Because they have a very strong track record of good performance, reliability, and defense of privacy. VPN businesses largely sell trust and Mullvad has earned a lot of it
They clearly just need the funding, which is few and far between on tools like this and they aren’t in a position to be able to take a moral stance. Can’t say I blame them too much other than the co-branding idea.
Content aside, is there anything or anyone forcing Foss projects to pick up this voice?
I understand that TOR is big and professional and all, but why does this read like a press statement of every tech corp under the sun?
Do we have to talk like this?
if you don't, some will say "you are not treating this seriously, it's not a joke, humans life's are at stake and you can't even bother writing a professional response"
Yes, but, does that someone matter? Do they still have leverage to be of any concern?
Because.. looking at the whole.. uh.. stuff going on in US politics, I'm kinda doubtful. There are a lot of real and big problems going on right now that far outweigh choice of specific tone and words I'd say.
I mean. Their choice and all, but it comes with the trade-off of being massively alienating, and I'd argue that the cost benefit calculation of that might have to be redone, taking the current state of the world into account.
So.. idk? I think they might not care that much? In fact, they might like the people the Tor project is (rightfully (if done genuinely)) (pretending to) distance themselves from.
the existence of this blog post is proof that it matters for them, people/orgs receive emails accusing them every day, and most of the time they dont bother answering
I am not saying the content of the speech is morally equal, but Tor's explicit mission is to make people anonymous and protect speech. The moment you start inspecting it, Tor's mission is negated.
Of course, Tor's partnerships are different than the content distributed through it's network, but I still find it a bit ironic.
They're not talking about inspecting or controlling speech on the network, they're talking about speech outside their network and how it relates to them and their relationship with Mullvad.
> While Tor defends free speech, not all speech is equally compatible with our mission.
It's sad to see the backslide. In the olden days free speech absolutists would defend all speech short of fires in the cinema. Nowadays it has to be compatible with their brand of political correctness else they will tar and brush you.
You see the same backsliding in the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other non profits. They are a lot more neoliberal now than liberal. Interests over values.
> While Tor defends free speech, not all speech is equally compatible with our mission.
If Tor hems and haws about political speech, they 100% lose any rhetorical cover against (fallacious but politically compelling) arguments like "so you're OK with CP, but you draw the line at Swedes being against African immigration?" (which is the political issue in question re. Mullvad)
Every time I'm appalled and both surprised and not surprised to see yet another rich CEO or founder be a genuinely awful person supporting causes that hurt people in some way. I guess it's just a prerequisite for the job? Are there CEOs and founders who aren't awful?
yeah truly awful CEO. he should advocate for the unregulated flood of foreigners used to replace locals and be exploited as cheap labor like our benevolent and progressive silicon valley idols!
The Tor statement doesn't mention the actual donation or party. Daniel Berntsson the co-owner of Mullvad, donated approximately US$500,000 to the far-right Örebro Party in Sweden. It's an ethno-nationalist party that is pushing for "remigration". From Wikipedia: "Remigration is a far-right concept referring to the ethnic cleansing via mass deportation of non-white minority populations, especially immigrants and sometimes including native-born citizens, to their place of racial ancestry."
> It's a shame that refusing to consort with fascists is conflated with "being political".
It's because they are a political party, and he was donating to it. There's no better definition of being punished for a political opinion than being punished to donating to a legitimate party.
And their not "fascists", it's a Swedish nationalist party.
Naming everything you don't like as "fascist" is a quick way to have your opinion dismissed as crazy.
The Swedish party in question seems to hold a position on immigrants that is fascist due to their hostility towards immigrants. While holding a fascist opinion is allowed free speech in a democratic society. Speech that incites violence or hatred is not - generally. And TOR as well as most other civil and decent human beings have every right and perhaps obligation to opine that fascists suck and can f-off.
They are not fascists, they are somewhere between “right-socialists” and left-populists, seemingly very close to Titoism. There is a substantial difference. Fascism calls for fusion of corporations and state and I haven’t seen that from them. They have called for socialization of energy, but that’s common among many left parties.
I am sick to death of the overapplication of the word “fascism”. It doesn’t mean “bad thing”. Distinct words are needed for distinct concepts, otherwise all political discourse ends up like here in America where you have “liberals” who are not actually liberal and “conservatives” who don’t want to conserve anything.
