There have been multiple posts about this and hundreds of comments, so there is clearly appetite to discuss it, although none of the submitted links have been very detailed.
I've merged the other threads into this one, so you'll see some anachronistic timestamps below.
I don't think "appetite to discuss" should be a justification to override the guidelines against political submissions and discussion. There is far too much politics on HN and it leaks into unrelated discussions too. There are plenty of other places to discuss politics on the internet.
I'm aware of what you've said in the past about this. I'm expressing my disagreement. HN would be improved dramatically by a significant change in where this line is drawn.
> From an HN point of view the idea is to give the discussion a place, since the community obviously wants to have it
So where do you draw the line?
Just this week I saw multiple offtopic Epstein schizoposts by 10+ year old accounts that were alternately flagged and vouched. Should we allow that too?
My takeaway is this is a highly politically charged rant on a niche social media site — exactly the kind of discussion we're meant to avoid.
Things are rotten below ground and you give an inch, they'll want a mile.
We try to draw the line according to principles that I've explained many times over the years. If you scroll back through the comments, for example, at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so..., you'll find them. If you read some of those and then still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
Btw, I'm not claiming that we make every individual call correctly - that's an undecidable question anyhow since everyone will have their own evaluation of "correctly". But at the more general level of what principles to apply, I do think there's a certain consistency: they've been the same for many years, and we do our (fallible) best to follow them.
Having had an old account nuked by ‘dang himself many years ago for engaging in the exact kind of flame bait arguments going on in this thread is… rich to say the least.
Slightly tangential on Swedish society, there are similarities between USA and Sweden. There's a large segment of society that is white and very blond, and there's a largish segment which is not. Along that same line there are all kinds of divisions: economic, education, religious, sets of values, and of access to things and possibilities. What pisses me off is that the cast of "CEOs of successful companies" live in an sphere of privilege where they really are not bothered at all by the brown people. They in fact have plenty of places to go, a vast archipelago, out of reach for anybody who can't afford a boat. Though they get all the benefits, including cheap qualified labor from people who had to leave their homelands displaced by poverty, conflict and war. I'll switch VPN provider too.
One of these days we will elect somebody who is corrupt and morally corrupt, incompetent and poorly educated and who'll promise to screw us over many times and in many positions, and we will let him just do so so that there are concentration camps for the brown people.
What's the relationship between race and immigration status?
It's not entirely clear what the argument which unites them is supposed to be. This unification is always in the mind of the white matry not the person opposing immigration. In the UK polish immigration was opposed, en mass, poles are white.
SUPPOSE there are large numbers of poorly assimilated people in a country, whose culture of origin is very different than that of the host country. What does the minor coincidence of their common lack of european ancestry show, other than to prove the point, they lack such ancestry?
White skin evolved in europe, with the peoples of europe, as with european culture -- that whiteness tracks this culture is a conincidence. (There's less-and-less european diaspora in america -- which, if imported en mass, might also enrange europeans).
The refusal to treat large scale immigration as a cultural and economic phenomneon, to try and insult opponents of this position with a slander of racism -- this tactic doesnt work any more.
All you are doing is driving those people to say, "OK, so its racism. We'll vote for that then." And the result is real racists are elected.
Do you have any analysis of the issues people opposed to large scale immigartion, from non-western cultures, and who would reverse at least some of it -- do you have any arguments that engage the issues they actually raise?
It is strange, because this party’s platform seems to mirror the positions of the blackest Swede I know (Malcolm Kyeyune, a Marxist writer who is also often accused of being a right-winger). I suspect that the divisions in Sweden are much deeper than race.
> The refusal to treat large scale immigration as a cultural and economic phenomneon
> and insult opponents of this position as racist
On the other hand, you treat the negative effects of current immigrant milieus as eternal and innert to their ancestry (dare to say: genes).
This way, you can look at integration as if it has to happen in a single generation and also, allows you to ignore the more important part of diminishing social mobility, which effects the natives as much.
Look at germany, where after WW2, alot of turkish "guest workers" were invited and stayed. After several generations the descendant of those immigrants are as german as you can be. They are still soft muslims, drink alcohol, engage with german bureaucracy, have a heavy turkish accent -- some of them are even candidates for the far right AfD. Please note, they migrated into an economic boom.
