Hi,
Mullvad has two owners, founders, and CEOs - Daniel Berntsson, and me, Fredrik Strömberg. All posts I've seen yesterday and today, including the newspaper articles, talk about Mullvad as if Daniel is the single owner, founder and CEO. It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns you're welcome to comment on this thread, or email our customer support.
See below for the response you'll get from support:
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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. In that case, reach out to support.
Fredrik, while acknowledging everything you said, the fact remains some of my money can end up empowering politics I find repugnant.
If it were a small amount of money, it wouldn’t be an issue. If the politics at stake were less important, it wouldn’t be an issue.
They’re not going to stop at immigration, look at other places in the world to see the future risk.
Sorry, I was a paying and satisfied customer, and now I’m out.
I'm sorry to hear that. I'm not defending his choice, but consider reading Daniel's rationale in the Flamman article. There's also his blog [1], which explains some of his views. I know he doesn't share all of Örebropartiets views, but I should let him provide that nuance.
As I said in another comment, speaking for myself, I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues.
[1]: https://dberntsson.info
> As I said in another comment, speaking for myself, I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues.
Maybe there's a case to distance Mullvad from him, then. Not taking a stand is also a political choice.
Consider GWB's "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." For and against are not always the only options. Sometimes there are nuances, or other concerns.
Daniel made this decision as a private individual. Some of his colleagues (including me) dislike it as private individuals.
I recognize that the amount as well as his position of power within the company (co-founder, co-owner, co-CEO) make people who disapprove more uncomfortable than if it had been a much lower amount from a regular employee.
However, as others have argued, what would happen if Mullvad started weighing in on politics unrelated to its mission?
Better to see Mullvad almost like a force of nature: Mullvad believes privacy is a universal right. You might disagree but at least it's consistent, and I'd argue that's one path to trustworthiness - you know how we're likely to treat you as a customer. (equally, regardless of your political affiliation)
Obviously everyone is free to make their own choice on whether they like this stance or not.
I know what you’re saying sounds perfectly rational to you and I do applaud you for holding the moral position separating someone’s private life from their contribution to the company. But, think about the number of people who were let go for far less controversial actions. At some point an officer of the company doing things in their personal life becomes a distraction to the company’s goals. My question is, would you act differently if this person were not a co-founder?
If Mullvad fired an ordinary employee for donating to an anti-immigration party or pressured them into not donating, I would absolutely find a new VPN provider that doesn't do this over it.
As would I. That doesn't seem like a nice workplace. I'm pretty sure it's illegal too, at least in Sweden.
For sure, and I think most people would agree with this. However, I also think most people treat it differently when it is someone so high up because they have a lot of control and, more importantly, accumulate a large part of the profit.
I don't think you should not be allowed to have strong political opinions in such a position. I just think that in this case, it is very dangerous to express so much support for them in such a public way. I say this because (from my perspective at least) a large part of Mullvad's "competitive advantage" is their brand image, and it just feels that a link to controversial politics probably does more harm than good to this brand image.
If the donations were to the opposite end of the political spectrum, do you think there would be a similar amount of backlash?
> would you act differently if this person were not a co-founder?
I have several colleagues who I'm fairly certain are anarcho-syndicalists, meaning they want to abolish the state and capitalism. I don't know about my colleagues, but in general anarcho-syndicalists seek to bring about their vision through organising trade unions, and use that to seize control of the means of production and distribution. I on the other hand am clearly a capitalist pig seeking to oppress my workforce. Why else would I invite them to join me on the barricades against mass surveillance and censorship? Shared values around privacy? :P
I have no business questioning which demonstrations my colleagues participate in, or what they write on their blog. As long as they are not actively malicious against me, our workplace, or their fellow coworkers.
It's getting late, maybe I'm missing something in my description. I guess that's a rough approximation of how I feel about tolerating differences of opinion.
You don’t consider supporting “remigration”, aka forced expulsion of non-white-skinned people, to be actively malicious? What if he was physically going door to door and assaulting immigrants? Would that also be out of scope for you?
Your employees are very far from achieving such ambitious goals. You don't seem to realize how much power you, and your co-founder do have vs them.
Any reflections on the book https://howisincorruptiblegoing.com/ ?
> Your employees are very far from achieving such ambitious goals.
Again, I have no idea if any of my colleagues actually subscribe to such ideals. I was simply commenting on tolerating differences of opinion. There's also a difference between empathy/understanding and sympathy/agreement.
> You don't seem to realize how much power you, and your co-founder do have vs them.
Perhaps. I've thought about that many times. I'm pretty sure I understand it well intellectually, but I have little experience actually being an employee myself. What experience I have was almost two decades ago. I'd love to hear more about what you mean. What did I say that suggests I don't understand? Was it the "capitalist pig" joke? I was trying to inject some tongue-in-cheek humour, but waking up this morning I regret writing it, as it has little to do with the point I was trying to make. Unfortunately by then it was too old to edit. If it's something else, please tell me.
What I try to do is imagine how I would want to be treated by someone who has hard power over me, in the way an employer ultimately does over their employees. I read books and research on the subject, watch videos, listen to podcasts, learn from mentors, and I've refined my leadership philosophy over the course of the past 17 years.
I aspire to give all of my colleagues a maximum of autonomy. My approach is something like this:
1. The right person, in the right role, with the right manager. 2. Establish and refine a mutual understanding of goals, strategies, and expectations. 3. Delegate to the greatest possible extent.
The right person is roughly someone who has integrity, drive, competence and is easy to communicate with. By integrity I mean someone who admits when they are wrong and tells me when I'm wrong. Drive comes in many shapes (tech nerd, building a team, "just" a good work ethic, or simply wanting to put food on the table) - all of which are perfectly fine drives. Basically I want colleagues that care about something, anything. Competence means being able to perform their job role.
The more you have 1 and 2, the easier it is to build a mutually high-trust relationship, and a long-term collaboration with increasing autonomy.
Ultimately trust is about willingly being vulnerable to someone or something. I think that is why some of my colleagues are upset right now. They see Daniel's donation as a breach of that trust. I get that, and I feel for them.
> Any reflections on the book https://howisincorruptiblegoing.com/ ?
I haven't read it, but I've heard of it. What little I know, it sounds in line with what Daniel and I have done. Here's our ownership directive: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/ownership-and-future-mullvad-vpn
As we write in the article: """We started building this organization in the summer of 2008 for idealistic reasons, and we are still idealists who think privacy is fundamental to a civilized society.
The best strategy for achieving societal impact through entrepreneurship is consistent, long-term, and value-based ownership. For us, this disqualifies taking outside investment, either through venture capital or going public. Mullvad has instead been growing organically without outside investments. It takes longer but the results are better."""
If I understand correctly, Ries is arguing that the more valuable a company is, the more tempting it becomes to extract that value. Sure, that's why it is important to have principled and long-term shareholders. An organisation's long-term strategic behavior necessarily tries to converge on its goals, set by its shareholders. I recognize that most companies are owned by shareholders who seek to eventually increase their personal wealth. I also recognize that principles almost always get to take a back seat if they cost the shareholders too much money.
Personally I reject the U.S. 1970s corporate law doctrine that the only legitimate purpose of a company is maximizing returns to its shareholders. That's ridiculous. In the case of Mullvad its mission is related to privacy, mass surveillance and censorship, in large part because we believe privacy and the absence of mass surveillance and censorship are part of the foundation of a healthy and thriving society.
As for extracting value to benefit me personally, I don't intend to accrue more than I need. I think I've reached the point where I'm satisfied with my lifestyle and the buffer I have. I've stopped playing the stock market, and instead placed my savings in long-term investments which require a minimum of attention. I'd rather do other things with my time. Obviously I'm also confident in my future earning potential should I catastrophically lose both my company and a large portion of my savings. It is very freeing and I recognize how rare and useful it is to be able to act in line with your values without concern for economic impact. I think it allows me to make better long-term strategic decisions about our companies.
Mostly I just want to maximize my contribution to society. I've toyed with the idea of placing my shares in Mullvad and my other companies in a foundation with some kind of open-source mission. I've also reached out to various non-profits and talked to tax advisors about abstaining from dividends, and have them sent directly to those non-profits. We'll see.
I don't do this for the money anymore. I do it because it is important to me. I wonder if a lot of people commenting or trying to apply social pressure assume that we're worried about the company losing value. Of course I would be sad if colleagues or a lot of customers left us, as I care immensely about both. That doesn't mean I'm willing to betray my principles, or in this case betray Mullvad's mission.
I hope I've managed to answer most of your questions. Please tell me more about what I should do to better understand the power I have over my colleagues, as their employer. What am I missing? Thank you.
Thanks for a real answer.
I don't mind some jokes, though, it made me think of Animal Farm, which does not fit here.
You seem to be doing a great job as an employer, already caring is better than most, which is a low bar.
I meant your political power, more than power in the employer - employee relationship. You have more political power than your employees, by a lot. You may not use it, much, until today. But the imbalance is big, as proven by recent events.
Do you have plans for what will happen with the company when you two are no longer around? The book is more about such things, rather than what you might be able to with any profit. What happens to the organisation when you personally is not around to steer it?
> You seem to be doing a great job as an employer
Thank you.
> You have more political power than your employees, by a lot.
For sure.
> Do you have plans for what will happen with the company when you two are no longer around? The book is more about such things, rather than what you might be able to with any profit.
Loss is a natural part of life. Nothing exists or remains relevant forever. Market needs, people, and the world at large change. Hopefully for the better. The best we can do is act based on how we understand the world, which is why empathy and curiosity are so immensely valuable. They nudge us to understand the world and other people better, which facilitates more collaboration. I believe the vast majority of people have good intentions, but we often don't understand their behavior because we are blinded by our biases. When someone you respect does something you don't understand, or disapprove of, the rational reaction is curiosity. The alternative is to live an intellectually poorer life, which in turn impedes your ability to practice strategy, which in turn makes you less able to make progress on your goals.
We've considered so called "limited company with special restriction on profit distribution" [1]. It is a one-way "poison pill" for Swedish corporations that wish to permanently limit their ability to pay dividends to shareholders. Ultimately we found it too restrictive. It would risk impeding our ability to fund various open-source software and hardware efforts, among other things. I don't think we would have done it anyway. The risk is too high that you misjudge some aspect of it.
We've also talked about the option of creating foundations and donating our shares to them. Both of us see major risks with that too. In any case I hope it won't be relevant for a long time.
> What happens to the organisation when you personally is not around to steer it?
Daniel is a bit older than me, but unfortunately I have a progressive illness for which I take low-grade chemo and biologics. Modern medicine is amazing, especially the newer biopharmaceuticals that have come out in recent years. I will likely have to scale down my involvement first though.
