another wiki page. Let's learn something about it:

Remigration is a far-right concept referring to the ethnic cleansing via mass deportation of non-white minority populations

Uh. That sounds pretty Nazi to me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

path: 0 24582539 24585283, hotness: undefined, score: 14, children: 0
ZeroHora 3 points 4 months ago

It's not classify in the sacred text guys everyone calm down!!!!!!

path: 0 24582539 24584455, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
axx 3 points 4 months ago

Yeah and it's not Mullvad itself but the cofounder with his personal money (which of course he has for being the Mullvad cofounder and handsomely paid co-CEO, I expect).

Still, nuance?

path: 0 24582539 24582714, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 1
nevyn -5 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24582539 24582714 24584643, hotness: undefined, score: -5, children: 0
butsbutts -7 points 4 months ago

lets harass them!!

path: 0 24570554, hotness: undefined, score: -7, children: 0
thecam -7 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24569256, hotness: undefined, score: -7, children: 3
NigelFrobisher 8 points 4 months ago

Why not just cut out the middle man and join an ethno nationalist party?

path: 0 24569256 24569715, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 0
sudoer777 5 points 4 months ago

You don't have free speech when you're made illegal, which is what far right parties like this one are doing to immigrants

path: 0 24569256 24569518, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 0
tixnou 1 point 4 months ago
path: 0 24569256 24569953, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
hneerqe -8 points 4 months ago

This is why I don't like any people and none of their parties.

Years of uncompromised world class service. Then a person there has the audacity of having a political view (shocking!)

Now they suck and should be boycotted. This is how ingrate you look, we were lucky we even had mullvad in the first place.

path: 0 24568398, hotness: undefined, score: -8, children: 5
QinShiHuangsShlong 4 points 4 months ago

You make me sick you Hitlerite apologist.

path: 0 24568398 24568767, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 1
hneerqe -1 points 4 months ago

Not even wikipedia says what fucking side is on and I'm somehow.. whatever I'm going to leave you and your shitty opinions.

path: 0 24568398 24568767 24569211, hotness: undefined, score: -1, children: 0
FistingEnthusiast 1 point 4 months ago

You're going to die alone and lonely

path: 0 24568398 24571875, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 2
judgy_jackdaw -1 points 4 months ago

why, just because you say so?

path: 0 24568398 24571875 24579915, hotness: undefined, score: -1, children: 0
hneerqe -1 points 4 months ago

far away from you

path: 0 24568398 24571875 24575751, hotness: undefined, score: -1, children: 0
magnue -10 points 4 months ago

Idc

path: 0 24559007, hotness: undefined, score: -10, children: 0
bloogoose -10 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24581289, hotness: undefined, score: -10, children: 9
Ensign_Crab 9 points 4 months ago

Yet you participate in society. Curious.

path: 0 24581289 24582174, hotness: undefined, score: 9, children: 2
bloogoose -7 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24581289 24582174 24584477, hotness: undefined, score: -7, children: 1
Ensign_Crab 6 points 4 months ago

Yet you're still participating in this thread. Curious.

path: 0 24581289 24582174 24584477 24585165, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 0
nevyn 4 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24581289 24584686, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 2
bloogoose -2 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24581289 24584686 24584892, hotness: undefined, score: -2, children: 1
nevyn 3 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24581289 24584686 24584892 24585291, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
cheeseharlot 2 points 4 months ago

My phone company is evil, sure. And individual consumer choice has limited utility in a world where all the phone companies are evil, which is why consumers should get organized.

But if I find out that my evil phone company is the primary financier of my or another country's most prominent Nazi party that's advocating for Nazi policies, I'm switching to the other evil phone company. Not a difficult decision?

path: 0 24581289 24586233, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 2
bloogoose -1 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24581289 24586233 24587396, hotness: undefined, score: -1, children: 1
cheeseharlot 0 points 4 months ago

Try reading my comment again.

path: 0 24581289 24586233 24587396 24588717, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 0
Saapas -14 points 4 months ago

I mean doesn't sound that far off from "he who does not work, neither shall he eat"

In the USSR work is a duty and a matter of honor for every able-bodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: "He who does not work, neither shall he eat".

https://en.wikipedia.org/...

path: 0 24553804, hotness: undefined, score: -14, children: 2
ViatorOmnium 20 points 4 months ago

That's a fascist position even if it came wrapped in a pseudo-marxist wrapping.

There's a world of difference between "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" and withholding basic needs.

path: 0 24553804 24554035, hotness: undefined, score: 20, children: 1
Saapas -8 points 4 months ago

I'm just saying that it's not like it is a position unfamiliar to self-described Marxists since it was brought in by Lenin and was even part of Soviet Union's constitution.

path: 0 24553804 24554035 24554183, hotness: undefined, score: -8, children: 0
hneerqe -15 points 4 months ago

chill. I'm definitely taking your word for it /s. If everything I don't agree with is fascism, well that makes it easy huh?

path: 0 24568173, hotness: undefined, score: -15, children: 2
inclementimmigrant 10 points 4 months ago

Yeah, we get it, you love Nazis.

path: 0 24568173 24569167, hotness: undefined, score: 10, children: 0
orc_princess 1 point 4 months ago

path: 0 24568173 24585751, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
Humorless4483 -47 points 4 months ago

I renewed my account after I learned about it. Because the real Nazis are actively trying to cancel him for having an opinion. Wanting someone to be kick out of his job, to be cancelled, to be never allowed to work again because his opinion goes against yours, that’s real fascism.

I’m going to be downvoted to hell because the far left is too indoctrinated into believing that they have the only correct opinion and anyone with a different one is directly their enemy. They won’t understand that they are the fascists here but at least I tried.

path: 0 24571346, hotness: undefined, score: -47, children: 4
godsammitdam 36 points 4 months ago
path: 0 24571346 24571477, hotness: undefined, score: 36, children: 1
majster 8 points 4 months ago

Damn, that is extreme

path: 0 24571346 24571477 24572485, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 0
lenz 17 points 4 months ago

Your money is given to a man. That man gives it to nazis.

You: but he's the middle man! That means he can do whatever he wants with the money I give him, and even though I know he'll give it to nazis, I'm fine with that! In fact, I'll give him MORE money! The left is so indoctrinated for thinking my actions are wrong! It's CANCELLING someone if you refuse to given them money! Being mean to a nazi supporter by refusing to give him my money is the REAL fascism!

path: 0 24571346 24573649, hotness: undefined, score: 17, children: 0
FistingEnthusiast 13 points 4 months ago

You're a real dickhead

Don't breed

path: 0 24571346 24571859, hotness: undefined, score: 13, children: 0
privacy
privacy

@lemmy.ml

login for more options
51487
5303
4580

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

  • Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
  • Don't promote proprietary software
  • Try to keep things on topic
  • If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
  • Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
  • Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

go to feed...