Isnt that utterly ridiculous? When time proves you wrong, it reveals your narrow mindedness.
And when you reduce immigrants to percieved negative innert properties, isnt that racist? When you broaden your scope, youll see the bigger problems are elsewhere, dont get distracted by bigotted populists, that are as clueless about problems or their solutions.
> hand, you treat the negative effects of current immigrant milieus as eternal amd innert to their ancestry (dare to say: genes).
I don't think they did say any of this. I don't understand why people who debate against limiting immigration (and it often is only this way round) continually mis-represent the person's clear, stated concern and try and replace it. It is a completely transparent attempt, and no one is fooled. This isn't 2015 when an accusation of racism was taken seriously, because who would mis-accuse someone of such an awful thing? Well, it turned out millions of people would do that. The US President would do it[0].
As for the genetics comment, this is ridiculous on its face as well. Race and culture are in no way tied. But culture survives for many generations, particularly when the immigrating group is large enough. This is obvious. Germans in the 1900s could move almost anywhere in the world and become the best brewers in the region, not because they have the genotype of a brewer, but because they had (and still have) an incredible brewing tradition handed down from parent to child. Culture doesn't change because you move into another country. It moves because you assimilate, make lots of native friends, and learn the language. Lots and lots of people are not doing that.
I think racism comes from a cognitive bias, that eg, lets you read a text without ever engaging with the broader explanation offered (social mobility, time scale of integration) but instead engange with a side remark about genes.
GP ties negative properties to entire groups without differenciation, this is by definition racist.
To end on a constructive upside, if GP was really concerned about eg womens rights, any kind of stateful intervention should only target that. By being racist and eg trying to associate this issue with brown skins, stateful intervention becomes sweeping. By being more precise, migration politics that targets them all becomes social politics wich only effects some.
> By being racist and eg trying to associate this issue with brown skins
I have only seen you associate cultural issues and non-integration from mass immigration as being race-related. I have no idea who you think you're talking about when you say people are doing this.
>On the other hand, you treat the negative effects of current immigrant milieus as eternal and innert to their ancestry
A bad faith misrepresentation of the issue. The issue is why should existing citizens have to suffer the backwards views of the immigrant population while immigrants "assimilate over multiple generations"? Why should the host country have to absorb increased crime, feeling less safe, having their culture changed, etc for the sake of the immigrant population? Where does this supposed moral impetus come from?
Congrats, you touched my time scale argument, the other commenter didnt engage with anything important. Unfortunately you didnt touch the systemic problem of social mobility, which is much more striking.
To return the facor, the "moral impetus" comes from not elevating your culture as the only origing of truth, goodness, etc., but instead codify common basic needs, human dignity, etc. into law and sanction/integrate nased on this.
Im not saying that immigrarion is frictionless, the same way you non-racist arent saying, some undesirable negative traits (like crime) cannot emerge in the native population without immigration. The solution to native or migrant crime is identical.
Why you should take the hassle and hopefully adress social mobility and organize integration? Because of demographics and economic contribution -- the bigger picture yet again.
>To return the facor, the "moral impetus" comes from not elevating your culture as the only origing of truth, goodness, etc.
A country doesn't need to see its culture as an objective ideal to justify protecting its citizens from non-citizens that would victimize, cause discord, or otherwise strain the social fabric and institutions. A government's first and most important mandate is to act in the interests of its citizens. What impetus does a nation have to help non-citizens at the expense of the prosperity and comfort of citizens?
Immigrants economic contributions are net-positive, its not at the expense of anyone bc economies are no zero sum games. This is scientific consens.
Protecting citizens with closed borders and potentially harming them in the long term with or protecting them with capable institutions based on individual cases? (Hope you see the racism trick question here.)
I don't think you understand very much about race theory if you think "I'm prejudiced against poles, but they are white" is any sort of gotcha.
More importantly, you show no signs of actually wanting to understand what people mean when using the term "racism" so there's no point in elaborating further.