Edit: edited to reflect that they are probably a lot closer to Tito than Hoxha or Juche, after thinking about it.
The annoyance is that your personal judgement of "bad" is being wrapped up in emotional escalating language which equivocates, "I dont like this policy on immigration" with the history of genocide and total war in europe.
>The Swedish party in question seems to hold a position on immigrants that is fascist due to their hostility towards immigrants.
Advocating for controlling borders and opposing immigration is a legitimate political position, whether you agree with it or not. Those who describe everything they disagree with as 'fascism' are not credible people.
Not giving my money so that it flows to an antiimmigrant party, having myself been an immigrant, is rather different from punishing.
Only rich tech bros have this absurd situation where they are "punished" by a political opinion, because only they can meaningfully sway "one person, one vote" with their money.
Are we talking about the political opinion of toilet cleaners who don't have the money to donate, or the energy, or the podcasts to express it? No. That's not an opinion that can be punished, it's just a non-event for many here.
So let me not shed a tear for the political opinions of the Mullvad boss.
Every single country on earth participates in remigration, it is not ethnic cleansing by any stretch, given the amount of white people being deported from the US, Europe and other places all the time.
Europe has this absurdist political compass that calls any anti-immigration party "far-right", even when their official party platform is center-left or far-left in every single other respect (like Örebro's current platform of substantial expansions of social welfare program funding). Same is true in France, where you have a party with far-left socialist economics and anti-immigration sentiment that is bucketed as "far-right".
There's really no end to this game of altruism olympics people seem to want to play.
It may very well be that one group continuing to do business with another group is still more beneficial to their mission than cutting all ties, even if they disagree with the positions/actions of the other group. FOSS projects lately are tearing each other apart based on who is politically "better" than the rest in their eyes. The level of hypocritical hate coming from groups that claim to be tolerant is truly wild.
And we see this in geopolitics constantly as well. Remember that almost nobody cuts off contact with an entire country in perpetuity, and for good reason. Try to think of game theory and how well tit-for-tat actually works out in most aspects of society... I think cutting off all contact usually isn't the smartest solution in most situations.
Who are we to say what's morally "right" enough in every situation, especially given all kinds of other information we are not privy to? We don't know what we don't know, yet people act like they have all the answers and that only their opinion can be the right one... even in this (and every) thread we see this play out over and over with people getting royally butthurt over simple misunderstandings of subjective terminology.
There's an endless amount of scenarios we could argue...
- Why does anyone still negotiate with person/company/country XYZ after everything they've done?
- Where does one draw the line and who gets to say where that is?
- Why do people insist on calling things "fascist" that are more of a misunderstanding or difference in opinion vs much more serious authoritarian actions or aspirations?
- Why are so many people who otherwise seem quite smart, have such narrow-minded black-and-white opinions with zero interest in the possibility that they might be misinformed? How does that make any scientific sense?
Why can't we just be nicer to one another and realize that true intelligence requires both humility and empathy? When we don't take the time to try to truly understand each other's intentions, that leads to people not talking. And when people stop talking, that's when the fighting (in any sense of the word) starts.
That’s not what’s being said. It’s possible to support the freedom of anyone to say anything while excluding those whose beliefs are directly opposed to your goals from your organization.
if you exclude those who are opposed to you then you aren't supporting the right for anyone to say anything. Saying you support anyone saying anything but not allowing some people to say certain things is doublethink.
The most difficult part about supporting free speech is that you have to support the right for people to say things you disagree with.
Who said anything about not allowing people to say something?
In the real world, if a dickhead spouts garbage you tell them to fuck off. Doesn't mean that they can't open their mouth, just that you don't want them to do it near you. A huge proportion of people online who claim that their freedom of expression is being impinged upon are dickheads who were told to fuck off.
Who exactly claimed to support anyone saying anything? Or are you claiming that supporting "freedom of speech" implies that one must support anyone saying anything?
Only anarchists support that. Nobody else supports absolute free speech. Not even the self described "free speech absolutists". I mean, they support only until they are not affected by it negatively.
Why are they opposing the mere rhetoric and not the ideas themselves? You either support free speech unreservedly, including for your political opposites, or you don't.
