What's going on? Proton faced a similar scandal recently. I think in their case sponsored a video by a far right vlogger. After that I saw people recommending Mullvad as an alternative.
Tweet from Proton's CEO last year: "10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned."
He repeatedly said his statement was politically neutral.
I am surprised that people are surprised, all these services are by people for people who are marginalized. Therefore, they are either far-right or far-left. When its business, its more likely to be a far-right since they are more business-oriented. The far left folks usually make a repo and give it away or try to organize some collective effort.
Nah. But for the supposed "privacy" you swap one "dumb pipe" for another pipe, which you have no clue about its operations beyond "trust me bro". Of course they may behave with good intentions and actually keep their promises but that's a rather huge IF.
And then quite often people will still use their regular tracking-browser to access tracking-websites xD
Swede here. That's not even close to accurate. Örebropartiet is not extremist, but I would absolutely label them radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists. Please do some research and make up your own mind. They're a tiny local party active in Örebro municipality where their founder and leader loudly points out clearly wasteful use of government funds, or more or less corrupt decisions made by leading party figures in other parties on local matters. The party leader is known for ridiculing competing parties party members on debates.
Where the Örebropartiet (Örebro Party) usually are called extremist is in questions regarding immigration. They are of the opinion that people that move to Sweden should not integrate but also assimilate, and quickly, find a job. For some people, this might sound extreme, but I would argue that more than half of the Swedish population (and its parties) nowadays share this view, similar to how Japanese people and society broadly want people that move their to assimilate.
> Swede here. That's not even close to accurate. Örebropartiet is not extremist, but I would absolutely label them radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists. Please do some research and make up your own mind.
This sounds like you expect very few people to do this. I can't speak for others but this was exactly the first thing I did upon hearing about it, and
> Where the Örebropartiet (Örebro Party) usually are called extremist is in questions regarding immigration.
is exactly the conclusion I came to, based on their statements about "parasites". Not the integration aspect indeed...
Any of the Swedes in here can corroborate the claims in the article about this right wing group? Especially about the extreme anti-immigration statements and put that in full translation and context?
Also what this group leader has done in Örebro to contextualize this quote
> ”I hope they will do similar things on the national level as in Örebro”, writes Daniel Berntsson to Flamman.
Now, the usual cry from blue sky spoiled rich kid fascists that are unable to understand that some people live in the real world, with real problems and because of that have ideas different from them.
The party in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party. Doesn't sound extremist far-right to me. Many of its positions would be considered center-left or even far left in much of the world.
Where in the world is calling refugees parasites considered a neutral statement? Legit curious where this "much of the world" would be since I can't imagine this of an average person
Did anyone actually look into the "far-right" party that this purports to be?
The Örebro Party (Swedish: Örebropartiet, ÖP) is a local populist political party in Örebro, Sweden, led by Markus Allard. It holds seats in the Örebro municipal and regional assemblies, focusing on local populist policies such as reducing politicians' salaries, stricter migration, and free dental care.
Sweden has undergone a horrible transformation in the last several years where gang warfare and especially bombings have skyrocketed. Most of the new gang violence in the last several years is from migrants from North Africa and the Middle East, after Sweden implemented a generous immigration policy.
There's nothing to indicate that this party is "far right" at all. It's a populist-based party but the stance on immigration is definitely linearly correlated to the violence that was brought in by immigration. Lowering politicians' salaries and free dental care doesn't sound very far right to me.
People are surprised that a privacy-oriented businessman is right-wing is very strange.
"Millions" in the title is also misleading in this context - it's millions in Swedish Kronor, which is roughly $500K USD. A lot, but the title seems intentionally misleading.
I've also never really understood the cycle of boycotting things because you don't like how an individual spends their own money. Almost every company will employ people who have values you severely disagree with, and put money toward those causes. And turning to Proton as the alternative is... a choice?
I'm Swedish, but never heard of Örebropartiet before. I tried looking into their website and it doesn't say a lot.