So suppose there's a large group of people arriving into your country en mass, you poll them about eg., women's rights and you find that 80%+ of them hold highly regressive views that were rare and fringe in even in the last 100+ years of your own country. Indeed, women would be warned about them even in the antebellum south. Now suppose they're a different colour than the present inhabitants.
Which fact is most salient in your analysis of whether to retain their presence, or admit more?
If its the latter, then I think there's racism in play here, but not of the kind you imagine. Namely, it seems you'd think feminism is only for white people. Or perhaps that human rights are a white things. Others, of course, disagree.
Assuming you have an accurate individual level test, and the policy action you suggest is to not administer the test to each applicant and instead treat them all as homogeneous group and reject them based on older test results?
Right, so what's the state policy you advocate here?
Import 1 million people, 800,000 of which are racist, sexist, homophobic and militantly conservative -- and you'll do that because the policy to prevent it is, as you say, "Racist" ?
You may think these imports are on your side for now, because of the cross you've nailed yourself to -- but be assured, as you see today in the US, their cultural conservatism comes out when their social position is safe.
You are importing the very people you claim to despise : racists, sexists, misoginsits, and the like. And you're doing it why?
I said it was "discriminatory" (which it is), I never said "racist" (but that case could easily be made).
How are you determining this group that holds these views? What criteria? Because I don't know any group that matches that description exactly. Could you be specific?
I think a human is a human and is deserving of the same rights as any other person. I don't believe this position is radical in any way; it is what most doctrines of fairness are based upon.
Again, who are these people? How are you lumping them together (their views or their religion or their race?) because no large group is a hegemony of exactly the same ideas or views; all groups have a diverse set of individuals and ideas among them (both progressive and regressive).
It’s a little befuddling that you are pretending it’s not possible to simply observe the nature of the countries from which these people arrived and make high probability conclusions about the mean views on, say, women’s rights. Is your belief that any particular view can and does get patched like software when someone passes through customs and stamps their passport?
It's a little befuddling that you are pretending there are countries where every person in that country share the exact same thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. Where is this mythical place?
Are we determining an individual's potential, liberty, rights and character based on group population polling now, or do we believe in individual autonomy and potential?
Anyone claiming an entire country holds one singular view (on any topic) is not truly discussing in good faith.
I think judging any group of individuals as if they are all a single entity (be it through the lens of a particular majority view or a particular race) is discriminatory to the individual (hence discriminatory overall).
In your example (with made up numbers), if 20% are being denied citizenship and opportunity simply because they once resided in the same geographic region as another 80% (with different views), then that is discriminatory because they are not being viewed as individuals but are guilty by simply existing as part of a larger group that they have no choice over.
This is why we screen individual applicants, view each person as a single human with their own thoughts and needs, and judge everyone as an individual and not as a group; to avoid the wrong of discriminating against entire classes of people.
State policies do not operate in this fashion. See, for example, the reality of importing 1 million people.
The existence of a state pressuposes two "classes" of people: citizens and non-citizens.
Citizens are those who have lived and died, who have laboured and been taxed, and have made the very state which is constituted by them -- and they are owed, by that state, a society they wish to live in.
Non-citizens are everyone else. They are owed very little, at best, not to be killed elsewhere; but certaintly, not even to be aided. Unless you want to divide the wealth of every nation by 8bn and watch all of it disappear.
In any case, to non-citizens nothing is owed. Certainly not being carefully scruitnized under a microscope to see if a border agent can detect a lack of cultural or ethical fit.
And in any case, such a fit can be determined by citizens themsevles. And polled, overwhelming, citizens of western nations have spoken. And they have seen your dice rolling at the border, and havent appreciated its concequences.
THe presumption you have on the consent of your fellow citizens to give what you eblieve is owed to other citizens of other states -- this presumption is extraordinary, obniouxous, and short-lived. And much of your attitue here is shortening it.
What state policies are you referring to? Laws/rights should apply equally to all people or else they are not really rights (are they?).
No, Enlightenment principles come from the idea that rights and laws belong to all people (citizen or otherwise) and the founders believed that to be "self-evident" and "unalienable" to all humans. The US Supreme Court has ruled as such again and again (non-citizens have protections of the US Constitution), and Enlightenment thinkers (and any decent person) would agree.