> "We are not terminating the relationship but are setting clear boundaries on our relationship with Mullvad"
Organizations that support the right of free speech always have to come to grips with the reality that supporting the right of free speech necessarily involves supporting the right of others to say things that the organization and/or the individuals in the organization didagree with.
Tor isn't the first such organization to have to draw distinctions between the principles it espouses and the parties it encounters, nor will it be the last.
This type of statement is not an invalidation of one's own principles, it is simply bringing clarity and focus to them. Tor advocates for freedom of speech, not for everything that others use that freedom to say.
That isn't the standard. The OP addresses an unavoidable, fundamental paradox of freedom: Someone can use their freedom to limit the freedoms of others - if we support that person's freedom, are we supporting freedom or oppression? Are we free to oppress others?
The philosopher Karl Popper famously addressed this issue. Here are a couple more ways to think about it:
* Freedom as a social contract: I support your freedom and you support mine. If I support yours and you take away mine, you've violated the contract and it's void.
* In a society built on freedom, those who use their freedom to take away others' freedom are parasites on society.
Arguably, the only speech not to tolerate is intolerance.
But that's all philosophy. Practically, nobody believes any freedom is absolute. Freedom of speech is revered and in the first amendement in the US Constitution, but nobody thinks it's absolute: you can't slander people, defraud them, threaten them, create dangerous situations (famously, you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater), etc.
>create dangerous situations (famously, you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater), etc.
Every time someone brings this up, I feel obligated to mention:
1. The phrase came from a supreme court case that ruled an anti-war activist's leaflets were illegal, because it was promoting people to dodge the draft. I doubt many people arguing for free speech restrictions would support this case, even if they agree with the principle.
2. Practically speaking it's no longer relevant because it was overturned with "imminent lawless action"
"Virtue signal" is a bad-faith term that means nothing other than its use as a cheap dismissal from people refusing to engage with the content of text, even short text like this. It's not a serious analysis, or a criticism of anything at all.
> "We support free speech, unless it's speech we disagree with"
Notably, you are using quotes around something that is not a quote. Your interpretation of the text does not flow from the content of the text. Tor's stance is the bog-standard pro free-speech stance, as Hall wrote in characterization of Voltaire, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
Here's an actual quote from the text. This is the _second sentence_.
> We are not terminating the relationship but are setting clear boundaries on our relationship with Mullvad.
It is clear that you did not even read the text of the short post you are dismissing as "virtue signaling"!
Tor is actually still collaborating with Mullvad and they are no longer "co-branding". They are releasing a statement of their position, which is normal, necessary, and expected.
They clarify that Tor is a political project. Security and privacy are human rights goals which necessarily contend with the political context of surveillance and authoritarianism they exist in. The co-founders support of a far-right party, and the implicit support for surveillance that comes with it, are of significant and immediate concern to those who use Tor and Mullvad.
> "We support free speech, unless it's speech we disagree with"
You can defend someone's right to say something while disagreeing with it, not supporting it, and not wanting to be associated with it. By publishing that blog post, Tor isn't attacking free speech; they are participating in it. As are you, when you respond to them, and I, when I respond to you.
> They decided it's more important to virtue signal
I'm always a bit confused by people using the term "virtue signaling". Do you never try to make ethical decisions in your life? If you do, why is it so hard to believe others are, too?
The implication of the term “virtue signaling” is that you’re primarily seeking acclaim (or dodging criticism) by taking a given position, and that your position likely isn’t sincere.
This is pretty common in my experience, along with the inverse of “vice signaling” which you don’t hear about that much.
> The implication of the term “virtue signaling” is that you’re primarily seeking acclaim (or dodging criticism) by taking a given position, and that your position likely isn’t sincere.
Exactly. Now, who would think that other people's ethical decisions aren't made for sincere reasons?
"The Tor Project’s mission is to advance human rights and freedoms." - I might be completely barking up the wrong tree here, but I thought the TOR mission was to allow spies to access the network and hide among all the other non-spy users.
It was and still is funded mostly by the US Naval Research Laboratory. And considering most of the nodes are hosted on American cloud infra, if those companies share with the US Govt in real-time what is connecting in and out then the entire chain can be figured out much of the time without any kind of timing attacks. The regular person using it doesn't get as much of the privacy benefits, but the charade is making it seem like they do.