Translated from Swedish wikipedia:
---
Örebropartiet was founded by Markus Allard in the spring of 2014, when he was recently expelled from the Left Party and the Young Left.
[...]
Among the party's main issues are reduced politicians' salaries, reduced bureaucracy, civil servant responsibility, assimilation policy and the repatriation of people who do not adapt.
---
I think it is very reasonable to demand that people try to integrate when coming to a new country - learn the language, get into the culture. As a Swedish person I think this is missing from our integration politics, which is an often talked about topic in the last years.
In the end this is a political question and sadly instead of engaging in dialogue the reaction to these questions feels like it most often leads to polarization and division. Inclusion means also including people with different beliefs and respecting their opinions, even if we don't share them. Through understanding comes empathy.
Fun fact: we get a dopamine release when taking an opposing stance and then seeing (subjective) proof of our stance. It requires self-discipline and fighting your impulses to avoid polarization.
It’s a hot topic, but in Belgium some people are taught how to take the bus, do their taxes, and not harass women. One of my Dutch teachers led the integration course and said this stuff was really difficult to land.
If you come from a culture of groping women, not doing is gonna be a challenge. I get it. But we’ve also built mosques and have pagan festivals and allow public servants to wear their choice of religious attire. I think it’s a balance, but nobody is ever happy with wherever you set the balance.
When I learn the local language, I’m happier; it’s nice to talk to people. Not everyone agrees.
I don't think it's reasonable to "demand" integration. What should happen is that the existing cultures should be open and welcoming enough so that new-comers want to take part. Also, I like the idea of immigrants bringing their culture with them (and in some cases, that may be the last representation of that culture) and welcoming people to learn about it.
Multi-culturalism should be about championing different cultures and not forcing everyone into a cultural homogeneity.
GP literally addresses your points. I think we’re very welcoming in most of Europe, adopt others’ traditions, and are not too imposing. Just, you know, leave women alone and don’t aim fireworks at ambulances.
Dismissing any amount of integration is chicanery. We’re pro-social creatures, and knowing the lay of the land makes your life better.
The truth is, assimilation is usually a process that takes a generation or two. First generation immigrants don't assimilate very well. Many never manage to even learn the host country's language.
Assimilation really happens at the level of their descendants, who grow up entirely within the host country, going to their schools, consuming their pop culture, etc, and think of themselves as Swedes or Americans or whatever.
Do you let anyone come into your home ? If you did, you'd no longer have a home, and therefore would not be able to offer hospitality anymore. Don't you expect people who come to your home to abide by at least a few rules ?
It's the same for a country. It's because it has borders, rules, and a strong culture that it has something to offer that immigrants might be interested in.
> I don't think it's reasonable to "demand" integration
Yes, it is reasonable to demand people who come into a country adapt to rules - written and to a certain extent also the unwritten, of which Sweden has many - of that country. When in Rome, act as the Romans. This adaptation will never be 100% but that is not the point, what is most important is that newcomers learn to assimilate to such a level that the natives are open and willing to maybe integrate some parts of the newcomer's culture.
People who 'are the last representatives of [their] culture' can write a book about it while becoming part of their new culture since it is clear that their old one did not stand the test of time. They're much better off that way instead of living like cultural fossils for the likes of NPR and PBS to make documentaries about. By all means document what that extinct culture had to offer but life is for the living and culture is the commonly agreed upon set of rules how to live it.
Multiculturalism is a pipe dream, something dreamt up by people who listened to one too many version of John Lennon's Imagine. It has been shown not to work time and time again, it makes it harder for people coming in to a new country to assimilate and integrate because there is no clear target to aim for. Culture is not a fixed thing, it evolves through time by adopting new things and getting rid of old customs. Multiculturalism does not call for cultural evolution, it calls for revolution: here's a whole new culture, now deal with it. Revolution hardly every works and when it does it tends to go badly for those on the wrong side of it.