Your entire argument (and everything after) can be ignored because your premise is not just flawed, it is entirely incorrect (false) and goes against any principle of human rights that I'm aware of.
Are you saying the population in Africa should not be provided healthcare? I fail to see your point here. If your argument is economic scarcity, then that can be solved eventually (and should be).
If citizenship isnt a line between two classes of people to which states owe obligations, then why isnt the USA obligated to pay for the healthcare of everyone in the world?
Because we don't live in a perfect world... yet. But we should always be working towards more prosperity for all, greater access to resources/services, more sharing of knowledge/assets, and improving the lives of all people on the planet (not just our preferred groups/tribes). Don't you think?
"you find that 80%+ of them hold highly regressive views"
Question is, does this info come from reputable pollsters? Or is it just a factoid propagated by right-wing media?
Also, impossible to square with a conservative white base *also* holding similarly regressive views. (Speaking from a US perspective, not a Euro one, but the same people yelling about regressive immigrants are also genuinely trying to disenfranchise women in favor of male-headed family units, and other things in this vein.)
It's not right-wing propaganda. Surveys from reputable sources like Pew Research have consistently shown that people from many countries in the Middle East and parts of Africa hold significantly more conservative views on women's rights, gender roles, and related issues than the European average.
so... when individuals from those regions migrate to Europe, they often bring those "attitudes" with them. Without meaningful assimilation, those views tend to persist in the next generation as well, this is literal y documented.
OK, well, so do Catholics and Orthodox Jews. As well as a large portion of religious folks in the nativist caucus. (I notice you completely ignored the second part of my comment.)
And "significantly more conservative" does not mean 80%+.
I'd point out that pointing at those largely powerless people is a tactic used by domestic power centres that have their own regressive views and policies which they want to draw discourse away from.
I'd ask for a comparison of how these arrivals have led to worse policy outcomes in terms of women's rights, and how that compares to the policy behaviour and outcomes of domestic groups.
I'd close out with a pointed question about which group it is that should be treated as a greater threat.
> a vast archipelago, out of reach for anybody who can't afford a boat
No. That is just false. There is a very well developed ferry/commuter boat network. [1] The cost on some lines are included in the Stockholm public transport pass. A five day ticket is €12/day. No need to buy a boat.
Sweden wasn't like USA until politicians decided to make Sweden a "humanitarian superpower" by establishing the most liberal refugee policy in the world, without thinking of how they can actually integrate and offer a better future for all those refugees. I guess the real motivation may have been getting cheap labor, rest of the society be damned.
In any case, Sweden's policies on humanitarian migration have been an utter failure, and I can't really blame Swedes for wanting to make it stricter. Obviously refugees are not the ones to be blamed here, but politicians who took in more than they could successfully integrate.
I lived in Stockholm for seven years. One of the biggest mistakes was not buying a boat. They‘re not as expensive as people make you believe; you can get a really nice day cruiser for around $10k, which you can sell again for $9k after a few years. Used boats have very little depreciation. Yes, you can go fancier; a nice weekender like a Nimbus 250 sets you back $60-70k, but that’s just like cars. You can get an Audi or BMW, or you start with a Kia.
The problem with boats isn’t that they’re expensive - the Stockholm archipelago can largely be considered like a lake, not like the sea. It’s education. And I don’t mean university.
I mean: which boat is appropriate? How do I navigate? On which cliffs can I stop, and how? How do I prepare for a nice day out? Which insurance do I choose, which parts need repair and when, what Mai tweets must I do myself vs pay someone, how much should I expect in upkeep costs, etc
These are all very manageable things to learn, but if you’re not used and not exposed to boat culture you won’t do it.
But the problem isn’t money. $10k isn’t free, but it’s less than most used cars, and annual upkeep is less than a car, too.
It took me 5 years to get the boat - a 22ft daycruiser with toilet. That was 15 years ago, haven't looked back. Got a daycruiser from the UK. Drove there, bought a trailer there, drove it home. Arbitrage during the financial crisis - half the price of the same boat in Sweden at the time.
