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
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
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.