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.
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.
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
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.
Use librewolf browser
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.
Idc
Be CEO of privacy company
Donate $500k to a right wing party publicly
Mullvad
Reverse credit card charge
Yeah… About that…
Privacy is not something that neatly aligns with the left-right spectrum.
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.
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!
Even bigger yikes.
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.
Sure lets entrust our privacy with infrastructure owned by a fascist…
clearly you don’t know how Mullvad works
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…
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
saying “well they will lie about it because they’re fascists” is myopic and stupid.
Why?
Moreso than being fascist, they’re fanatical about privacy
and they will be forever and ever? There’s one move fascists have, coast on good will until it’s time for the rug-pull. A lot of fascists started out genuinely believing in some cause but sooner or later they all turn. What with contradictions sharpening and all
Mullvad issued a response. Which IMO is shitty.
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.
Yeah, I am not doing that.
Although this was a private donation and not Mullvad as a company, it’s still bad. I’ve been a Mullvad user for a few years now and I dislike the idea that some of the money I’ve paid to them, no matter how little overall, might have been used to support a political party that pushes for “remigration”.
I may have very indirectly helped finance a fascist party, and I’m not okay with that. I’d like Mullvad to take steps to ensure that this can’t happen again. Until then, I can’t be sure where my money will end up.
God dammit, I already switched away from Express VPN because they’re owned by Israel, now I gotta switch away from Mullvad too??
There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism, just a weighing of compromises and complicities.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
So, what are good alternatives? Anything that accepts anonymous crypto payments and doesn’t have accounts?
somewhere between sfa, and bugger all
ivpn, or airvpn would be good ones to consider. The majority of others seem very dodgy, and some are right wing already.