Daniel would lead our companies to the best of his ability, together with our amazing management teams. I trust him more or less completely with the corporation. I know he will represent my values where it matters the most. He's very good at that. Last time we talked about this the feeling was mutual.
[1]: https://bolagsverket.se/foretag/aktiebolag/startaaktiebolag/...
Excellent post; thank you and please continue what you do.
Thanks! I appreciate it.
You can say Mullvad is apolitical all you want but the problem is money paid to Mullvad is eventually ending up in the hands of Örebropartiet by way of Daniel directing his compensation into his donations.
He didn't say Mullvad is a apolitical, in fact, he said Mullvad is inherently political because they fight for freedom of speech, freedom of information and the right to privacy.
You are saying something incongruent with what kfreds said!
Allow me to reword, using 'kfreds phrasing.
"Mullvad is weighing in on politics unrelated to its privacy mission because money given to Mullvad is eventually ending up in the hands of Örebropartiet by way of Daniel directing his compensation into his donations."
There, better?
The crux of what I'm saying is that if you give money to Mullvad you are giving money to Örebropartiet, and that's unchanged by the first part of the statement.
> Mullvad believes privacy is a universal right. You might disagree but at least it's consistent ...
Is privacy inconsistent with right to dignity, liberty, and equality?
Thank you for taking this stance. It is the mature, intellectual, and virtuous one, and with it you are on civilization’s side.
The US is currently in a very bad place politically. It’s visible not just in politicians, but in everybody’s minds, all the time. A person who believes they’re fighting for their life obsesses over “us vs them”, and forgets their every principle and even most reasoning, until the fight is over. When we spit on your principles, please know that they are our principles, too, we just are not currently well enough to remember it.
Of course the distinction itself is important in its own way, but I think/hope everyone here fully realizes and accepts that he technically donated as a private individual. You can clearly see it from the headline - it does not say "Mullvad VPN AB is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party", after all. For those who have an issue supporting Mullvad after this, that is unlikely to be the point of contention. The issue seems to be simply in this case, some people clearly find the private individual's actions objectionable enough to not want to support a product that individual is deeply associated with, profits from (and then funnels those profits into said actions), etc. Fixating on this being done as a private individual just comes off like a bit of a deflection attempt from a pretty straightforward case of individual actions having consequences.
> I think/hope everyone here fully realizes and accepts that he technically donated as a private individual
In this forum, yes. Unfortunately there are lots of people who don't care to inform themselves in the least. During the weekend my impression was that most people assumed Mullvad only had one founder, owner and CEO. Some people were implying that Mullvad's workforce supported this, which of course is ridiculous. I don't want to be associated with this donation. Then there are the people who think he donated 5 million USD or EUR. Sigh.
It would be nice if people didn't resort to make things up, and instead expressed their disapprovement based on fact. That's what I'm doing. As are several of my colleagues.
> The issue seems to be simply in this case, some people clearly find the private individual's actions objectionable enough to not want to support a product that individual is deeply associated with
Yes, that is clear.
> Fixating on this being done as a private individual just comes off like a bit of a deflection attempt from a pretty straightforward case of individual actions having consequences.
Ah, thanks. That was not my intent. For sure an individual's actions has consequences, especially when you're in a position of power. In this case people are holding Daniel accountable by switching providers. They are acting according to their beliefs. That's fine.
Meanwhile I am also trying to clarify Mullvad's position on the matter. Many people understand it and still disagree. That's also fine.
> However, as others have argued, what would happen if Mullvad started weighing in on politics unrelated to its mission?
A bit too late for that now, isn't it? Extreme anti-immigration stances have always been associated with anti-privacy because eventually those stances evolve into state apparatuses designed to identify dissidents and targets for deportation. What will you do when the party your co-founder supports eventually demands stripping away privacy for the sake of finding 'terrorists'? Trying to hold this thin veneer of apoliticalism outside of your privacy stance is a remarkably foolish one and one that most people can identify. Especially those who saw that progression occur in real time.
And if the Örebro party decides it wants chat control or similar things? Will Daniels privacy principles stand or will it bend to suit his likely stronger beliefs in anti immigration? Has he made similar contributions to parties against chat control?
> And if the Örebro party decides it wants chat control or similar things?
Then Mullvad would oppose it. I mean, the party is insignificant compared to the other parties in Sweden, so I wouldn't want to call them out specifically. It would be weird to give such a small party attention on our blog. If a journalist were to email us and ask about it explicitly that's another question. Of course Mullvad would oppose it.
> Will Daniels privacy principles stand
I would be very surprised if they didn't.
> or will it bend to suit his likely stronger beliefs in anti immigration?
What makes you say that? He's worked 17 years on building Mullvad, which is worth far more than 5 million SEK.
> Has he made similar contributions to parties against chat control?
Not to my knowledge.
> Maybe there's a case to distance Mullvad from him, then. Not taking a stand is also a political choice.
They are making a stand. This stance that they've taken has made me decide that I'm switching from another VPN provider TO Mullvad. Not many people have the backbone to actually stand behind freedom of speech when it may cost them something. It's very admirable.
Depending on what your current VPN provider is, this might be a good idea anyway.
Purchasing political power has zero relation to freedom of speech.
> I'm not defending his choice, but consider reading Daniel's rationale
This is literally defending his choice. More than that it is providing direct support to the views you are apparently trying to distance yourself from by suggesting people read literature in favour of them - not in a context where they even see opposing arguments.
But as a fun aside to the people debating that his views aren't right wing... consider this quote from the aforementioned blog (translation made via firefox's swedish to english model)
> A building permit officer at a municipal city building office is primarily dedicated to preventing, making it difficult, costly, delayed and uneasy construction. He causes great damage and thus produces negative value, but still also receives his salary from the tax of others and is thus supported by others.
Can we get more right wing than claiming that imposing standards on industry so they don't go around building death traps that kill people to save a few bucks "causes great damage and thus produces negative value". Not even as an argument that this particular office is overly restrictive, but just as a statement about building permit officers in general.
Back in my day, the right wing was "conservative" and used to be the ones making the permitting processes to slow down "progress".
Using regulations and permitting to improve safety, living conditions, and similar things to support people has always been left wing.
Using regulations and permitting to discriminate against people who you don't like is a long standing right wing tactic, but isn't the nature of the complaint I quoted above.
Really? If someone passes a law that criminalizes the activity of migrants, they say they're doing it to improve safety and living conditions. But it seems like the current people in the left-wing tent hate restrictions on migrants and view such regulations as racist.
How did we get to the point where suggesting that you hear out what someone has to say for themselves get equated to "literally defending his choice"?
I'm very far left myself, but I hate this tendency to equate any intellectual engagement with the right wing thought whatsoever with support. It's almost as if rightist politics were some kind of cooties that you catch simply by being in the same room or something.
> It's almost as if rightist politics were some kind of cooties
Rightist politics may not be, but rightist rhetoric surely is. Consider GW Bush' statement "if you're not with us, you're against us" (or the 2025 equivalent "either you support genocide, or you're an antisemite"): where is the room for intellectual engagement in statements such as these?
Your suggested "intellectual engagement" with absolute positions such as these serves absolutely no other purpose than to lend them an air of legitimacy. There absolutely exist rationales that do not deserve to be "heard" or "considered".
Or put another way:
The irony is palpable.
It's amazing isn't it, how a single thought-terminating cliché can so easily inspire others?
> Consider GW Bush' statement "if you're not with us, you're against us" (or the 2025 equivalent "either you support genocide, or you're an antisemite"): where is the room for intellectual engagement in statements such as these?
Why are you considering them, then?
> There absolutely exist rationales that do not deserve to be "heard" or "considered".
How do you know which ones are those if you never hear or consider them?
The practical application of the principle that you espouse is that someone has to intellectually engage with these things, and then decide on behalf of the rest of us proles whether we should be "allowed to lend them the air of legitimacy" or not.
To that I say: there's no socialism without freedom, and there's no freedom in general without freedom to think for yourself and make your own judgments. Any ideology that purports to restrict that is inherently authoritarian, whether on the left or on the right, and should be fought tooth and nail.
I would characterise myself as being very left. Yet people who I perceive as to the right of me perceive themselves as much further left.
I have always considered compassion the driving force underlying left wing views. I really can't understand the mind of the spiteful left, it seems such a contradiction of values.
As for those on the far-left, it's like they want to be their own kind of fascist while also proclaiming to be anti-fascist.
"Far left" can mean a lot of different things, but generally it means far left economic positions (on matters such as property rights, for example). This is orthogonal to authoritarianism though - yes, there's absolutely a large authoritarian left wing tendency, the "tankies", but on the whole in the West various libertarian takes (anarchism, most obviously, but as with right libertarianism there are degrees here) dominate.
>I'm very far left myself,
I know it is now an internet meme, but those who considered themselves far left 10 years ago would no be a moderate.
Only if your definition of "far left" was taken from the likes of Fox and Breitbart, who apply this label to anyone left of Clinton, more or less.
I'm a libertarian socialist though. And by "socialism" I mean all that stuff about the means of production etc, not higher taxes. As far as I'm concerned, the American mainstream left is still closer to American mainstream right than they are to my views.
>I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues.
Its a strange world now where everyone is expected to have a public opinion on everyone else's opinions to keep them in line. Very anti privacy, anti freedom, and against plurality of opinion.
I'm sorry - you're saying that having a public opinion on another person's opinion is against the plurality of opinion?
I didn't read it that way (but I can see multiple possible readings).
Here's my interpretation: When someone has a shitty public opionion, we force others to MAKE PUBLIC their opinions.
And because our society is so polarized, we don't talk about opinions or their nuances; we reduce them to binary views (it's possible they are but not always), we pick a side and we light our torches.
> we pick a side and we light our torches
Some people do that, yes, but I'd argue most simply don't care enough.
Then why does this thread have 1800 comments when most HN threads have a small fraction of that? Half of them are just people virtue signaling that they're no longer paying for this VPN service.
Since davidee mentioned society, I assumed we were speaking in general and not relative to HN.
This thread reads as an example of anything BUT plurality of opinion -- most of the people here never in their lives considered that the country in question has political discourse at all, and what's going on in there politically, so no opinion was ever present.
Furthermore, consider that the opinion-like discourse is clearly performative. We all know what the correct virtue signaling looks like, and we know that we need to ruin every person not doing the correct virtue signaling.
So it's less of a plurality-of-opinion situation, and more of a direct-democracy situation: a lynch mob.
(Not saying it's good or bad btw -- not my circus, not my monkeys. Just dishonest to say we love some sort of plurality while doing this I think.)