"Mullvad AB and its parent company Amagicom AB are 100% owned by founders [1 person] and Daniel Berntsson [...]"[0]
So I'll assume he owns about 50%. Well, that ends my usage of Mullvad.[1] I appreciate that probably many of Mullvad's employees have different views, and obviously Berntsson has every right to his opinions and to express them, and I also appreciate that someone can have control over an opinionated company and run it for one particular set of reasons but not for other causes that someone believes in, but in the end I just don't want my money supporting anti-people causes.
I'm sorry to hear that. Yes, Daniel and I own 50% each.
> obviously Berntsson has every right to his opinions and to express them
Indeed.
> and I also appreciate that someone can have control over an opinionated company and run it for one particular set of reasons but not for other causes that someone believes in
That is exactly the case.
> but in the end I just don't want my money supporting anti-people causes.
As is your right. Daniel made his choice and now you make yours, as a number of other people in this thread has done. Some believe this party is left-wing, others right-wing. Some approve of it, others don't. Personally I don't, and as I've said elsewhere in this thread I wish he hadn't donated. As do many of our colleagues. To be fair though, there are also colleagues who do seem to approve. And then there are those who don't seem to care either way.
Still, I'm glad you recognize the possibility that Daniel and I are able to keep our personal opinions separate from the mission of our company. This is something we live in our daily work as well. As a workplace I'm glad we're not a monoculture of 100% like-minded individuals.
I've known Daniel for 20 years. He's one of the most empathetic individuals I know. Neither he nor I wants to make our workplace a monoculture.
I get that you disagree with his choice, as do I. But please recognize that we've built this company together over 17 years. To suggest that you know better than me that he wants to create a monoculture at our workplace is ridiculous.
I'm not sure why you're arguing this point though. It seems we both believe he made the wrong choice?
I've known pretty far right people that are empathetic. That doesn't matter, given what they support, though. I think you're focusing on the wrong thing.
And given the party Daniel supports, saying he doesn't want a monoculture... it seems like you are being naive. There are lots and lots of right-wing people in the USA that over the years never said far right things... but their actions have shown a different story.
I think you need to judge Daniel on his actions, not his words or your gut.
You set the focus. I was simply responding to your comment, same as I am now.
Again, I'm not defending his choice, but no, I'm not being naive. Over the 20 years I've known him he has demonstrated his values through consistent words and actions. I'd share details but that's not my place to do. You may choose to believe me or not.
I would like to add one note: if I were an activist in Iran, or in any other way my livelihood would depend on strong privacy services, I might keep using your service and even be (slightly) more certain of the company's resolve to keep my privacy protected. Although I would be very aware of the irony. But choosing for one's own safety can override other concerns. Very few things in life are black and white.
Indeed. What I hear you saying is that you recognize there is a kind of consistency, and benefit, to Mullvad's position.
I'll admit holding the line like this, when most people don't understand the nuance, and most of those who do don't value it, is irrational from a business perspective. Then again we founded the company because of our political convictions about free speech, free press, privacy, mass surveillance and censorship.
I respect your choice to leave, and also appreciate that we're both making an effort to understand each other. I wish all disagreements were like this.
In some business, political and legal roles, we deem certain structural relations to be a conflict of interest regardless of what people on those roles actually do..
The mere potential for excessive improper influence arising from the structure of their relationships and roles is what creates the deemed conflict.
As the owners of a company making substantial profit like Mullvad, you always had the potential capability to financially influence political outcomes on a scale which most your customers cannot, in ways that may seriously harm some of your customers and to be potentially against the stated mission of your company.
I think the relationship between running a company with an openly advertised public mission, or even an implied mission in the minds of customers, while in another role (wealthy private citizen) being able to make a substantial material action against the same mission, should be recognised as inherently a conflict of interest. But obviously it's one we can't avoid, as long as we allow people to get rich from a mission-driven company.
What we can do, is recognise that if someone actually takes a large material action against the company's mission, then they have gone a step further and demonstrated the conflict of interest.
We generally favour free speech, including political donations. But when the money for very large political financing comes mostly from customers who, by virtue of the advertising and marketing of the company's mission, are led to believe they are supporting the company's mission?
In my view, at that point the customers are being tricked into paying for something while their money is paying for something else which opposes the thing they thought they were funding.
