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Mullvad is apparently the main financier of a Swedish far-right party (lemmy.ml)
submitted 21 hours ago by Rindogang@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
128 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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

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[–] hneerqe@lemmy.world 0 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 32 points 14 hours ago

Be CEO of privacy company

Donate $500k to a right wing party publicly

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 15 hours ago (3 children)

Mullvad

Reverse credit card charge

Yeah... About that....

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[–] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 155 points 21 hours ago (15 children)

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.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

"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.

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[–] Signtist@bookwyr.me 38 points 18 hours ago (4 children)

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.

[–] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 23 points 17 hours 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.

[–] psycotica0@lemmy.ca 10 points 16 hours ago (4 children)

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?

[–] obelisk_complex@piefed.ca 9 points 15 hours ago

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.

[–] Signtist@bookwyr.me 5 points 15 hours 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.

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[–] mathemachristian@lemmy.ml 27 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

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

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[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 15 points 20 hours ago (5 children)

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).

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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 22 points 17 hours ago

Even bigger yikes.

[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours 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.

[–] nevyn@slrpnk.net 45 points 21 hours ago (16 children)

Your headline is misleading.

One of the founders (and co-ceo) of Mullvad made a substantial donation to an unhinged political party. Mullvad did not, and Mullvad claim to be against it.

This has been all over mastodon for days.

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 hours ago

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

[–] M137@lemmy.today 5 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] nevyn@slrpnk.net 0 points 6 hours ago

I meant lemmy, I have only just started using both with the aim of dropping reddit and bluesky, and apparently I am confused.

I agree the post should be removed.

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[–] ordnance_qf_17_pounder@reddthat.com 23 points 20 hours ago

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.

[–] sorter_plainview@lemmy.today 20 points 19 hours ago

Mullvad issued a response. Which IMO is shitty.

Source

Statement from MullvadMullvad 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.

[–] lithiumground@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Use librewolf browser

[–] chortle_tortle@mander.xyz 1 points 9 hours ago

Do they have a VPN?

[–] RoddyStiggs@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] mathemachristian@lemmy.ml 11 points 16 hours ago (5 children)

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

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