To be fair there are also many examples in this thread of courteous, empathetic and intellectual discourse, where people agree to disagree.
Relatively speaking HN is an oasis compared to other platforms. Which makes me wonder, are there forums with an even higher quality than HN?
Largely offline and informal.
That's an interesting idea, and not one I have seen implemented yet.
I think the biggest hurdle for something like that would be selecting and keeping enough like-minded moderators to enforce the quality.
Depends on what you call quality. Not sure if eloquent people defending repugnant politics and views = high quality
No, it's not everyone and it's always been this way. Nobody really cares about the opinion of random strangers.
People care about the opinions of those they're invested in (emotionally, politically, financially, etc.) and it's those opinions they want to know. People want to associate with those who share their values. It has always been this way.
That's... Not really what is happening here.
The guy who made the donation is entitled to his opinions. No one is questioning his right to make a donation.
People are, however, that by paying for the services of a company he owns, they are as a second order effect financing politics they find repugnant.
Really fighting windmills with the hot takes about things that aren't true. "Sweden actually has a hidden wealth tax" and "The money supply is the real inflation!!"
Really in line with typical views of right-leaning people you see on X etc.
Curious, what’s exactly not true about these? The Nordic (and Central European) countries are surely not friendly to people accumulating wealth, and it’s a widely known fact that monetary supply got out of control especially since Covid. Data about it are all available in public.
I wonder if by this thread's logic, it is now my turn to virtue signal as if I'm leaving Mullvad as a customer, because now you said that don't like someone else's freedom of conscience, and I value freedom of conscience.
Such a bad place we're in: people say they value "freedom", but then you can't choose you own political representation without being witch-hunted to death by the same "freedom" group.
(I honestly think that the perfect response in this case would be to support the cofounder, if anything, to make their own choices, and refuse to hate on the person's political leaning. But alas, the chains of freedom are super heavy.)
At 21 century, especially on a topic regarding Europe, I thought we should have long learnt the lesson from how problematic Legal Positivism and naive "freedom" is from Weimarer Republik‘s constitution.
In short, freedom should at least maintain the capability of preserving basic poltical freedom. From my understanding of that party, they are clearly against other people's existing political freedom.
That group is against our political freedoms, so we're naturally against their political freedoms. Are we just doing tribalism and then intellectualizing? (I don't know what the answer is, but I fear it's a resounding "yup".)
The same applies to people who say they support freedom but are then opposed to immigration because their concept of freedom is tied to wealth, privileges, and the preservation of those things. But that has little to do with freedom. We are only free when everyone is free.
> The same applies to people who say they support freedom but are then opposed to immigration
Indeed. Open borders is the ideal. That's also one of the views that Daniel and I share.
The primary financier of a political party that calls immigrants "parasites" does not support open borders.
Claming otherwise is at a minimum disengious, but with absolutly no clarification from Daniel directly, it just reads like you are lying about his stances for PR.
> The primary financier of a political party that calls immigrants "parasites" does not support open borders.
It's his ideal. He states in the Flamman article that it is unfortunately not possible due to mismanagement by the Swedish government.
> clarification from Daniel directly
Read the Flamman article and read his blog. I've linked to it elsewhere in this thread. You can choose to believe me or not.
I can't find the link youre referring to in the vague chaos of this thread, but based on his current donations to a virulently anti immigrant party, it sure seems like your partners feelings have changed about open boarders since it was written. Why is he unable to speak for himself on this matter?
If open boarders are only acceptable when you can refuse immigration based on ethnicity, then no, you do not support open borders. When you work to forcably eject not only first but second generation immigrants, people born in Sweden, based on their ethnicity, you do not support open borders.
The above looks to be a core tenat of Daniel's prefered political party based on their own statements, so its extremely disengious to discuss some old article about supporting free movement while he's actively donating to people who want to brutalize hundred of thousands of Swedish residents because they are the "wrong type" of people.
> You can choose to believe me or not.
You are choosing to ignore that OP and many more people don't believe that otherwise this thread would not even exist.
>without being witch-hunted
I still remember in 2013 to 2021 when this was happening in the US and wider internet on twitter and reddit. A lot of people in Europe / AUS / NZ thought it was some soup opera made up by the internet's few.
> soup opera
Slight note, it’s soap opera. They got that name because the original sponsors were soap manufacturers.
LOL yes. It was a typo.
I don't think you understand what these people view as "freedom".
This isn't a simple difference in political beliefs, they believe that certain groups of people are basically subhuman and don't deserve basic human rights.
How can you support that?
It seems there are a lot of far-right extremest trolls/psychopaths on hacker news. What a disgrace.
"witch-hunted to death" is a fairly generous interpretation of "I am no longer going to be a Mullvad customer" don't you think?
> If it were a small amount of money, it wouldn’t be an issue.
I'm not speaking for or against anyone's views for or against anything here, but it's worth noting that Brendan Eich's $1K donation caused quite the stir.
If you bought the product, the money went to the company. You don't need to take personal responsibility beyond that, and the company isn't doing the thing you hate so much. By the same token that "some of your money might end up (after many twists and turns) empowering politics you find repugnant", a much bigger share of this money is paying for the food on the table of the employees, their families and their children.
How many people unrelated with your personal gripe, people that were doing a good job since you were paying and satisfied customer, are you willing to punish in order to "send a message"?
This is an impossible standard to live by and demand from everything you buy and every service you pay for. Doubly so if you need to announce to the world you're dropping a product because of something that isn't done by or responsibility of its employees.
I am so so disappointed with Mullvad and this founder. I can’t believe I let myself get suckered and then paid up-front for the year again.
The only influence I have is with my money.
Perhaps you should talk to customer support and try to get your money back. Even if it won't work, there's no faster way to reach the company to make a stand than to have an explicit paper trail to customers that are leaving them because of this.
I am sympathetic to the sentiment, but the argument does not hold water.
> the fact remains some of my money can end up empowering politics I find repugnant
are you paying taxes? are you using gasoline? are you paying for amazon?
Some ratio of your money will always go toward something you hate. The big question is: is for a mulvad subscription that ratio bigger than for the alternative? The next question is: how is the ratio for things you like?
No offense, but you're being so dramatic for no reason. You're not that important, and it doesn't matter what you believe. Your comment just reeks of smugness and immaturity.
Hi Fredrik
I’m a long time Mullvad customer, likely paid Mullvad upward of 400€ in the past number of years, as well as recommended it to friends and family members.
What you seem to be missing in your comment, is that some of that money I paid, found its way to support an organisation that has extreme racist views.
I’ve reached out to support and requested a refund of my outstanding credit.
I’ll be moving on.
Where will you move to?
Are there any alternatives left?
For me, Proton isn't one.. not sure what else there is.
IVPN, NymVPN
What is the issue with Proton?
Not just “support”, it’s literally the main source of funds for the party. >70% of donations. If it was a small donation that would be sort of controversial but maybe defendable, but here we are talking about funding pretty much the whole party
I did the same, except I'm paying for Mullvad through the Tailscale partnership, so I reached out to them and expressed my desire for them to partner with other privacy focused VPN providers like Njalla, Airvpn and others. I don't feel great about my money funding ethno-fascists in my country.
Hi. I get what you mean. I made that post with limited time. Sorry to hear you're leaving.
Hi Kamaitachi,
What you seem to be missing is that every single € you've spent on virtually anything in the past number of years, some of it has found its way to support organisations that have extreme racist views.
I'm a long-time Mullvad customer, and I respect what the company has been doing and the pro-privacy political stance it openly and publicly stands for.
I agree that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission, and shouldn't be.
But what I do care about, strongly, is that Mullvad as a company doesn't bow to pressure from pro-immigration activists who are attempting to impose social and financial consequences on people and institutions like Mullvad that tolerate anti-immigration political speech. Which is of course why people are publicizing this donation and publicly stating that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because of it.
I want to state publicly that what would make me no longer do business with Mullvad is if Mullvad, organizationally, attempted to pressure Daniel Berntsson into not donating to anti-immigration political parties because it induces pro-immigration activists to attempt to boycott the company. I don't want to live in a world where people trying to run a pro-privacy VPN feel pressure to police anti-immigration speech unrelated to the core mission among people in their organization, and that's the principle that my customer dollars are riding on.
> I'm a long-time Mullvad customer, and I respect what the company has been doing and the pro-privacy political stance it openly and publicly stands for.
Thank you.
The speech people are objecting to isn't anti-immgiration. It is pro crimes against humanity against people who previously immigrated, and their descendants.
A stance that Sweden should reduce the amount of immigration they accept would be utterly unremarkable and never result in outrage like this.
> A stance that Sweden should reduce the amount of immigration they accept would be utterly unremarkable and never result in outrage like this.
I don't believe this claim, because immigration is a live political issue in my country (the United States) just as it is in Sweden; and people absolutely claim that reducing the amount of immigration the US accepts is immoral and genocidal. Seriously, claims of this nature are a huge amount of contemporary American politics and this is obvious to anyone who has seen the name "Donald Trump" in a news publication talking about the US in the past decade. Also I've read Bryan Caplan's argument that not having open borders is morally equivalent to Jim Crow, and read plenty of other people who think similarly to him.
> people absolutely claim that reducing the amount of immigration the US accepts is immoral and genocidal
I'm in the US too. Can you provide some sources?
A simple google search finds quite a bit
https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion/comments/1llz6...
One Reddit thread that wasn't even on my first page isn't saying much. Top comments are mostly that mass deportations and forced removal are what's problematic, not limiting entry or reducing immigration in the first place.
Immigration in the US is a completely different problem with its own crazy complex history of cause and effect. Using one as a lens to study the other seems foolish at best.
That is sort of the point, this has become a wedge issue to separate people. You are either pro-immigration (world wide) or not.
It's the same "You're either with us or not" argument that forces a side.
So it is related.
No, plenty of people in the US want to limit illegal immigration and expand legal avenues.
It’s the Democrats and Republican politicians and party activists who can’t compromise. The Democrats don’t address illegal immigration, even the easy wins like when immigrants were placed in hotels while homeless Americans were in the street and crummy shelters (Maine). Then Trump finally deports criminals, but also technically-illegal people who’ve lived decades and started families here (and haven’t commit any crimes beyond speeding tickets), and restricts and harasses legal immigrants.
There’s something wrong with politics where parties can’t even accept the most obvious exceptions to their “controversial” issues, maybe because of the stupid “slippery slope”. I expect people to fight over 1 million refugees who aren’t misbehaving but overloading systems. I don’t expect people to fight over an immigrant who assaulted someone, or a legal immigrant who is giving more than they take.
> Which is of course why people are publicizing this donation and publicly stating that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because of it.