I know lots of people really believe in TOR - fair play to them. I just know it in my bones it's not as it seems.
'Meh, and yet anyone can run a relay or onion service in a few clicks.' - of course.
'Just false.'
It depends where you are from. The US constitution is supposed to prevent spying on American citizens, but anyone outside of the USA is fair game. Most of the global population is not in the USA (like me).
'If your model is simply to avoid corporate surveillance and tracking its a fantastic defense.' - I host an onion service exactly for that reason, not for my own privacy but to let customers have that with us if they want.
'If your trying to go up against nation states, it never claimed to protect you from that.' - I disagree, it will protect an American spy a treat.
> I thought the TOR mission was to allow spies to access the network and hide among all the other non-spy users.
Both things can be true... the original need for the network necessitated the mission of the foundation itself... you can't have a global network that only spies use, or you're not blending in, so you have to make it about a public good that many civilians will also use.
Other systems like I2P, SimpleX, Tribler, Datura etc. take additional steps to mitigate such kinds of Sybil attacks that people talk about against Tor, and new methods are being worked on all the time.
Splitting up your traffic across multiple nodes/circuits/etc. as well as persistent dummy/decoy traffic are some methods I've seen discussed recently.
> if those companies share with the US Govt in real-time
IMO This is a colossal "if" and not something we can realistically determine besides saying "we know it happens sometimes, but certainly not all or even most of the time."
Everyone's threat model is different, and hiding from state-level actors is generally 1. much too complicated to succeed at, and 2. you're probably not that special in the first place that you'd actually be targeted. The privacy community is bursting at the seams with all manner of tinfoil-hat wearers and wild conspiracy theorists that think some dark boogeyman is out to get them.
I'd also like to see a source that proves "most of the nodes are hosted on American cloud infra."
I'd also like to see a source that proves "most of the nodes are hosted on American cloud infra."
I will make a correction. What I should have said is that out of the top 10 networks hosting relays or exit nodes, that close to half have an American presence and that the vast majority 80-90% of relays and exit nodes are spread out within 14 eyes countries - you can see it yourself when you look at the network. When was the last time you looked at where it was connected to and did not see a flag within either 5 eyes, 9 eyes or 14 eyes countries? While that maybe isn't the proof you want, it sure is a meaty coincidence and another reason on top of who funds it and what its purpose is for.
Why is Mullvad making so much money and other VPN providers are seemingly not?
Are they? I can only imagine MordVpn makes a lot of money
Because they have a very strong track record of good performance, reliability, and defense of privacy. VPN businesses largely sell trust and Mullvad has earned a lot of it
They clearly just need the funding, which is few and far between on tools like this and they aren’t in a position to be able to take a moral stance. Can’t say I blame them too much other than the co-branding idea.
Tor itself was invented by the US Naval Research Lab and still today is funded >50% by the US Department of Defense.
Content aside, is there anything or anyone forcing Foss projects to pick up this voice?
I understand that TOR is big and professional and all, but why does this read like a press statement of every tech corp under the sun? Do we have to talk like this?
if you don't, some will say "you are not treating this seriously, it's not a joke, humans life's are at stake and you can't even bother writing a professional response"
Yes, but, does that someone matter? Do they still have leverage to be of any concern?
Because.. looking at the whole.. uh.. stuff going on in US politics, I'm kinda doubtful. There are a lot of real and big problems going on right now that far outweigh choice of specific tone and words I'd say.
I mean. Their choice and all, but it comes with the trade-off of being massively alienating, and I'd argue that the cost benefit calculation of that might have to be redone, taking the current state of the world into account.
If that "somebody" is some manner of congresscritter, then yes.
Yeah but that government body is currently doing this sanctioning the ICC thing and also thinking about public execution livestreams, so.. uh.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50021066
So.. idk? I think they might not care that much? In fact, they might like the people the Tor project is (rightfully (if done genuinely)) (pretending to) distance themselves from.
the existence of this blog post is proof that it matters for them, people/orgs receive emails accusing them every day, and most of the time they dont bother answering
All speech is equal, but some speech is more equal than others.