At the least, it should be dealt with in a similar way that conflicts of interest are dealt with when, for example, directing multiple companies: By making sure everyone knows, so other people are able to consent or not on the major conflict issues those other people might have a view on. The analogy for customers is their consent shown by their informed decision to become or remain customers.
In Mullvad's situation, that would mean Mullvad should explain to customers, embedded clearly within it's public marketing of the company missions and values, that one of its current major owners receiving customer funds by way of profit, is the main financier of a political party which sponsors remigration in Sweden. Because that is clearly a thing some customers care about when evaluating whether to pay for Mullvad's services from now on. You know that, I know that, so there's no legitimate excuse for not letting customers who would care know.
Then, as you said, customers will be free to choose.
> Some believe this party is left-wing, others right-wing. Some approve of it, others don't.
For a company that puts political principle so fundamentally at the core of its marketing strategy, it's astonishing to see this kind of stance being taken.
The man who owns half the company seemingly choosing to funnel his share of its profits to a political party that advocates the mass deportation of people is, in that context, something with significant consequences.
I understand how awkward the position you're in must be, but it's obscene to present this as somehow being a thing that one can be morally neutral on. In the context of rising fascism across the continent, it's dismaying to see a company that a lot of us rely on so decisively pick the worst possible side.
I was acknowledging gpvos position, as well as that of others, and then stating my own position on the matter. I as an individual understand that there are people who see this party as left-wing or right-wing. That doesn't mean I agree. I as an individual don't approve of this party or its rhetoric. Others do. None of this is Mullvad's official position.
Mullvad only concerns itself with its mission. Our customers and employees represent a wide spectrum of opinions. You may not like some of them. Regardless, Mullvad's position is that privacy is a universal right, regardless of political affiliation.
> I understand how awkward the position you're in must be
> Mullvad's position is that privacy is a universal right
this is kind of a confusing statement considering the source. if you hold that privacy is a universal right, but you profit from gating access to it (along with someone who appears to have directed this profit to an appalling political project), are you saying that this right should only be afforded to those who pay for it? or are you just cloaking your business model in a moral shroud?
> are you saying that this right should only be afforded to those who pay for it
Not at all. When we say we believe privacy is a universal right, we're saying that e.g. states and corporations that actively violate your privacy are in the wrong. We're not saying that Mullvad, you or anyone else are obligated to work for free in order to provide privacy as a service.
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, and I respect what the company has been doing and the pro-privacy political stance it openly and publicly stands for.
I agree that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission, and shouldn't be.
But what I do care about, strongly, is that Mullvad as a company doesn't bow to pressure from pro-immigration activists who are attempting to impose social and financial consequences on people and institutions like Mullvad that tolerate anti-immigration political speech. Which is of course why people are publicizing this donation and publicly stating that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because of it.
I want to state publicly that what would make me no longer do business with Mullvad is if Mullvad, organizationally, attempted to pressure Daniel Berntsson into not donating to anti-immigration political parties because it induces pro-immigration activists to attempt to boycott the company. I don't want to live in a world where people trying to run a pro-privacy VPN feel pressure to police anti-immigration speech unrelated to the core mission among people in their organization, and that's the principle that my customer dollars are riding on.
> I'm a long-time Mullvad customer, and I respect what the company has been doing and the pro-privacy political stance it openly and publicly stands for.
The speech people are objecting to isn't anti-immgiration. It is pro crimes against humanity against people who previously immigrated, and their descendants.
A stance that Sweden should reduce the amount of immigration they accept would be utterly unremarkable and never result in outrage like this.
> A stance that Sweden should reduce the amount of immigration they accept would be utterly unremarkable and never result in outrage like this.
I don't believe this claim, because immigration is a live political issue in my country (the United States) just as it is in Sweden; and people absolutely claim that reducing the amount of immigration the US accepts is immoral and genocidal. Seriously, claims of this nature are a huge amount of contemporary American politics and this is obvious to anyone who has seen the name "Donald Trump" in a news publication talking about the US in the past decade. Also I've read Bryan Caplan's argument that not having open borders is morally equivalent to Jim Crow, and read plenty of other people who think similarly to him.