But you're doing the same thing, making the same threat. You've only escalated it from a conscientious protest to a Mexican stand off.
I'm not icked-out by immigration discussion, but I am concerned by business owners starting down a political path. VPNs are not a very glamorous segment of the industry, and Mullvad had carved out a niche in taking a neutral side and fostering trust through a transparent product. My former boss spoke well of them and visited their sites in-person after hearing the marketing line about their RAM-only VPNs. Their appeal was not in protecting politicized speech, but protecting all speech and defending it as an apolitical technological imperative.
Now more than ever, it's hard for me to believe their brand identity. You're allowed to have political opinions, voice them and vote for them when you're a CEO. But spending your paycheck on inordinate political investments is how you ask for a boycott. It's how I would feel about any political investment that their CEOs make, and its already tarnished the Mullvad brand for me.
> But you're doing the same thing, making the same threat. You've only escalated it from a conscientious protest to a Texas stand off.
Yup, because I want the people attempting the conscientious protest to have less power to influence businesses and the people businesses employ. An apolitical firm is less likely to bow to pressure from one group of activists if they know that another, opposing group of activists is paying attention to how they respond to pressure from the first group of activists. Really, this has nothing at all to do with Mullvad specifically, except it does happen that I am a long-time customer of theirs.
> Now more than ever, it's hard for me to believe their brand identity. You're allowed to have political opinions, voice them and vote for them when you're a CEO. But spending customer money on political campaigns is how you ask for a boycott. It's how I would feel about any political investment that their CEOs make, and its already tarnished the Mullvad brand for me.
I don't see a meaningful difference between voicing political opinions and voting based on them, and making private donations to a political cause. Any money at all that an owner of a company spends on anything, down to their groceries, comes from their ownership of the company; just as any money at all that an employee of a company spends on anything comes from their salary.
But also lots of CEOs of companies make all kinds of political donations, many of which I think are bad. The reason this particular donation is making the news is because it's to an anti-immigration party rather than a pro-immigration party or NGO or some other cause; and a lot of people want to exert social pressure to make that specific political stance dangerous. Those are exactly the people I want to lose.
> I don't see a meaningful difference between voicing political opinions and voting based on them, and making private donations to a political cause.
One of them is enabled by customer trust and investment, the other isn't? People wouldn't want to cut off their money if it wasn't going towards political parties. It's the connection between the business and the private donations that is causing the outrage, Mullvad's brand can't really escape that sort of conflation once their CEOs spend their paycheck on those donations. Same goes for the rest of Big Tech, look at Oracle or Meta for example.
> The reason this particular donation is making the news is because it's to an anti-immigration party
It's because Mullvad had an apolitical reputation. Maybe it was a lie, maybe it wasn't, but by either CEO investing in a non-privacy stance they're risking the brand appeal they once had. It's unfortunate, and I don't think it has to be a winners/loser mentality like you're pushing forward. These sorts of investments are the ones that erode principled businesses and divide their customerbase. Whether or not you agree with it is inconsequential, it's the political vacillation that is concerning beyond the outrage/fringe politics angle.
Today you might support them, next year you might be wishing you never gave them the confidence. I understand why many customers, even apolitically, see this as their breaking point.
> But you're doing the same thing, making the same threat.
"I'll boycott you if you keep supporting free speech" and "I'll boycott you if you stop supporting free speech" are hardly the same thing, especially when aimed at a company whose business is all about free speech, which at the dismay of some people also includes speech you don't like.
> pro-immigration activists
literally translated, “humans with empathy”
Hello Fredrik! As a heavy user of Mullvad in the past, easily spending hundreds of euros over the years, I was reserving my judgement to see what the official statement on this would be. Thank you, now I have my answer.
> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission.
It should be obvious that what people are concerned is their money being used to support these political causes, whether it was done in a way that keeps the company out of it or not is besides the point. Daniel, of course, is free to choose what to do with his money. I am, too, and based on this I will be making a choice to not spend any more money on Mullvad subscriptions. Nothing personal, and it's a shame because I have nothing but praise for the technical side of it. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
It should be obvious that he's perfectly fine with your decision because he wrote exactly that in the post you just replied to.
Of course. Sorry to hear you're leaving. Thank you for the compliment.
As a customer I can no longer support you.
But as someone that has been in a similar situation to you, I understand it's tough to end up building something big with someone who's politics you do not agree with. I would seriously urge you to consider building something new that rejects this kind of politics explicitly.
I'm sorry to hear that.
Oh, I definitely agree with some of his political opinions, the obvious ones being around free speech, free press, and privacy.
There are important issues where we don't agree. His values around empathy stretch to most sentient beings, and he believes I commit torture when I eat fish for lunch. And he's still willing to associate with me.
>he's still willing to associate with me
Presumably because you are not an immigrant (or the child of an immigrant).
You presume wrong. He has nothing against immigrants as a group. He sees open borders as the ideal, and have since he was a teenager. As far as I can tell the only reason he doesn't actively advocate for it at the moment is because of mismanagement of the government. Something like that. I don't want to say more because I don't want to misrepresent his views.
The above isn't believable. He gave $500,000 to a political org that has explicitly called immigrants "parasites," dehumanizing phrasing that mirrors Nazi speech and has been used to justify mass murder.
He is in fact the main financial patron of this racist political party. Saying he supports open borders at the same time is just a flat non sequitur.
> The above isn't believable.
Ok. Let me try. Please note that I am in no way defending Daniel's decision nor Örebropartiet. I'm simply responding to your claim that my previous statement is not believable.
> He gave $500,000 to a political org that has explicitly called immigrants "parasites,"
That sounds horrible.
I looked it up. Here's [1] a video of that debate in the municipal government. FYI, I would characterise the website as quite right-wing and generally not very trustworthy, but there is a video of Markus Allard along with the quotes.
The title of the video is something about a proposal regarding long-term unemployed individuals. He seems to be talking specifically about long-term unemployed immigrants, 10-20 years. He's complaining that he doesn't think it's right to allow them financial living assistance while Örebro is defunding social services for older people. I have no idea about the actual truth value of any of his statements.
Horrible way of talking about people, but in this case not immigrants in general, it seems. Within the context of people who have supposedly been unemployed for 10-20 years, I understand (but don't agree with) why he says those individuals are parasites.
> dehumanizing phrasing that mirrors Nazi speech and has been used to justify mass murder.
Indeed. His choice of words is dehumanizing.
> Saying he supports open borders at the same time is just a flat non sequitur.
Daniel has a blog that goes back to 2016 where he talks about waste of tax payers' money. What he expresses in his blog is consistent with classical liberalism, which in turn is consistent with freedom of movement.
Where is the flat non sequitur?
[1]: https://www.friatider.se/kaosdebatten-allard-kallar-sverige-...
Remigration -- which Örebropartiet stands for -- is the opposite of freedom of movement. Stop trying to rationalize away what your cofounder clearly supports.
Thank you for everything you do Fredrik. Very happy to be a customer of a company that supports freedom and privacy for everyone regardless of views.
> that supports freedom ... for everyone
Unless you happen to be of Somalian descent in Sweden. Then you should be ripped away from the only home you've ever known, indeed possibly the only country you've ever been in, and sent to a foreign country you have no citizenship in, where you have no home, don't understand the language, know no one, and be forced to try and survive.
> don't understand the language
Seriously? It's not like the Somalis have been in Sweden that long.
Their children might not speak their language.
Most of those children wouldn't be able to communicate with their own parents, if that were the case.
Somalis are usually not spread out among the natives. They tend to clump together in ethnic enclaves where it is very easy to learn Somali (and where life is unpleasant for the unfortunate child who doesn't learn it).
And some parents do learn Swedish so their children might not know their parents native language. Or have you inspected every Somalian family in Sweden? It might not be that many, but doesn't make his point any less true.
I'd say it makes it "fewer" true ;)
Surely we can agree that if such kids exist then they must be very, very few in number?
So its okay then I guess?
Do you know of one, or is this some hypothetical think of the children argument to get sympathy?
Not just against it for children, at this point they might be grown up attending university or even working. In theory it would even apply to my colleagues which have become citizens but do not speak Swedish.
I don't believe that integration has worked well either, but it doesn't mean that I think we should "send back" people that were born here and don't have any other citizenship.
But they do.
That's actually one of the biggest problems with mass migration - that all incentives go against integration into the host culture.
This is entirely false, not every country is the USA. Sweden does not have birthright citizenship. Most Somalis and their children in Sweden are not Swedish citizens.
To add, they all retain their Somali citizenship.
Nowhere did I say anything about them being Swedish citizens - though I'll note if that distinction mattered at all (it doesn't) "most" wouldn't be good enough.
I said they weren't necessarily Somali citizens. Somali citizenship when born outside the country is more complicated than that and will not be universal.
Either way legal status is just one of many reasons why this would be a horrific crime against humanity requiring prosecution by the Hague under the Rome statutes. You're still ripping an entire ethnic group away from their homes.
Thank you!
Thank you for supporting the civil liberties and individual freedom of expression!
Thank you. :)
What you said makes sense, but what the founders do matters. I'll never buy a Tesla car because of Elon's actions. I cancelled my Amazon Prime subscription because of Bezos' actions.
There are plenty of people for whom it doesn't matter, but for some it does.
Indeed. It matters to me. In fact, most of my political opinions have atrophied, or rather I have self-censored. Daniel believes that is not the right trade-off to make in this case. I understand his point of view, and disagree.
And to be sure, I agree Daniel is entitled to his opinions and the right to do with his money as he pleases. Of course there may be business consequences for doing so in terms of how the user base reacts.
I think the bigger problem -- and I don't know the rules for political donations in Sweden -- is that any individual is able to pour millions into a political party of any persuasion. In the US this situation is made much worse since a Supreme Court ruling known as Citizens United which opened the floodgates for the ultra-wealthy to bankroll politicians. But that's another discussion altogether.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_finance_in_Sweden
> is that any individual is able to pour millions into a political party of any persuasion.
It's an even bigger problem that political parties are heavily subsidized by the state, which favours the establishment.
This goes beyond purely monetary subsidies. Some people employed by the state have an essentially political function or have a large political influence over the population and they have been hired (and incentivized) by the established parties over decades.
> 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.
Nope, that is what will get you taken over by the assholes. Reasonable defense is necessary in reality. There ARE bad actors, they must be kept out.
Everyone has their own definition of a bad actor. The fact that you're implying to know how to spot them says a lot about your tolerance for differences in opinion.
I think you're just bad at identifying assholes
You would have been so much better off just ending on the, already obvious BS, part about how his views aren't the companies. Instead, you went on to downplay the obvious problem.