If all speech were truly equal, calling for the death of all black people is speech that is equal to calling Israel’s action in Gaza a genocide.
It’s not equal. It’s more equal.
I am not saying the content of the speech is morally equal, but Tor's explicit mission is to make people anonymous and protect speech. The moment you start inspecting it, Tor's mission is negated.
Of course, Tor's partnerships are different than the content distributed through it's network, but I still find it a bit ironic.
> We are not terminating the relationship but are setting clear boundaries on our relationship with Mullvad
> We strongly oppose rhetoric that threatens other human rights and freedoms.
They're not talking about inspecting or controlling speech on the network, they're talking about speech outside their network and how it relates to them and their relationship with Mullvad.
Not sure what this is supposed to say; free speech != equal speech.
> While Tor defends free speech, not all speech is equally compatible with our mission.
It's sad to see the backslide. In the olden days free speech absolutists would defend all speech short of fires in the cinema. Nowadays it has to be compatible with their brand of political correctness else they will tar and brush you.
You see the same backsliding in the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other non profits. They are a lot more neoliberal now than liberal. Interests over values.
> While Tor defends free speech, not all speech is equally compatible with our mission.
If Tor hems and haws about political speech, they 100% lose any rhetorical cover against (fallacious but politically compelling) arguments like "so you're OK with CP, but you draw the line at Swedes being against African immigration?" (which is the political issue in question re. Mullvad)
Every time I'm appalled and both surprised and not surprised to see yet another rich CEO or founder be a genuinely awful person supporting causes that hurt people in some way. I guess it's just a prerequisite for the job? Are there CEOs and founders who aren't awful?
Yep, you don't hear about them because what would they announce? Day 10000 of being not-an-asshole?
27 years of being not-an-asshole would be a great achievement to brag about.
Our system rewards people who, in a natural state of affairs, we'd beat to death.
yeah truly awful CEO. he should advocate for the unregulated flood of foreigners used to replace locals and be exploited as cheap labor like our benevolent and progressive silicon valley idols!
expected virtue signaling but at least they aren't stupid enough cut relationships completely.
The Tor statement doesn't mention the actual donation or party. Daniel Berntsson the co-owner of Mullvad, donated approximately US$500,000 to the far-right Örebro Party in Sweden. It's an ethno-nationalist party that is pushing for "remigration". From Wikipedia: "Remigration is a far-right concept referring to the ethnic cleansing via mass deportation of non-white minority populations, especially immigrants and sometimes including native-born citizens, to their place of racial ancestry."
>Daniel Berntsson the co-owner of Mullvad, donated approximately US$500,000 to the far-right Örebro Party in Sweden
Thank you for naming the party donated to.
It's a shame that refusing to consort with fascists is conflated with "being political".
One of the reasons I left so called "civil" society is that for lack of a better phrasing I often found the tent to be too big.
> It's a shame that refusing to consort with fascists is conflated with "being political".
It's because they are a political party, and he was donating to it. There's no better definition of being punished for a political opinion than being punished to donating to a legitimate party.
And their not "fascists", it's a Swedish nationalist party. Naming everything you don't like as "fascist" is a quick way to have your opinion dismissed as crazy.
How is he being "punished"?
The Swedish party in question seems to hold a position on immigrants that is fascist due to their hostility towards immigrants. While holding a fascist opinion is allowed free speech in a democratic society. Speech that incites violence or hatred is not - generally. And TOR as well as most other civil and decent human beings have every right and perhaps obligation to opine that fascists suck and can f-off.
They are not fascists, they are somewhere between “right-socialists” and left-populists, seemingly very close to Titoism. There is a substantial difference. Fascism calls for fusion of corporations and state and I haven’t seen that from them. They have called for socialization of energy, but that’s common among many left parties.
I am sick to death of the overapplication of the word “fascism”. It doesn’t mean “bad thing”. Distinct words are needed for distinct concepts, otherwise all political discourse ends up like here in America where you have “liberals” who are not actually liberal and “conservatives” who don’t want to conserve anything.
Edit: edited to reflect that they are probably a lot closer to Tito than Hoxha or Juche, after thinking about it.
>I am sick to death of the overapplication of the word “fascism”. It doesn’t mean “bad thing”.