> What should happen is that the existing cultures should be open and welcoming enough so that new-comers want to take part
I'm an immigrant to the EU/NL (naturalized, now a citizen), and I also lived in Sweden for a short stint. If Swedes are anything, they're open and welcoming, I'd even say too open and welcoming, which is part of why these issues keep cropping up.
Some context so I'm not immediately written off as ignorant or as carrying some kind of agenda: I grew up in Indonesia. My family is largely atheist, but we lived in Aceh (look up Qanun Aceh, it's Sharia law territory) and various other places around the country. I've been immersed in Islam, every sect of Christianity, Buddhism (I went to a Buddhist school as a kid), and Balinese Hinduism. I went to an international school with people from literally everywhere, and I'm still close with many of them, scattered across the globe as they now are. I say this to establish that I've actually lived among a wide range of people, cultures, and religions, this isn't an abstract opinion.
This isn't unique to EU immigrant communities either, I've seen the exact same pattern in Indonesia. Many (I want to stress: many, not most, but certainly too many) immigrant groups are remarkably insular and resist integrating in any meaningful way, even multiple generations in. They don't learn the language, don't adopt the host country's customs, and make essentially zero effort to become part of the society they live in. This gets worse where there's already a large existing community of the same background, those often calcify into enclaves where you're functionally not living in the host country at all anymore.
At a certain point, we also have to admit that some immigrants are the source of the problem.
Where I land is this: host countries should expect integration from long-term and permanent residents, and should actively support it via language access, civic education, real investment in helping people become part of the society they're settling into, rather than leaving newcomers to sort it out alone or quietly tolerating permanent parallel communities. What that integration looks like has to be specific to the country in question, because "host culture" isn't one universal template, integrating into Aceh's legal and religious framework is a very different thing from integrating into Sweden's secular, liberal one, and I'm not pretending otherwise.
But in both cases, multiculturalism shouldn't mean a one-way street where only the migrant's culture is expected to remain untouched and is treated as a holy thing while the host culture is expected to bend indefinitely until it, too, warps into something it never was. If you've chosen to build a life somewhere, the society you've moved to should welcome you in, but you should also be expected to actually become part of it. We shouldn't have to walk around on eggshells when we say that people should integrate, this should be the expectation for anyone looking to form a permanent life in a country they live in.
Refugees are a different case, since they didn't choose displacement, but even there once return is no longer realistic and a person has built a long-term life in the host country, the same logic on integration eventually applies to them as well even if the urgency and framing should differ from voluntary migration.
On a side note (and this is more of my own personal problem), I'd rather not see any kind of Sharia-like culture anywhere near me ever again, that crap is stone-age level bullshit that deserves to go extinct forever.
And for anyone who treats Atlas Shrugged as a Bible, I hope you're aware that Alan Greenspan was almost surely more of a true believer than you are, and his legacy is pretty well summarized by having to admit that his practically religious belief in Randian ideology led to the most severe global economic downturn since the Great Depression.
Of course after his admission modern Objectivists began to predictably denounce Greenspan (Ayn Rand's favorite boy) with various "No True Scotsman" arguments.
I’ve read a few books about dopamine/motivation/common neurotransmitters and this has never come up. In my amateurish view I think empathy is more connected to oxytocin (which afaik does release during social connections, which The book ”The molecule of more” covers a bit).
> Translated from Swedish Wikipedia [...] I think it is very reasonable
When I looked into this party when news broke a few days ago, I was surprised to find that the English article was comparatively longer and included the more appalling statements. Seems worrying that their narrative on the native version appears to be working
Not a defense, but rather support for your opinion, just take one look at Europe. Previously, they welcomed Syrians and middle Easterners escaping conflict. But in the last years, right wing majorities have emerged and grown based on increased crime and general nuisance, many are now against immigrants. Just yesterday the Danes are insisting on eliminating these nuisance loud "calls to worship" from Mosques. Immigrants that are not really being hired by locals, or not successful starting their own legitimate businesses, too often turn to organized crime - - they have to make a living somehow. Witness the violent protests recently in Ireland against immigrants. Witness all the bombings in Sweden, and of course the rapes of local women. Many of these immigrants come from less lawful countries, where it's often "dog eat dog" for survival.