Mullvad was one of the last products I felt I could honestly recommend, and feel good about. Never falling for this garbage again. The world is complete shit right now.
I'm sorry to hear that. For what it's worth I think there's nuance in his decision that most people don't see. Of course that doesn't mean I think it was the right decision to make.
Here's something worth considering: why would someone whose ideal is open borders, who has been an animal rights activist, and someone who has led Mullvad for 17 years (with the track record it has), choose to donate to this party? If you like what Daniel and I have done together over the past 17 years, and now vehemently oppose his choice to make this donation, doesn't that make you just a little bit curious?
It made me curious. It didn't change my ultimate stance, but it did temper my emotions about it.
What are you inferring here? That your friend only makes moral choices, so this one should be judged through the same lense?
What "moral choice" specifically was Daniel supporting?
> That your friend only makes moral choices ..?
No. I observed that they liked Mullvad and now considers it complete garbage. I shared some priors with them, suggesting that there is evidence that they haven't seen yet. This evidence didn't change my stance on the party, or Daniel's donation. It did make me understand, which is not the same as agreeing.
A political discourse which only knows 0 or 1, GOOD or BAD, Nazi or Good, is not a healthy discourse. There's almost always something to learn, if you lean into curiosity instead of just labeling things right away.
So your stance seems to be "It's okay to fund Nazis as long as you like what they have to say about the trains running on time."
I understand that you want to defend you business and your friend, but signing up with the Nazi party means you sign up with all of it. I find it highly unlikely your cofounder was unaware of the rest of the racist and viscous rhetoric when he opened his checkbook to buy the party the equivalent of a house.
Mullvad likely makes good money, but thats not a casual "I read this one article and didn't look into it deeper" kind of donation for anyone.
> There ARE bad actors, they must be kept out.
There are very good (and well-documented) reasons to believe a large part of the recently immigrated foreigners in Sweden are exactly such bad actors.
Your arguments don't really work the way you seem to think they do.
Recently? Some people have been saying foreigners are bad for 30 years.
Of course sir, just like the chancellor of Germany's time on the board of Blackrock doesn't have anything to do with his full commitment to doing what's best for the German people as chancellor. I think it would be crazy to suggest otherwise.
Politics and the company you own somehow having to do with each other and influencing each other? Preposterous. Wouldn't happen!
That's great and all but can I have a refund for the portion of my mullvad subscription that went to supporting organizations who think that people like me don't deserve to live?
Can you point to the charter where the Örebro party ever said that you don't deserve to live?
The embellishments of what people actually believe is extremely exhausting.
FWIW, I'm an immigrant in Sweden and if they gained power I would be affected, but we talk about people with differing views to us as if they're actively violent in order to shut down conversation.
This catasphrophising language will eventually not help your cause, because ordinary people start to feel numb to it and the hard-right will not be defeated by it.
Talking about how entire races of people deserve to be deported is active violence
So “don’t deserve to live” is down to “violence”.
Q: When people seek asylum, is the expectation that they should return when its safe?
Or is taking in 10% of population mean that you have a permanent minority population that is part of a permanent underclass similar to how black people have it in the US?
Genuinely asking.
Does that line of thinking hold when this party has also said they also want to deport people born in Sweden?
>"They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish."
Sure, children of asylum seekers should probably live with their parents when they return to their home countries.
It's worth reminding people that gaining citizenship by birth location is NOT even close universal around the world and that people inherit citizenship from their parents is not some radical far right notion.
That you consider immigrants to be automatically part of an 'underclass' is very telling of the stigmatisation of asylum seekers.
Some of them are doctors and scientists especially from places like Syria.
> That you consider immigrants to be automatically part of an 'underclass' is very telling of the stigmatisation of asylum seekers.
What? Motherfucker I am part of the underclass, it's brutally hard to escape the underclass and unfortunately if you turn up to a country with no connections, no safety net, no money and no applicable skills then: YOU ARE PART OF THE UNDERCLASS.
Why are all the Foodora drivers Arab? do you think Arabs are pre-disposed for food delivery? No, it's because gig-work that barely pays the bills is the only option for many: this is disgusting servitude, barely surviving like this.
> Some of them are doctors and scientists especially from places like Syria.
Doctors from Syria who don't speak Swedish, need to pass a bunch of Swedish certifications to practice and cannot take female patients aren't going to get along well.
It's a valid point and one I would grant you, but it's very true that the observed reality of things is that asylum seekers are the most vulnerable in society.
Pretending they're not doesn't make this not the case.
My ex is an immigrant from a poor country and she does this kind of job, like driving uber. For a middle man who provides the car so it's not very lucrative.
Doesn't mean you're automatically underclass. In her whole family nobody is involved in anything criminal. In terms of wealth I would consider them middle class. Like me, I'm also a middle class immigrant though from a western (richer than here) country with university education. I'm just not very ambitious so I coast in a middle level job by choice.
But they all came here with nothing more than high school diplomas. They just work harder for it than I do. Nights, tough work etc. She worked very hard to get a local passport too. Because that's not easy these days.
The stereotype of immigrants ending up straight in the ghetto is incorrect IMO.
1) An outlier wouldn’t prove any point about average trends.
Its a well understood point, even to the point that it ends up in economic and sociological studies.[0]
2) “Middle class” is not living paycheck to paycheck, I guess “middle” depends on which country you live in, but in Sweden if you don’t earn well or have secured employment (Ie; paid sick days) then people would likely not call you middle class.
In the UK, most people are working class (not middle) which is more defined by high income white collar work. In the US its based more on yearly income than the type of work or how secure it is. So middle class has many definitions and none of them cover gig-workers.
Working hard isn’t the point, i guess you’re arguing the permanency part, while glossing over where I said its very hard to escape the underclass, even though you’re clearly admitting that its very hard.
FWIW it might help to read a definition of what Underclass means, natives are also a major part of the underclass especially in the UK; its not a derogatory term, its a state of being that is hard to escape: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class_in_the_United_Kin...
So, talking about an outlier who works hard, does nothing to talk about how the overwhelming majority are stuck. Unless you’re going to say every asylum seeker is superhuman, and truthfully now- we’re not talking hypotheticals, we have decades of migration information across the UK and Sweden to compare.
Arguing against what actually happens and talking about statistical outliers as the norm is disingenuous at best and immoral at worst.
[0]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026427512...
Nope, sorry, talking is never violence.
Ah yes, so if say Hitler says "millions of people should die" then it's not violence, it's "just" words.
Come to Ukraine and witness real "active violence". This is ridiculous.
There is more to violence than physical violence you know. Verbal, emotional violence is violence as often seen in domestic abuse cases.
Its not that they start to feel numb, they didn't care in the first place. I have had random co-workers start talking about how they don't want foreigners in Finland and that in Sweden immigrants (maybe you) get free money and don't work.
Asylum seekers in the EU indeed get a monthly allowance and are prohibited from working. Is this not a known fact?
They need to get permission, but they can work. I did mention that this person wanted all foreigners out.
Which is a direct result of the right-wing conservatives complaining about them taking locals' jobs. There are some exceptions like for Ukrainian refugees.
By the way this is only during the validation of their asylum-seeker status. Once they get permanent residency they can work.
Fredrik, thank you for a clear and honest statement of Mullvad's position rather than corporate word salad.
> 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.
> That said, if you no longer want to be a Mullvad customer for philosophical reasons, we think it's important to honor that
Combining the above statements, would you have any recommendations on VPN providers for people who choose to leave Mullvad? As you will agree, anonymity and privacy are under attack the world over and even people who leave Mullvad deserve have access to tools enabling the same.
The VPN space is a cesspool of shady operators who seem to spend more on marketing than technology and it's really hard even for the HN audience to know which providers are legit. This is where your background and experience are really valuable, so any recommendations would be very welcome.
Yes, I am aware that the ask here is to endorse a competitor, however if someone has made up their mind to leave Mullvad, they are going to do so anyway. Enabling them to do so while retaining their anonymity and privacy will go a long way in advancing the political aims Mullvad stands for.
Hi! No worries. I haven't spoken with Nick Pestell of IVPN in ages, but he's always struck me as genuine and empathetic. We met the first time at RightsCon in 2018 I believe. TunnelBear and ExpressVPN were also there. We all wrote this thing together: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2018/10/17/signals-trustworthy-v...
Since those conversations I've always thought that IVPN is closest aligned with Mullvad's values. Again, I haven't spoken with Nick in ages, so I don't know what IVPN is doing now.
Thank you! I wasn't even aware that IVPN existed.
Obviously there are not easy solutions here. Has Mullvad considered offering to buy out Daniel's shares?
The mission statement that Mullvad has promised it's users does (did) come with a duty of care.
In my eyes that mission statement is compromised, it either dies here and Mullvad is just another product financing political parties by proxy, or something is done.
I hope you find a way to protect Mullvad from actions that are counter to your mission statements.
> We also live these values by being tolerant in our daily work.
> The more people do this, the better a place the world will be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
The more people tolerate the far right, the worse the world will be because they will take your good faith and use it to extinguish tolerance for anyone but themselves. This is literally textbook. I don't know how you can invoke the word tolerance without understanding this.
A lot of the far right is using anger about too much tolerance of intolerant religions brought into a country via immigration
Oh what a complex web this business of tolerance is...
I am really frustrated about that donation. I am an LGBT person, and I fear that a service I have paid for for many years will found someone who wants all my human rights gone. That I am supporting someone who just wants me to stop existing. I am not sure what VPN provider I could use that is even half as trustworthy as mullvad and I am not sure what to do.
Thanks for supporting civil liberties.
>Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment is also liberating and promotes truth seeking
I agree 100%, which is why the dehumanizing intolerance of the Mullvad CEO completely disqualifies your organization from being on the same side as that statement.
> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission
Why should this be obvious? I don't think that's obvious at all. The owner of a company could very easily decide to one day use their company to further their political beliefs/ideologies (see: Twitter, FaceBook, etc..). Why would Mullvad be any different?
I'm sorry to hear you'll be leaving us.
To answer your question, we started building this organization in the summer of 2008 for idealistic reasons, and we are still idealists who think privacy is fundamental to a civilized society.
The best strategy for achieving societal impact through entrepreneurship is consistent, long-term, and value-based ownership. For us, this disqualifies taking outside investment, either through venture capital or going public. Mullvad has instead been growing organically without outside investments.
Our principles have withstood the test of time. Our conviction has remained unchanged through multiple serious offers of acquisition and outside investment. Words are cheap of course, but consistent action over the course of almost two decades is not.
Mullvad is about privacy. Neither Daniel nor I have used Mullvad's brand to promote our personal opinions.