So you admit they are a "bad thing", but you are annoyed I used the wrong word?
The annoyance is that your personal judgement of "bad" is being wrapped up in emotional escalating language which equivocates, "I dont like this policy on immigration" with the history of genocide and total war in europe.
>The Swedish party in question seems to hold a position on immigrants that is fascist due to their hostility towards immigrants.
Advocating for controlling borders and opposing immigration is a legitimate political position, whether you agree with it or not. Those who describe everything they disagree with as 'fascism' are not credible people.
> There's no better definition of being punished for a political opinion than being punished to donating to a legitimate party.
Maybe being punished for some political opinions isn't a bad thing, if your political opinion is "some people don't deserve human rights" :-)
Is it a human right to live in Sweden?
Not giving my money so that it flows to an antiimmigrant party, having myself been an immigrant, is rather different from punishing.
Only rich tech bros have this absurd situation where they are "punished" by a political opinion, because only they can meaningfully sway "one person, one vote" with their money.
Are we talking about the political opinion of toilet cleaners who don't have the money to donate, or the energy, or the podcasts to express it? No. That's not an opinion that can be punished, it's just a non-event for many here.
So let me not shed a tear for the political opinions of the Mullvad boss.
Örebro Party is also pro-surveillance.
That seems pretty significant. Could you provide some more detail or evidence?
Every single country on earth participates in remigration, it is not ethnic cleansing by any stretch, given the amount of white people being deported from the US, Europe and other places all the time.
Europe has this absurdist political compass that calls any anti-immigration party "far-right", even when their official party platform is center-left or far-left in every single other respect (like Örebro's current platform of substantial expansions of social welfare program funding). Same is true in France, where you have a party with far-left socialist economics and anti-immigration sentiment that is bucketed as "far-right".
The US is not close to doing anything similar to what that party is calling for (e.g. advocating for deporting those born in Sweden).
We're closer than most people would like - https://theconversation.com/after-supreme-court-setback-trum... - see also https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/569 and https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/9633...
That said, it isn't something nearly as drastic or categorical as these far-right, ultranationalist EU parties.
It's ok, everything Wikipedia doesn't like it calls a "far-right conspiracy theory"
Like the issue of the grooming gangs in the UK
There's really no end to this game of altruism olympics people seem to want to play.
It may very well be that one group continuing to do business with another group is still more beneficial to their mission than cutting all ties, even if they disagree with the positions/actions of the other group. FOSS projects lately are tearing each other apart based on who is politically "better" than the rest in their eyes. The level of hypocritical hate coming from groups that claim to be tolerant is truly wild.
And we see this in geopolitics constantly as well. Remember that almost nobody cuts off contact with an entire country in perpetuity, and for good reason. Try to think of game theory and how well tit-for-tat actually works out in most aspects of society... I think cutting off all contact usually isn't the smartest solution in most situations.
Who are we to say what's morally "right" enough in every situation, especially given all kinds of other information we are not privy to? We don't know what we don't know, yet people act like they have all the answers and that only their opinion can be the right one... even in this (and every) thread we see this play out over and over with people getting royally butthurt over simple misunderstandings of subjective terminology.
There's an endless amount of scenarios we could argue...
- Why does anyone still negotiate with person/company/country XYZ after everything they've done?
- Where does one draw the line and who gets to say where that is?
- Why do people insist on calling things "fascist" that are more of a misunderstanding or difference in opinion vs much more serious authoritarian actions or aspirations?
- Why are so many people who otherwise seem quite smart, have such narrow-minded black-and-white opinions with zero interest in the possibility that they might be misinformed? How does that make any scientific sense?
Why can't we just be nicer to one another and realize that true intelligence requires both humility and empathy? When we don't take the time to try to truly understand each other's intentions, that leads to people not talking. And when people stop talking, that's when the fighting (in any sense of the word) starts.
>While Tor defends free speech, not all speech is equally compatible with our mission.
"We support free speech, unless it's speech we disagree with"
They decided it's more important to virtue signal their political ideology than actually working toward a shared goal of security and privacy.
That’s not what’s being said. It’s possible to support the freedom of anyone to say anything while excluding those whose beliefs are directly opposed to your goals from your organization.
if you exclude those who are opposed to you then you aren't supporting the right for anyone to say anything. Saying you support anyone saying anything but not allowing some people to say certain things is doublethink.