> Which is of course why people are publicizing this donation and publicly stating that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because of it.
But you're doing the same thing, making the same threat. You've only escalated it from a conscientious protest to a Mexican stand off.
I'm not icked-out by immigration discussion, but I am concerned by business owners starting down a political path. VPNs are not a very glamorous segment of the industry, and Mullvad had carved out a niche in taking a neutral side and fostering trust through a transparent product. My former boss spoke well of them and visited their sites in-person after hearing the marketing line about their RAM-only VPNs. Their appeal was not in protecting politicized speech, but protecting all speech and defending it as an apolitical technological imperative.
Now more than ever, it's hard for me to believe their brand identity. You're allowed to have political opinions, voice them and vote for them when you're a CEO. But spending your paycheck on inordinate political investments is how you ask for a boycott. It's how I would feel about any political investment that their CEOs make, and its already tarnished the Mullvad brand for me.
> But you're doing the same thing, making the same threat. You've only escalated it from a conscientious protest to a Texas stand off.
Yup, because I want the people attempting the conscientious protest to have less power to influence businesses and the people businesses employ. An apolitical firm is less likely to bow to pressure from one group of activists if they know that another, opposing group of activists is paying attention to how they respond to pressure from the first group of activists. Really, this has nothing at all to do with Mullvad specifically, except it does happen that I am a long-time customer of theirs.
> Now more than ever, it's hard for me to believe their brand identity. You're allowed to have political opinions, voice them and vote for them when you're a CEO. But spending customer money on political campaigns is how you ask for a boycott. It's how I would feel about any political investment that their CEOs make, and its already tarnished the Mullvad brand for me.
I don't see a meaningful difference between voicing political opinions and voting based on them, and making private donations to a political cause. Any money at all that an owner of a company spends on anything, down to their groceries, comes from their ownership of the company; just as any money at all that an employee of a company spends on anything comes from their salary.
But also lots of CEOs of companies make all kinds of political donations, many of which I think are bad. The reason this particular donation is making the news is because it's to an anti-immigration party rather than a pro-immigration party or NGO or some other cause; and a lot of people want to exert social pressure to make that specific political stance dangerous. Those are exactly the people I want to lose.
> I don't see a meaningful difference between voicing political opinions and voting based on them, and making private donations to a political cause.
One of them is enabled by customer trust and investment, the other isn't? People wouldn't want to cut off their money if it wasn't going towards political parties. It's the connection between the business and the private donations that is causing the outrage, Mullvad's brand can't really escape that sort of conflation once their CEOs spend their paycheck on those donations. Same goes for the rest of Big Tech, look at Oracle or Meta for example.
> The reason this particular donation is making the news is because it's to an anti-immigration party
It's because Mullvad had an apolitical reputation. Maybe it was a lie, maybe it wasn't, but by either CEO investing in a non-privacy stance they're risking the brand appeal they once had. It's unfortunate, and I don't think it has to be a winners/loser mentality like you're pushing forward. These sorts of investments are the ones that erode principled businesses and divide their customerbase. Whether or not you agree with it is inconsequential, it's the political vacillation that is concerning beyond the outrage/fringe politics angle.
Today you might support them, next year you might be wishing you never gave them the confidence. I understand why many customers, even apolitically, see this as their breaking point.
I'm sorry to hear that. I'm not defending his choice, but consider reading Daniel's rationale in the Flamman article. There's also his blog [1], which explains some of his views. I know he doesn't share all of Örebropartiets views, but I should let him provide that nuance.
As I said in another comment, speaking for myself, I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues.
Consider GWB's "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." For and against are not always the only options. Sometimes there are nuances, or other concerns.
Daniel made this decision as a private individual. Some of his colleagues (including me) dislike it as private individuals.
I recognize that the amount as well as his position of power within the company (co-founder, co-owner, co-CEO) make people who disapprove more uncomfortable than if it had been a much lower amount from a regular employee.
However, as others have argued, what would happen if Mullvad started weighing in on politics unrelated to its mission?
Better to see Mullvad almost like a force of nature: Mullvad believes privacy is a universal right. You might disagree but at least it's consistent, and I'd argue that's one path to trustworthiness - you know how we're likely to treat you as a customer. (equally, regardless of your political affiliation)
Obviously everyone is free to make their own choice on whether they like this stance or not.