It's stupid when one of the CEOs of a private VPN company decides to fund political actors. That's just PR issue bound to happen. Funding bad actors bites you every single time - so maybe have a chat about if you have seen this coming - and if not why were you blind to this?
On top of this don't change your service based on this outrage. If you change it, then you will prove that Mullvad is malleable by political pressure. You can guess what happens next...
Well said, You have a new paying customer from me and I will advocate for others to use Mullvad.
Going to sign up now through the tailscale partnership.
For whatever it's worth I use Mullvad because it lets me pay in Bitcoin is super easy to re-up and is super anonymous.
I don't really give a darn who you voted for or what your founder did. I like the product I'll keep using it.
Do you happen to drive a Tesla?
Even if they do, it's none of your business.
Your opinion has been duly noted thank you for sharing.
If you still wonder why there are sudden attacks on Mullvad, I "heard" there are Chinese (in addition to the others; dual- / triple- vendoring is key) LLM-based tools to check for swarm origins and campaigns.
Hi Fredrik, long time user of your service.
I have to say, this is a disappointing message. The thing about intolerant movements is that tolerance doesn't fix them, it makes them worse and lets them accumulate power until they can destroy the tolerant.
I'd recommend reading Karl Popper and his Paradox of Tolerance, which he formulated after seeing this exact thing play out in his native Austria with the rise of the Nazis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Hi! Thank you. Both Daniel and I are well aware of Karl Popper. We've both been interested in politics since we were teenagers.
As a counter argument to your marketing fluff comment:
Name a single instance of right wing parties that did not violate all human rights the second they got in power. Name one, I dare you.
And no, historically such a fairytale world does not exist that you're trying to paint here. All right wing parties feed off aggression, painting humans as enemies, and populistic lies. It's always been this way, always will be this way.
Not a Mullvard customer anymore, and going to never recommend you again for any person that asks me in the future.
Go to history class if you still can't see the truth in my comment. I'm German, and that's our fucked up history, and our messed up ancestry of people "that just followed orders" that I have zero tolerance for. Your fairytale comment reads like the "Hitler just wants peace" protests during WW2.
There is always a democratic and peaceful option, and right wing parties never choose that option. It's unsystematic to how they fundamentally work.
You may try to unsuccessfully hold this distinction, but at the end of the day money that I give to your company ends up being used by far-right politicians to oppose Mullvad's supposed mission.
Whatever what you say and so, it doesn't change the fact a part of my money is going to end up in an absolutely disgusting political party and other potentially terrible stuff. After so many years, I'm done with Mullvad.
I'm pretty familiar with these right-wingers that claim to fight for "freedom of speech" they all end up fighting for "freedom of speech for the things I want to say, jail for those who oppose me." The 2024-2025 swing was pretty extreme on that front.
Political extremists are all the same, left or right, nobody should be surprised because they seek power above all else.
I had been pretty concerned about the level of advertising for Mullvad I've seen recently, that's usually a really bad sign for a VPN type company. But seeing this comment, in combination with the news article linked here, tells me everything I need to know for trust.
VPNs are all about trust. Mullvad has completely broken all trust with me.
Do you think any of the people publicly claiming that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because Daniel Berntsson donates to an anti-immigration political party, wouldn't make donating to that party an illegal, jail-able legal offense if they had the political power to do so?
Racial discrimination is illegal where I live, and I believe that's a good thing. Political parties that advocate racism are simply antithetical to the whole concept of liberal democracy.
Why would we? There are plenty of us that believe in free speech, but would rather not see our money go towards bankrolling further destroying public discourse like you see Allard doing. It is perfectly possible to forward your opinions without setting the public square on fire. The kind of rhetoric that you profess here is dangerous and I see it all too often in the US. If no side attempts to hold the high ground, all we will have is a race towards the bottom and at some point arguing that it is high time to send the other side off to the camps and that is not a future I want to see.
Any? As in one of them? Maybe. I think it’s incredibly unlikely though, and I think you’re making a huge and questionable leap. Boycotting a business isn’t normally a precursor to fascist dictatorship.
Fredrik, can we expect you to start a new company with the same values without the bullshit?
This response completely fails to address what is the issue for me and many others, and frankly I find it quite offensive. The Örebro Party uses racist and transphobic rhetoric and dog whistles, and openly advocates for ethnic cleansing. Their political actions have already hurt people I care about. Berntsson's donation is explicitly meant to support the party in bringing their politics to the national level. This would bring material harm to me, to family and friends, and to many others.
And Berntsson's ability to fund ÖP in doing that harm is directly linked to the financial success of Mullvad. Whether you or Mullvad agrees or disagrees with Berntsson or ÖP is irrelevant. Thanks to Berntsson, more money to Mullvad means more harm to us. So why on Earth would I pay you anything?! On the contrary, it would quite obviously be in our best interests if Mullvad fails as a company, if possible to such an extent that Berntsson is ruined financially and can no longer fund "nationalist socialist" parties such as ÖP.
It just doesn't matter whether Mullvad believes in free speech or not, not when Berntsson is making it so that giving you money causes us to be persecuted and harmed. And to be perfectly honest, I find your framing of this as "philosophical" to be profoundly appalling, and it tells me that you do not at all understand what is actually going on.
I'm sorry to hear that. Since writing that response I've added plenty more to this thread.
> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission.
No, in fact, the opposite of this is obvious.
How do you figure?
Money that leaves your wallet and goes to Mullvad ends up funding politicians that believe non-whites shouldn’t have speech at all, as a personal choice by a top executive of the company.
The company’s values aren’t reflected accurately if you believe your money is funding free speech regardless of race.
It's a company: the deal is that they help enable free speech of their customers, not everyone on earth or everyone in Sweden or anywhere else.
A great litmus test for the (somewhat outrageous) claims in this thread: does Mullvad refuse to provide service to non-white immigrants in Sweden? If yes, then you have a point. If no, I do not think Mullvad is the entity that is confused in this situation.
Do you typically start companies that are opposed to your values, or do you start companies that align with your values?
If you are the co-CEO of a company, will you push it to align more with your values, or less?
This isn't a company founded 300 years ago by a long-dead evil man in a business vertical completely unrelated to how it started, it's a baby company with the evil founder still actively involved at the highest level of management. Maybe you can regale me with epic stories about the companies you've worked at where the founder had no ability to influence the company and its values, but that's not been my experience at all, in any human organization anywhere.
Two things:
1. People definitely start companies with a certain set of values and behaviors (as a company) and do entirely separate things in their private life. This is trivially true.
2. I don't think the personal values and the business mission in this case are even in conflict. You can be a racist and support free speech / privacy. Indeed, I'd actually say the venn diagram of "racists" and "people who vociferously espouse free speech ideals" is more union than it is disjoint.
1. You can't separate it out that cleanly, your beliefs bleed into what you do, no matter who you are or what you believe, and vice versa. I also don't think people start companies that are in contradiction with their values, and they definitely don't remain co-CEOs of them.
2. I don't think they're in conflict, either, I think the company's values are the founders' values and I think those values have been revealed to be bad.
You actually need to demonstrate that though. I have seen no evidence of Mullvad (again, as a company) behaving in a racist or anti-immigrant manner. Until that has been demonstrated, you cannot just say "this guy behaves this way so that is what his company does".
Regardless you can always say "I don't want to give this company money because that indirectly is gonna funnel money to an anti-immigrant political party in Sweden", and that is a perfectly valid position to take. But a lot of people in this thread are clearly going a step further than that, ostensibly in an attempt to give them a greater sense of moral superiority than is necessarily deserved.
> Until that has been demonstrated, you cannot just say "this guy behaves this way so that is what his company does".
No, actually, I can say that. I just did. I'll do it again: I think Mullvad is a bad company if they have the absolute lack of morality and foresight to keep this jerk on as co-CEO, his values must and will influence the company, and they won't get another penny of my money for as long as I live.
You seem to think that my money should be spent according to your misguided and incorrect demands for rigor in my moral thinking, and that's just not how any of this works, buddy. The way it works is this: if Mullvad wants any of my money, they must prove to ME that they are not evil. The burden is entirely on them, as they want my money, not the other way around.
I was entertaining this conversation because you seemed genuinely curious about my opinion initially. I now see that you're actually trying to police my morality and tell me what is or isn't justified about how I make my own moral choices. I am no longer interested in talking to you about this.
I explicitly said it is your right to operate that way. But that doesn't mean your unproven accusations ("the company is evil") are true. It just means that is how you are choosing to operate / that is the standard of evidence you require for your positions. Many people (myself included) disagree with such a low bar: innocent until proven guilty (and not guilt by association) and all that.
Is IKEA fascist? Because the founder was a Nazi supporter; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvar_Kamprad
I'm not saying this to dunk on IKEA, but sometimes even when there's a sole founder, the mission of the company and the mission of the person who founded it do not necessarily align.
EDIT: It also seems that the party is extremely left leaning but is anti-immigration, as a person who lives in Swedens third largest city (which is predominantly non-Swedish, like myself: I am also an immigrant) I can understand Swedes desire to minimise this, it's not a "far-right" topic anymore.
Is IKEA's founder alive and currently donating lots of money to a political party advocating for mass deportation of "parasites"? If so let me know and I will stop buying IKEA furniture!
You seriously didn't buy IKEA furniture 10 years ago?
I do not believe you.
Regardless: do you think IKEA did more to promote Naziism in the decades that proceeded Ingvars death, or more after?
(the answer is of course: the exact same amount, which is none).
If you're unhappy making people wealthy who you disagree with, unfortunately I'm going to have to suggest that you disengage with society, your taxes fuel wars (largely against brown people), you're forced to use technology created with slave labour in order to engage with banking applications and you're going to be really mad when you discover what goes into your food.
Taking an absolute position against one person who creates a service that would allow you to evade fascism is pretty ironic given the way the world is going regarding online speech.
"Yet you participate in society. Curious!"
Yes, we must cleanse every provider of wrongthink, especially those who might help us to speak without being censored or moderated, and tracked with ID.
We must make sure that they follow our politics.
Of course you would set up another strawman for this. Yes, very intelligent, declining to support a business when their founders have odious politics is exactly the government's thought police enforcing wrongthink violations.
An honest question: Would you like to live in a world where company/employer exerts more control over the views that are publicly expressed?
Do you actually want voting to happen via wallet?
This whole view kinda confounds me. I don't see how you can honestly profess to be on the tolerant/right side, morally, while trying to boycott someones business over his political views. Would you have preferred early feminists or LGBT advocates to be hounded in their professional life? Would it have been better for more people to do that?
If you want to vote for or against Örebropartiet, then just do it at the booth.
Plenty of people here basically seem to indirectly advocate for company based censorship and some kind of budget-plutocracy, and no matter how "morally correct" your views are, that is under no circumstances a worthwhile endeavor.