The most difficult part about supporting free speech is that you have to support the right for people to say things you disagree with.
Who said anything about not allowing people to say something?
In the real world, if a dickhead spouts garbage you tell them to fuck off. Doesn't mean that they can't open their mouth, just that you don't want them to do it near you. A huge proportion of people online who claim that their freedom of expression is being impinged upon are dickheads who were told to fuck off.
Who exactly claimed to support anyone saying anything? Or are you claiming that supporting "freedom of speech" implies that one must support anyone saying anything?
Only anarchists support that. Nobody else supports absolute free speech. Not even the self described "free speech absolutists". I mean, they support only until they are not affected by it negatively.
If you only support the right of people you agree with to speak freely, you don't support free speech.
They explain it in the next sentence: "We strongly oppose rhetoric that threatens other human rights and freedoms."
Why are they opposing the mere rhetoric and not the ideas themselves? You either support free speech unreservedly, including for your political opposites, or you don't.
> "We are not terminating the relationship but are setting clear boundaries on our relationship with Mullvad"
Organizations that support the right of free speech always have to come to grips with the reality that supporting the right of free speech necessarily involves supporting the right of others to say things that the organization and/or the individuals in the organization didagree with.
Tor isn't the first such organization to have to draw distinctions between the principles it espouses and the parties it encounters, nor will it be the last.
This type of statement is not an invalidation of one's own principles, it is simply bringing clarity and focus to them. Tor advocates for freedom of speech, not for everything that others use that freedom to say.
> "... unless it's speech we disagree with"
That isn't the standard. The OP addresses an unavoidable, fundamental paradox of freedom: Someone can use their freedom to limit the freedoms of others - if we support that person's freedom, are we supporting freedom or oppression? Are we free to oppress others?
The philosopher Karl Popper famously addressed this issue. Here are a couple more ways to think about it:
* Freedom as a social contract: I support your freedom and you support mine. If I support yours and you take away mine, you've violated the contract and it's void.
* In a society built on freedom, those who use their freedom to take away others' freedom are parasites on society.
Arguably, the only speech not to tolerate is intolerance.
But that's all philosophy. Practically, nobody believes any freedom is absolute. Freedom of speech is revered and in the first amendement in the US Constitution, but nobody thinks it's absolute: you can't slander people, defraud them, threaten them, create dangerous situations (famously, you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater), etc.
>create dangerous situations (famously, you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater), etc.
Every time someone brings this up, I feel obligated to mention:
1. The phrase came from a supreme court case that ruled an anti-war activist's leaflets were illegal, because it was promoting people to dodge the draft. I doubt many people arguing for free speech restrictions would support this case, even if they agree with the principle.
2. Practically speaking it's no longer relevant because it was overturned with "imminent lawless action"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
Also, the cry of "fire" in question: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/world-war-i-anti-dra...
"Virtue signal" is a bad-faith term that means nothing other than its use as a cheap dismissal from people refusing to engage with the content of text, even short text like this. It's not a serious analysis, or a criticism of anything at all.
> "We support free speech, unless it's speech we disagree with"
Notably, you are using quotes around something that is not a quote. Your interpretation of the text does not flow from the content of the text. Tor's stance is the bog-standard pro free-speech stance, as Hall wrote in characterization of Voltaire, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
Here's an actual quote from the text. This is the _second sentence_.
> We are not terminating the relationship but are setting clear boundaries on our relationship with Mullvad.
It is clear that you did not even read the text of the short post you are dismissing as "virtue signaling"!
Tor is actually still collaborating with Mullvad and they are no longer "co-branding". They are releasing a statement of their position, which is normal, necessary, and expected.
They clarify that Tor is a political project. Security and privacy are human rights goals which necessarily contend with the political context of surveillance and authoritarianism they exist in. The co-founders support of a far-right party, and the implicit support for surveillance that comes with it, are of significant and immediate concern to those who use Tor and Mullvad.
Freedom of expression is not a right to be listened to or to be agreed with.
As it happens, Tor's aim is that they don't know who you are or what you say!