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:
-----
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.
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.
For example, I certainly boycott anything to do with Elon Musk, for the same kinds of reasons.
You seem to be falling into the "perfect is the enemy of the good" trap. It's not possibly to perfectly boycott every person and organization that deserves to be sanctioned, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it where it is possible.
> [Bad companies] have many employees and I am sure some of them donate to causes you would disagree with using (part of) the money you gave to those companies.
People keep saying these things and I simply don't understand this at all. For sure some of my money goes to things I don't want to support, but for the money I can control and know where it's going without doing active research (though that approach can be also used), and even if it's just what I get as info through newspapers, forums and news sites, it absolutely shouldn't get people who I think of a re extreme rascist (regardless of whether this applies in this specific case).
Why shouldn't someone divest from big tech companies if they think they are harmful?
If I found out that my local bakery was funding regressive far-right politics, I absolutely would stop going to that bakery.
These are silly questions with easy answers if you have basic moral standards. By mocking people for having standards, you just reveal you lack them yourself.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
For some people, the answer is obviously yes. For others, they'll judge Mullvad purely by its track record, audits, and technical design.
Honestly, you could say the same about the CEO of ANDURIL in the US - the Oculus guy...but he just cares about the US and wants to make money by making weapon systems etc.
Is he a bad person? Is he a patriot? Who knows, I ain't gonna play the ultimate judge game - but he did release a cool gameboy clone which is literally the closest I will ever get to his work... [1]
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 154 ms ] threadHe repeatedly said his statement was politically neutral.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party
I'm so clever, everyone else is stupid
And then quite often people will still use their regular tracking-browser to access tracking-websites xD
Where the Örebropartiet (Örebro Party) usually are called extremist is in questions regarding immigration. They are of the opinion that people that move to Sweden should not integrate but also assimilate, and quickly, find a job. For some people, this might sound extreme, but I would argue that more than half of the Swedish population (and its parties) nowadays share this view, similar to how Japanese people and society broadly want people that move their to assimilate.
This sounds like you expect very few people to do this. I can't speak for others but this was exactly the first thing I did upon hearing about it, and
> Where the Örebropartiet (Örebro Party) usually are called extremist is in questions regarding immigration.
is exactly the conclusion I came to, based on their statements about "parasites". Not the integration aspect indeed...
Also what this group leader has done in Örebro to contextualize this quote
> ”I hope they will do similar things on the national level as in Örebro”, writes Daniel Berntsson to Flamman.
For all the stuff about free dentists this sounds pretty right wing to me.
But if your kids spend the first dozen years of their life in a country, they should get to stay in that country.
The Örebro Party (Swedish: Örebropartiet, ÖP) is a local populist political party in Örebro, Sweden, led by Markus Allard. It holds seats in the Örebro municipal and regional assemblies, focusing on local populist policies such as reducing politicians' salaries, stricter migration, and free dental care.
Sweden has undergone a horrible transformation in the last several years where gang warfare and especially bombings have skyrocketed. Most of the new gang violence in the last several years is from migrants from North Africa and the Middle East, after Sweden implemented a generous immigration policy.
https://nct-cbnw.com/an-explosion-a-day-in-sweden-what-is-go...
There's nothing to indicate that this party is "far right" at all. It's a populist-based party but the stance on immigration is definitely linearly correlated to the violence that was brought in by immigration. Lowering politicians' salaries and free dental care doesn't sound very far right to me.
People are surprised that a privacy-oriented businessman is right-wing is very strange.
"Millions" in the title is also misleading in this context - it's millions in Swedish Kronor, which is roughly $500K USD. A lot, but the title seems intentionally misleading.
I've also never really understood the cycle of boycotting things because you don't like how an individual spends their own money. Almost every company will employ people who have values you severely disagree with, and put money toward those causes. And turning to Proton as the alternative is... a choice?
