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
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.
Well there's one thing I do know: I sure as hell wouldn't trust that VPN operator
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.
So you did research, found nothing, and are still siding with Nazis?
I didn't trust mullvad to begin with, its not my provider of choice. Did it ever occur to you that some of us do look at the political ideology of the companies we support? I don't know about all of them, but if presented with new information that they might be Nazis I would make a choice pretty quick.
Hopefully that information would be much more honest than the post we are all replying to.
because one of their ceo's is right wing trash?
how far would you push that then, there are other things he is a part of, a gender, a race, a country, a species...
Those things are more or less static, being a Nazi is a choice
It is a choice, but being a nazi doesn't automatically mean that the country you live in is a nazi country, or that the company you co-founded is a nazi company.
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".
Sounds more l ike the owner of the bar is a nazi than the bar being filled with nazis
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.
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).
You are correct, but what exactly is the company meant to do about this? What can they actually do?
I really would have liked a much stronger statement from the other CEO, but he is also in damage control and is responsible for the survival of the company, and continued employment of its staff.
Is it really "may have"? Seems pretty clear that they have.
He may have other income streams, but it would be dishonest to suggest that mullvad customer money did not end up in the pockets of an absurd political party. I do have to wonder how many of the people ramping up about this also boycott the plethora of evil corporations, as well as the evil countries/governments.
As I wrote above: the "good" companies might actually be just led by nazis who are better at hiding their personal beliefs and donations…
Guaranteed.
there are political parties here in Australia with names like:|
who solely exist to funnel preferential votes to right wing/racist political parties.
Humans are often trash, by choice.
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.
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.
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?
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.
This is just one step, though. Money to Mullvad goes in part to the cofounder who is a racist piece of shit.
But to your question, I think the "dilution" question has a different answer for everyone. Have you seen "The Good Place"? Philosophy is the major theme and this is one of the major philosophical questions they deal with. Great show, recommended if it's unfamiliar to you.
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.
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
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?
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.
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
They can force him out as CEO, that can do nothing about his co-ownership though.
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??
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).
lol. As if fucking Kape should even be a part of the conversation. Evil scum.
It is a very dodgy industry, that is not restricted to kape, although they are definitely a major part of it.
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.
From what I have read, there is nothing remotely 'left' about them, aside from people labelling them as left.
Duopolies generally have 1 party labelled as left, 1 as right, but they are both always right, and their aim is to keep the government/country right wing. Labelling 1 party as left offers the illusion of choice to zombie voters.
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.