> An honest question: Would you like to live in a world where company/employer exerts more control over the views that are publicly expressed?
I don't really object to you asking this question, but I do object to you calling a rhetorical question "an honest question".
The question is not rhetorical. A lot of people in this thread advocate for hurting Berntssons career for the political views he expressed with his donation.
I personally believe that a lot of those people did not think through the consequences at all: Making it acceptable/typical/common for political expression to be punished at the workplace would obviously lead to self-censorship and direct/indirect censorship by employers.
My view is that this is utterly incompatible with liberalism (but a lot of the proponents would claim to lean liberal themselves!). I have not found good counterarguments for my current view so far.
This is about what customers are comfortable supporting. This guy doesn't just have what many consider to be unpalatable political beliefs, he's one of the biggest funders of what many consider to be an unpalatable political party. Lots of people don't want to give money to something which they feel will in part be funneled to an organization which is antithetical to their views. Realistically, I kind of doubt Mullvad is rolling in swimming pools filled with cash getting syphoned to neonazis, but that brings me to my next point...
For many, it's not just an intellectual position but an emotional one. This doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, but you probably won't be able to reason them out of it. It's the same reason I don't listen to Michael Jackson. He's dead and none of that streaming revenue would go to him or to raping children but...yuck.
At the end of the day, there's an irony in this guy supporting the very freedoms on the internet which are being used to disseminate criticisms against him, and perhaps inducing people to starve one of the vehicles which helps maintain those freedoms.
> what many consider to be an unpalatable political party
That description fits every political party everywhere in the world.
I can absolutely respect the emotional argument.
The "irony" in supporting that party I believe is a stretch. I don't see how support for some neo-nationalists is inherently "anti-freedom"; would that not apply to any party arguing against open borders?
My personal belief is that professional discrimination because of political support is a very slippery slope, and I honestly think that a lot of people directly or indirectly advocating for it are not fully understanding of what this means and where that slope ends:
When asking about professional boycott for "questionable" past positions (like being gay in Turings time) I only get silence in response because people presumably realize that such witch-hunting often ends up looking really bad in retrospect.
edit: I just misunderstood your last point, completely agree.
I think I wasn't as clear as I could have been in that last part. The irony I was referring to is that this guy is doing more than most people to support freedom online, and that very freedom he supports is being used by people who disagree with his political position to potentially organize a boycott of Mullvad and possibly deprive everybody of a tool which helps protect freedom online.
It's like people who think Americans shouldn't shouldn't have first amendment rights. The irony is that the first amendment protects their ability to criticize the first amendment.
For better or worse, the internet and all its collective outrage is now the world's HR department.
> Do you actually want voting to happen via wallet?
Money has a huge influence on politics, and recognizing that reality isn't the same as wanting it or encouraging it.
>If you want to vote for or against Örebropartiet, then just do it at the booth.
I'm kinda confused here. The context of this is that a rich tech bro uses his money to fund and promote a political party, with our money, but we can't decide to not pay him because that's influencing money with politics (???)
What kind of bizarro world is this, he can use his vast wealth to promote racist parties but we can't collectively use ours? How about he just "does it at the booth" and donates his money to the against malaria foundation?
My point is that if you are boycotting the company despite living on the opposite side of the world from Örebro (thus being inherently unable to vote at the booth), then you are not really participating in politics, you are participating in a witchhunt (with negligible political effects).
I'm suggesting that small political progress is simply not worth witch-hunting for. If you have political concerns, engage by voting, starting your own party or advocating for your cause instead of ruining the career of a person you disagree with.
>if you are boycotting the company despite living on the opposite side of the world
If I'm living at the opposite side of the world and my money was indirectly influencing Swedish politics then I'm doing Sweden a service by discontinuing my payment. After all the only thing I'm doing is reduce the power of corporations in a democratic process, I literally cannot take any Swedish vote away. That's exactly what you asked for.
> If you have political concerns, engage by voting, starting your own party or advocating for your cause
I do all of that, I'm an active member of a European political party and engaged far beyond just voting. But I'm also not going to stop to make sure my money as far as I can control it does not go into the pockets of millionaires who single handedly decided to bankroll 70% of the funding of a party that runs on ethnic hate. That is money in politics. If there was no money in politics, these people wouldn't be able to spread their hate. All of these parties on our continent are funded and supported by oligarchs across the world.
> But I'm also not going to stop to make sure my money as far as I can control it does not go into the pockets of millionaires who single handedly decided to bankroll 70% of the funding of a party that runs on ethnic hate.
My view is: its not your money that goes to a party you dislike, its Berntssons; money doesn't stink, and it's not your responsibility how some fraction of it is spent after you paid someone for a completely unrelated purpose.
You basically try to avoid a second order effect (Örebropartiet getting money) by leaning on an inherently anti-liberal mechanism (applying pressure via workplace).
You might think the end justifies the means here, but I strongly disagree; legitimizing discrimination at the workplace based on political beliefs is in my view much worse than anything that Örebropartiet could ever achieve.
You are obviously completely free to do business with whoever you want, but if you are advocating for boycott here (=> pro corporate censorship) you are directly doing more damage to liberalism in my view than some swedish local party ever could.
I'm confident in this view because I'm certain that politically motivated workplace discrimination is/was/would have been absolutely horrible for tons of people that turned out "right" (=> secularists, feminists, LGBT advocates, ...). Nothing that could be realistically achieved by such boycott appears even close to worth the trade to me.
Crucially, almost everyone ever believes his own moral compass to be "correct", but many turn out (somewhat) "wrong" decades or centuries later. So allowing more avenues to force views on others is always a risky proposition because those avenues are not just accesible to people that you believe to be "right"-- you also open them to people that you know to be wrong (i.e. rightwingers that want to get you fired for being an anti-nationalist traitor or w/e).
I don't know why your comment is flagged dead, there's no good reason it should be.
> This whole view kinda confounds me. I don't see how you can honestly profess to be on the tolerant/right side, morally, while trying to boycott someones business over his political views. Would you have preferred early feminists or LGBT advocates to be hounded in their professional life? Would it have been better for more people to do that?
Okay, first of all, early feminists and LGBT advocates were and are hounded in their professional lives. This has happened to progressives for all of human history, it's actively happening under the current US administration, and it's going to continue happening forever.
A bigger point here is that your argument is morally worthless. You're just saying that I shouldn't judge anyone, because other people have judged wrongly in the past. I disagree entirely. I wouldn't buy juice from a rapist, I wouldn't buy a computer from a murderer, and I wouldn't buy a VPN from a fascist.
The largest point however, is that your argument implies that I am compelled to spend my money on Mullvad regardless of what I think about the people who work there or what they do, and that's an obvious absurdity. I am free to spend or not spend on whatever I choose for whatever reasons I choose, and politics is going to be one of them. You'll have to get over it.
Why does it say your comment was made 2 days ago, when the thread has only been up for 6 hours?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48721560
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48721551
It's a HN thing, not down to the commenter. Sometimes threads are reactivated if the mods think a low profile discussion is worth a second chance or boost. The submission time doesn't always reflect the original submission. Sometimes it's due to a comment move or thread merge.
PR companies have found that getting ahead of controversies is useful, so they invented time travel.
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48721551 and let us know if you have any questions.
(aftbit already mentioned this link downthread but perhaps it's helpful to say this explicitly.)
Edit: actually I should probably pin that to the top. Done now. Sorry for the confusion!
So you're a political company, but you don't want people to examine the politics of the people running the company? That seems naive.
>> Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment ...
Karl Popper said, "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."
>> the same way that someone's opinions on animal rights, taxes or public healthcare ...
We're not talking about reasonable people disagreeing about tax policy, we're talking about free expression, the entire purpose of Mullvad.
When you make a large donation to a political party whose most fundamental policy is restricting the free expression of people, that is wholly incompatible with everything Mullvad says they stand for.
When a founder and executive with influence over Mullvad policy and operations is exposed actively and financially support restricting free expression of people, it's not "tolerant" to pretend that's somehow compatible with the mission and brand of the company.
> restricting the free expression of people
I don’t support remigration, but calling immigration “the free expression of people” is a stretch. It’s orthogonal.
You can argue that remigration isn’t protecting the privacy of those who are surveilled by the government or deported to repressive countries that surveil their population. But Mullvad’s product protects even those people (it must, because it hides the identity of who’s using it from itself).
The words "immigration" or "remigration" do not appear in the comment you are replying to. That's wholly your own construction.
It does not, but does appear on the party's English wikipedia page that they support 'remigration'. However when switching to Swedish, it seems they are pro (forceful) assmilation, rather than remigration.
I don't know enough of Swedish politics or social issues to determine which one is the more correct characterization of the party, but even that is a serious difference in policy.
Örebropartiet policies directly target and restrict the religious, educational, and cultural expression of people who legally reside in Sweden.
Their polices focus on the way people dress, the languages they speak in public, the institutions and schools they build, the traditions they practice.
People would be forced to self-censor their speech, their beliefs, and their behavior.
It's not a "stretch". It's the whole program.
> Their polices focus on the way people dress, the languages they speak in public, the institutions and schools they build, the traditions they practice.
Do you have sources and quotes for this? Wikipedia only says “remigration”, although another comment mentioned that the translated Swedish word implies “assimilation”. Trying to restrict what people (even immigrants) do goes against free expression: deporting those based on ethnicity is immoral for other reasons but does not.
And what does the "religious, educational, and cultural expression" you're talking about says about others outside that group? Maybe your arguments support Örebropartiet more than you want to admit.
> I don’t support remigration, but calling immigration “the free expression of people” is a stretch. It’s orthogonal.
Far right political parties have a marked tendency to severely restrict freedom of expression once they’re in power. They routinely call for it when they’re the underdogs, but that often changes fairly quickly once they get their way.
In some cases you can see hints of that before they came into power. In France for instance, our main far right party (Rassemblement National) supports drastic budget cuts to state-financed media, and I believe a more direct control of said media from executive power.
One would have to check whether the Swedish Örebro party is similar of course. I personally no absolutely nothing about that party. Still, it is not a stretch for me to strongly suspect that a party that calls for deportation (let’s call it what it is, okay?) is also a party that is, or at the very least will be, against freedom of expression and freedom of information.
If it is, then Mullvad’s co-founder has a serious conflict of interest, and I would have no choice but seriously lower my confidence in their VPN.
I hope their sister company, Tillitis, is mostly free of such. Though even if it too is tainted, their TKey is fully open source (schematics and all if I recall correctly), and simple enough to be independently audited. They even have an unlocked version you can burn yourself so you don’t even have to trust their provisioning process. That’s the difference with a VPN: a VPN is like a Palantir, you kinda have to trust Sauron will do right by you. The TKey is more like Nemik’s astro-navigator: the user can verify themselves they are its sole master, once they did they can trust it even if it was manufactured by the Empire itself.