Translated from Swedish wikipedia: --- Örebropartiet was founded by Markus Allard in the spring of 2014, when he was recently expelled from the Left Party and the Young Left. [...] Among the party's main issues are reduced politicians' salaries, reduced bureaucracy, civil servant responsibility, assimilation policy and the repatriation of people who do not adapt. ---
I think it is very reasonable to demand that people try to integrate when coming to a new country - learn the language, get into the culture. As a Swedish person I think this is missing from our integration politics, which is an often talked about topic in the last years.
In the end this is a political question and sadly instead of engaging in dialogue the reaction to these questions feels like it most often leads to polarization and division. Inclusion means also including people with different beliefs and respecting their opinions, even if we don't share them. Through understanding comes empathy.
Can recommend "The Righteous Mind" by moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt who discusses this in a book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Righteous_Mind
Fun fact: we get a dopamine release when taking an opposing stance and then seeing (subjective) proof of our stance. It requires self-discipline and fighting your impulses to avoid polarization.
What kind of things might be involved in a mandate for people to "get into the culture?"
If you come from a culture of groping women, not doing is gonna be a challenge. I get it. But we’ve also built mosques and have pagan festivals and allow public servants to wear their choice of religious attire. I think it’s a balance, but nobody is ever happy with wherever you set the balance.
When I learn the local language, I’m happier; it’s nice to talk to people. Not everyone agrees.
Tja.
Multi-culturalism should be about championing different cultures and not forcing everyone into a cultural homogeneity.
Dismissing any amount of integration is chicanery. We’re pro-social creatures, and knowing the lay of the land makes your life better.
Assimilation really happens at the level of their descendants, who grow up entirely within the host country, going to their schools, consuming their pop culture, etc, and think of themselves as Swedes or Americans or whatever.
It's the same for a country. It's because it has borders, rules, and a strong culture that it has something to offer that immigrants might be interested in.
Yes, it is reasonable to demand people who come into a country adapt to rules - written and to a certain extent also the unwritten, of which Sweden has many - of that country. When in Rome, act as the Romans. This adaptation will never be 100% but that is not the point, what is most important is that newcomers learn to assimilate to such a level that the natives are open and willing to maybe integrate some parts of the newcomer's culture.
People who 'are the last representatives of [their] culture' can write a book about it while becoming part of their new culture since it is clear that their old one did not stand the test of time. They're much better off that way instead of living like cultural fossils for the likes of NPR and PBS to make documentaries about. By all means document what that extinct culture had to offer but life is for the living and culture is the commonly agreed upon set of rules how to live it.
Multiculturalism is a pipe dream, something dreamt up by people who listened to one too many version of John Lennon's Imagine. It has been shown not to work time and time again, it makes it harder for people coming in to a new country to assimilate and integrate because there is no clear target to aim for. Culture is not a fixed thing, it evolves through time by adopting new things and getting rid of old customs. Multiculturalism does not call for cultural evolution, it calls for revolution: here's a whole new culture, now deal with it. Revolution hardly every works and when it does it tends to go badly for those on the wrong side of it.
But at the same time, you should not be expected to give up your culture (as long as it is not doing something against the law).
I'm an immigrant to the EU/NL (naturalized, now a citizen), and I also lived in Sweden for a short stint. If Swedes are anything, they're open and welcoming, I'd even say too open and welcoming, which is part of why these issues keep cropping up.
Some context so I'm not immediately written off as ignorant or as carrying some kind of agenda: I grew up in Indonesia. My family is largely atheist, but we lived in Aceh (look up Qanun Aceh, it's Sharia law territory) and various other places around the country. I've been immersed in Islam, every sect of Christianity, Buddhism (I went to a Buddhist school as a kid), and Balinese Hinduism. I went to an international school with people from literally everywhere, and I'm still close with many of them, scattered across the globe as they now are. I say this to establish that I've actually lived among a wide range of people, cultures, and religions, this isn't an abstract opinion.