> "We support free speech, unless it's speech we disagree with"
You can defend someone's right to say something while disagreeing with it, not supporting it, and not wanting to be associated with it. By publishing that blog post, Tor isn't attacking free speech; they are participating in it. As are you, when you respond to them, and I, when I respond to you.
> They decided it's more important to virtue signal
I'm always a bit confused by people using the term "virtue signaling". Do you never try to make ethical decisions in your life? If you do, why is it so hard to believe others are, too?
The implication of the term “virtue signaling” is that you’re primarily seeking acclaim (or dodging criticism) by taking a given position, and that your position likely isn’t sincere.
This is pretty common in my experience, along with the inverse of “vice signaling” which you don’t hear about that much.
> The implication of the term “virtue signaling” is that you’re primarily seeking acclaim (or dodging criticism) by taking a given position, and that your position likely isn’t sincere.
Exactly. Now, who would think that other people's ethical decisions aren't made for sincere reasons?
"The Tor Project’s mission is to advance human rights and freedoms." - I might be completely barking up the wrong tree here, but I thought the TOR mission was to allow spies to access the network and hide among all the other non-spy users.
It was and still is funded mostly by the US Naval Research Laboratory. And considering most of the nodes are hosted on American cloud infra, if those companies share with the US Govt in real-time what is connecting in and out then the entire chain can be figured out much of the time without any kind of timing attacks. The regular person using it doesn't get as much of the privacy benefits, but the charade is making it seem like they do.
I know lots of people really believe in TOR - fair play to them. I just know it in my bones it's not as it seems.
Meh, and yet anyone can run a relay or onion service in a few clicks.
It's the best tool regular people have for privacy without a doubt.
>The regular person using it doesn't get as much of the privacy benefits, but the charade is making it seem like they do.
Just false.
If your model is simply to avoid corporate surveillance and tracking its a fantastic defense.
If your trying to go up against nation states, it never claimed to protect you from that.
'Meh, and yet anyone can run a relay or onion service in a few clicks.' - of course.
'Just false.'
It depends where you are from. The US constitution is supposed to prevent spying on American citizens, but anyone outside of the USA is fair game. Most of the global population is not in the USA (like me).
'If your model is simply to avoid corporate surveillance and tracking its a fantastic defense.' - I host an onion service exactly for that reason, not for my own privacy but to let customers have that with us if they want.
'If your trying to go up against nation states, it never claimed to protect you from that.' - I disagree, it will protect an American spy a treat.
> I thought the TOR mission was to allow spies to access the network and hide among all the other non-spy users.
Both things can be true... the original need for the network necessitated the mission of the foundation itself... you can't have a global network that only spies use, or you're not blending in, so you have to make it about a public good that many civilians will also use.
Other systems like I2P, SimpleX, Tribler, Datura etc. take additional steps to mitigate such kinds of Sybil attacks that people talk about against Tor, and new methods are being worked on all the time.
Splitting up your traffic across multiple nodes/circuits/etc. as well as persistent dummy/decoy traffic are some methods I've seen discussed recently.
> if those companies share with the US Govt in real-time
IMO This is a colossal "if" and not something we can realistically determine besides saying "we know it happens sometimes, but certainly not all or even most of the time."
Everyone's threat model is different, and hiding from state-level actors is generally 1. much too complicated to succeed at, and 2. you're probably not that special in the first place that you'd actually be targeted. The privacy community is bursting at the seams with all manner of tinfoil-hat wearers and wild conspiracy theorists that think some dark boogeyman is out to get them.
I'd also like to see a source that proves "most of the nodes are hosted on American cloud infra."
I'd also like to see a source that proves "most of the nodes are hosted on American cloud infra."
I will make a correction. What I should have said is that out of the top 10 networks hosting relays or exit nodes, that close to half have an American presence and that the vast majority 80-90% of relays and exit nodes are spread out within 14 eyes countries - you can see it yourself when you look at the network. When was the last time you looked at where it was connected to and did not see a flag within either 5 eyes, 9 eyes or 14 eyes countries? While that maybe isn't the proof you want, it sure is a meaty coincidence and another reason on top of who funds it and what its purpose is for.
How secure is SimpleX? I saw a lot of tinfoil hat people on Reddit claiming that it's the next coming of Signal.