this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2026
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Could someone fully explain the mullvad controversy. From my knowledge so far it seems like the cofounder donated to an alt right party and it's probably a bad sign for the company. Anything I'm missing?

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[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 9 points 4 days ago (12 children)

Companies are owned by the bourgeoisie, who are right wing[1]. So “voting with your dollar” over this is largely performative

Yet they will still respond to capital pressure in large enough numbers. In a broken system like capitalism that's what holds power. If not you can write off BDS and any other type of boycotts.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml -4 points 4 days ago (11 children)

Mullvad didn’t fund Õbrero; one of Mullvad’s owners did, and boycotting Mullvad won’t un-donate those funds, because there’s no return policy on political donations.

[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago (10 children)

Mullvad didn't condemn the funding and the owner will certainly continue using profits from his company to fund far-right remigration efforts if he specifically chose that party instead of any other generic leftist party.

Also Mullvad is very expensive compared to other VPN's to begin with. And Mullvad's servers have been getting blocked everywhere lately so there's no real reason to use it either. Might as well use AirVPN or the likes. I'm probably switching to Proton for ease of use but i might choose another sooner or later.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

So largely performative. With enough pressure, Mullvad might say something negative about a bourgeois party, which won’t do anything.

There’s no reason to think Proton would be any different in this regard. Proton Mail Says It’s “Politically Neutral” While Praising Republican Party

[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

They're nowhere comparable. Proton's case is relevant to their business and to VPN's as a whole. Not just doing random private donations to Nazis. As they stated in response to the article:

Also objectively Proton would receive less money because they're a lot cheaper.

[–] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Good share. Not seen this context before.

[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago

To be clear the notion that any of the two US parties would be better in any way than the other is just stupid. It's all good-cop bad-cop. But at least Proton isn't directly donating to any of them.

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