This isn't unique to EU immigrant communities either, I've seen the exact same pattern in Indonesia. Many (I want to stress: many, not most, but certainly too many) immigrant groups are remarkably insular and resist integrating in any meaningful way, even multiple generations in. They don't learn the language, don't adopt the host country's customs, and make essentially zero effort to become part of the society they live in. This gets worse where there's already a large existing community of the same background, those often calcify into enclaves where you're functionally not living in the host country at all anymore.
At a certain point, we also have to admit that some immigrants are the source of the problem.
Where I land is this: host countries should expect integration from long-term and permanent residents, and should actively support it via language access, civic education, real investment in helping people become part of the society they're settling into, rather than leaving newcomers to sort it out alone or quietly tolerating permanent parallel communities. What that integration looks like has to be specific to the country in question, because "host culture" isn't one universal template, integrating into Aceh's legal and religious framework is a very different thing from integrating into Sweden's secular, liberal one, and I'm not pretending otherwise.
But in both cases, multiculturalism shouldn't mean a one-way street where only the migrant's culture is expected to remain untouched and is treated as a holy thing while the host culture is expected to bend indefinitely until it, too, warps into something it never was. If you've chosen to build a life somewhere, the society you've moved to should welcome you in, but you should also be expected to actually become part of it. We shouldn't have to walk around on eggshells when we say that people should integrate, this should be the expectation for anyone looking to form a permanent life in a country they live in.
Refugees are a different case, since they didn't choose displacement, but even there once return is no longer realistic and a person has built a long-term life in the host country, the same logic on integration eventually applies to them as well even if the urgency and framing should differ from voluntary migration.
On a side note (and this is more of my own personal problem), I'd rather not see any kind of Sharia-like culture anywhere near me ever again, that crap is stone-age level bullshit that deserves to go extinct forever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5lZPWNFizQ
Of course after his admission modern Objectivists began to predictably denounce Greenspan (Ayn Rand's favorite boy) with various "No True Scotsman" arguments.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48704714
Source
https://x.com/AllardKlipp/status/2060109271635771457
When I looked into this party when news broke a few days ago, I was surprised to find that the English article was comparatively longer and included the more appalling statements. Seems worrying that their narrative on the native version appears to be working
Does this apply to immigrants?
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:
-----
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.
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.
Yes? I have been divesting from big tech. Not only do I feel good about it but the side effects have been positive too.
For example, I certainly boycott anything to do with Elon Musk, for the same kinds of reasons.
You seem to be falling into the "perfect is the enemy of the good" trap. It's not possibly to perfectly boycott every person and organization that deserves to be sanctioned, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it where it is possible.
People keep saying these things and I simply don't understand this at all. For sure some of my money goes to things I don't want to support, but for the money I can control and know where it's going without doing active research (though that approach can be also used), and even if it's just what I get as info through newspapers, forums and news sites, it absolutely shouldn't get people who I think of a re extreme rascist (regardless of whether this applies in this specific case).
If I found out that my local bakery was funding regressive far-right politics, I absolutely would stop going to that bakery.
These are silly questions with easy answers if you have basic moral standards. By mocking people for having standards, you just reveal you lack them yourself.
Are there any alternatives left?
For me, Proton isn't one.. not sure what else there is.
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.
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.
No, in fact, the opposite of this is obvious.
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.
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.
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?
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.
There are plenty of people for whom it doesn't matter, but for some it does.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
literally translated, “humans with empathy”
> 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.
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.
Going to sign up now through the tailscale partnership.
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.
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.
Politics and the company you own somehow having to do with each other and influencing each other? Preposterous. Wouldn't happen!
Any other verified sources?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48696800
For some people, the answer is obviously yes. For others, they'll judge Mullvad purely by its track record, audits, and technical design.
Honestly, you could say the same about the CEO of ANDURIL in the US - the Oculus guy...but he just cares about the US and wants to make money by making weapon systems etc.
Is he a bad person? Is he a patriot? Who knows, I ain't gonna play the ultimate judge game - but he did release a cool gameboy clone which is literally the closest I will ever get to his work... [1]
[1] https://modretro.com