I mean, I love my TKey. I don’t care if Elon Musk and Peter Thiel themselves oversaw its manufacture, now it’s mine, and there’s no way I’m letting the enemy have exclusivity over it.
This is an over-generalization: you even mention that you “have to check” the party’s policies, which seem to be far-left except for the immigration part.
I actually agree that many far-right parties seem to restrict freedom of expression when they have majority power, but so do many far-left parties. Far-right may be generally statistically worse, but again, this says nothing about Örebro specifically who aren’t typical.
Okay, let’s just focus on the "remigration" thing, then.
Sure, Örebro is not typical, and may indeed be an exception.
But.
This apparent racism remains cogent evidence that they are also against freedom of expression — even if perhaps not openly. Also, I have yet to know of one political party who sincerely advocates for both deportation and freedom of expression.
> In some cases you can see hints of that before they came into power. In France for instance, our main far right party (Rassemblement National) supports drastic budget cuts to state-financed media, and I believe a more direct control of said media from executive power.
What does defunding state-funded media (aka propaganda) have to do with the freedom of expression?
Oh my…
You familiar with separation of power? Like Judges being funded by the state, and yet, somehow able to stay independent? Shocking, I know. Here’s even more shocking: media are like that too.
I mean, okay, they aren’t always. In France for instance they fluctuated from straight up propaganda tool, to very independent, and now back to being less independent. Unfortunately it’s not being recognised as a fourth power, worth cleanly separating from the other organs of the state (executive, legislative, judiciary). Still, the separation is there to some degree.
Anyway, freedom of expression.
The practical effect of stopping state funding of media, simply means all we’d have left as mainstream media goes, are those owned by a tiny number of very rich people. And the overwhelming majority are either neoliberal, or pretty far to the right — some squarely fall into the far right. Precisely the kind of propaganda tool you seem to expect from the state, only even more pronounced. Oh sure you’re "free" to express leftist ideas. On your tiny YouTube channel. Nobody is going to listen to you from their TV or their radio.
Kinda suits the far right parties, doesn’t it?
We speak of freedom of expression, but really that is taking it from the wrong end. What we really need is freedom of information, that is, actual, practical access to a broad enough range of ideas. And with curation too. Stupid stuff like Flat Earth should be relegated to the rank of cute entertainment. Dangerously false stuff like climate change denialism should be mostly ignored by recommendation algorithm, and moderated away from any kind of mass media. Hate speech, like, "trans 'people' are abominations that deserve a bullet in the head, let’s grab our AR-15", should be prosecuted.
Anyway, what is said is much less important than what is heard, and to what extent. We can keep a nominal freedom of expression all right, but it doesn’t matter if all people hear all day is pro-genocide, pro-billionaire, anti-regulation, anti-queer, and anti-science.
---
A note on vocabulary: it’s kinda hard to communicate how things work here in parts of the EU, because you just don’t have the word. I want to talk about publicly owned media, as in owned by the people, but this clashes with "public company", which means owned by shareholders.
So I have to resort to "state funded", except now you think it means "state controlled", because of course if you fund something you control it… except no, see judges, and the funding doesn’t even have to go through the state — or at least, not the executive branch.
It’s like explaining someone who’s just been told all their life that the sun rises from the East and sets to the West, means something different now than what it meant 2 thousand years ago. It doesn’t fit in a simple comment.
the german approach to this is weird. i agree with your understanding of funding, and so does germany, but at the same time they outlaw state funded press, precisely because it has been abused for propaganda in the past.
that seems schizophrenic. either state funded media can be abused and there should be none of it, or we find a way to prevent abuse, but then that should also work for the press.
even more so as nowadays press is also digital and there is really no difference between a website from a newspaper and a website from other news media. but one can't be state funded, but the other can.
A solution to this kind of problem is to make sure the funding itself isn’t controlled buy entities you don’t want to control the thing. For instance, the classic model for publicly funded health care, retirement, and unemployment, is for the money to go from salaries, straight to the respective funds. Neither the executive nor the parliament even discuss how much money goes where.
Well, now they do to some extent, and that’s a problem, because for retirement for instance, they apparently refusing to even think of raising the rates even a little bit, and few discuss ways to raise the salaries themselves. All they can think of is making us work later, which doesn’t work because whatever pressure you relieve from the retirement funds, goes straight to the unemployment fund. Oh wait, there’s a solution: kick people out of unemployment insurance.
Anyway, something like that could be devoted to various media. I believe it would work best if it was done through an independent organisation (or federation thereof, we still want local media). And of course we want that organisation to be democratic, but I haven’t thought through the details where the devil lies.
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Note: I spoke of the independence of judges above, but if I recall correctly, in France we have much fewer of them than in Germany (per capita). They are overworked, justice takes ages to be served, and there are signs that it is on purpose. I suspect one reason is it allows the executive branch to set the priorities for the justice system, undermining its independence at a deep level.
> When you make a large donation to a political party whose most fundamental policy is restricting the free expression of people
Where can I read more about how this is the fundamental policy of the Örebro party?
So far as I can tell, the main source of this claim is the comment you are responding to, and similar.
I think the real issue is this: "The party is heavily opposed to political corruption and high politician incomes and wants to reduce the wages of politicians and senior officials." (from Wikipedia, among other sources.)
This is disingenuous.
From Wikipedia:
> Some of its key issues include lowered wages for politicians, ending the tax payer funding of various sculptures, monuments and art, large scale remigration, a stricter immigration policy, and free dental care.
I think most criticism of this party is probably around "large scale remigration" and "stricter immigration policy", which are often nice ways to word "getting rid of everyone that doesn't look like us".
But if you want to play this little game, I can play too. Personally I think the real issue people have with this platform is the free dental care. Big tooth obviously doesn't want to lose profit.
> restricting the free expression of people,
Is it? They appear to be some sort of hardcore pseudo libertarians with some nationalistic vibes. To an extent that seems to overlap with Mullvad’s declared value?
> If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."
yeah i'm sick and tired of hearing this, because it gets applied very asymmetrically.
we routinely tolerate certain kinds of intolerants and silence other, and that sucks.
case in point: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/17/hamtramck-mi...
people happily tolerate lgbt-intollerant people, afraid of being called islamophobic and/or intollerant, and but we do not tollerate at all people that have been calling that risk out for years.
so yeah, popper's writings are being grossly misused, and i'm sick and tired of seeing that come out in every discussion on these topics.
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Also: if only mullvad is taking that kind of political stance (no-log vpn etc)... maybe you should think twice about who is actually on your side.
I'm always wary of people bringing up the paradox of tolerance; most of the time, it's just used as an excuse to justify censorship while claiming to be opposed to it. "When you censor me, you're being intolerant and that's wrong; when I censor you, I'm doing it in the name of tolerance, so I'm correct".
I'm not Swedish, so it's possible there's something that I am missing. But skimming the wikipedia page for the party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party#), I don't see anything that says the party is pro censorship.
No political party is going to say they're "pro censorship".
But if they promise to target specific groups of people to close their schools, regulate how they dress, ban their prayers, and suppress their art, it's all about restricting their freedom of expression.
That's the whole program.
> No political party is going to say they're "pro censorship".
There are plenty of political parties that proudly claim to oppose "hate speech".
> But if they promise to target specific groups of people to close their schools, regulate how they dress, ban their prayers, and suppress their art, it's all about restricting their freedom of expression.
I could be wrong, but it looks like their plan is to cut public funding, not to censor those things.
The "paradox of tolerance" is only a paradox to people who can't tell the difference between words and actions, anyway. There's no paradox in tolerating the words if you draw the line at action to implement those words.
>"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."
does that fight against "intolerant" also include fighting people from other culture that are systematically and religiously opposed against your current society and its tolerance and will undermine it within the next couple decades by reproducing more? nvm im aware asking for self awareness is too much.
> Karl Popper said, "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."
It's weird he said that, given that at the time there were many examples of intolerant societies that had become increasingly tolerant. So the statement is factually incorrect, and, given how educated he was, he knew this. In other words, the statement is a lie. But very useful if you manage to put yourself in the position of being the one to define what is intolerant, and which things are so important to tolerate that they should be beyond democratic decision-making.
That said, I don't disagree that private donations can be incompatible with (or more accurately, counter-productive to) the stated mission of a company. And it's not unreasonable for journalists to report on it, on the logic it may affect consumer choices. But I'm not familiar with Örebro, and nothing in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party#Policies indicates they're against online anonymity or free expression. But maybe I missed something?
"Rules for thee, but not for me"
Classic
I don't see him saying he doesn't want people to look into that. What I see is an explanation for why he thinks the company is better for having a multitude of views and opinions on their staff, a correction of some lazy reporting in the media and stated tolerance for people who no longer want to use said company's products for perceived value incompatibility (which he also seems to disagree with though).
Allow me to provide some nuance.
I cannot speak for Daniel. I know there are some policies he likes and there are things he doesn’t like. Personally I am not a fan.
This morning Daniel explained his rationale to most of the company. Speaking for myself, I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues. Speaking as the co-CEO of Mullvad, we will continue to protect the universal right to privacy. People should feel safe using Mullvad regardless of their political affiliation.
Oscar: "Look it doesn’t take a genius to know that every organization thrives when it has two leaders. shakes head Go ahead, name a country that doesn’t have two presidents. A boat that sets sail without two captains. Where would Catholicism be without the popes?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_consul
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipope
When Mullvad's revenue is used to harm people, why should its customers feel safe?
Thanks Fredrik, will actually be switching to Mullvad.
Indeed I see this as a positive. There is a common meme that the CIA might well run VPN companies. It would seem less likely for Mullvad.
> less likely
how so?
It’s time to create nullvad, Fredrik.
People in this thread are slowly (or maybe not so slowly) realising "… this was also a business after all… just with a different "model"… huh". There's caring, there's caring PR, and then there's caring theatre.
> We fight for freedom of speech, freedom of information and the right to privacy.
OK, but the far right, like all totalitarians, has an agenda that is thoroughly opposed to this. That leads to the tolerance paradox: You must be intolerant to agendas that would put an end to tolerance.
FTR. The reports I have seen have always made it clear that Mullvad has two owners/founders/CEOs. And while the donations may be private, they obviously come from money earned as part of being one of the founder/owner/CEO of Mullvad and thus raises questions on corporate responsibility.
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You can't post like this here, no matter how wrong someone else is or you feel they are.
You may not owe founders whose cofounders you feel are behaving badly better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.