Thank you for taking this stance. It is the mature, intellectual, and virtuous one, and with it you are on civilization’s side.
The US is currently in a very bad place politically. It’s visible not just in politicians, but in everybody’s minds, all the time. A person who believes they’re fighting for their life obsesses over “us vs them”, and forgets their every principle and even most reasoning, until the fight is over. When we spit on your principles, please know that they are our principles, too, we just are not currently well enough to remember it.
You can say Mullvad is apolitical all you want but the problem is money paid to Mullvad is eventually ending up in the hands of Örebropartiet by way of Daniel directing his compensation into his donations.
I know what you’re saying sounds perfectly rational to you and I do applaud you for holding the moral position separating someone’s private life from their contribution to the company. But, think about the number of people who were let go for far less controversial actions. At some point an officer of the company doing things in their personal life becomes a distraction to the company’s goals. My question is, would you act differently if this person were not a co-founder?
If Mullvad fired an ordinary employee for donating to an anti-immigration party or pressured them into not donating, I would absolutely find a new VPN provider that doesn't do this over it.
> would you act differently if this person were not a co-founder?
I have several colleagues who I'm fairly certain are anarcho-syndicalists, meaning they want to abolish the state and capitalism. I don't know about my colleagues, but in general anarcho-syndicalists seek to bring about their vision through organising trade unions, and use that to seize control of the means of production and distribution. I on the other hand am clearly a capitalist pig seeking to oppress my workforce. Why else would I invite them to join me on the barricades against mass surveillance and censorship? Shared values around privacy? :P
I have no business questioning which demonstrations my colleagues participate in, or what they write on their blog. As long as they are not actively malicious against me, our workplace, or their fellow coworkers.
It's getting late, maybe I'm missing something in my description. I guess that's a rough approximation of how I feel about tolerating differences of opinion.
Of course the distinction itself is important in its own way, but I think/hope everyone here fully realizes and accepts that he technically donated as a private individual. You can clearly see it from the headline - it does not say "Mullvad VPN AB is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party", after all. For those who have an issue supporting Mullvad after this, that is unlikely to be the point of contention. The issue seems to be simply in this case, some people clearly find the private individual's actions objectionable enough to not want to support a product that individual is deeply associated with, profits from (and then funnels those profits into said actions), etc. Fixating on this being done as a private individual just comes off like a bit of a deflection attempt from a pretty straightforward case of individual actions having consequences.
> I think/hope everyone here fully realizes and accepts that he technically donated as a private individual
In this forum, yes. Unfortunately there are lots of people who don't care to inform themselves in the least. During the weekend my impression was that most people assumed Mullvad only had one founder, owner and CEO. Some people were implying that Mullvad's workforce supported this, which of course is ridiculous. I don't want to be associated with this donation. Then there are the people who think he donated 5 million USD or EUR. Sigh.
It would be nice if people didn't resort to make things up, and instead expressed their disapprovement based on fact. That's what I'm doing. As are several of my colleagues.
> The issue seems to be simply in this case, some people clearly find the private individual's actions objectionable enough to not want to support a product that individual is deeply associated with
Yes, that is clear.
> Fixating on this being done as a private individual just comes off like a bit of a deflection attempt from a pretty straightforward case of individual actions having consequences.
Ah, thanks. That was not my intent. For sure an individual's actions has consequences, especially when you're in a position of power. In this case people are holding Daniel accountable by switching providers. They are acting according to their beliefs. That's fine.
Meanwhile I am also trying to clarify Mullvad's position on the matter. Many people understand it and still disagree. That's also fine.
There is a difference between "if you're not with us you're a terrorist" and "if you're with Al Qaeda you're a terrorist" and the situation here is of the latter type.
Örebropartiet is not Al Qaeda nor a terrorist organisation. They can have a controversial position, but I'm not sure it is worse than the position of the republican party in the US which has many supporters amongst CEO of big tech companies.
> Maybe there's a case to distance Mullvad from him, then. Not taking a stand is also a political choice.
They are making a stand. This stance that they've taken has made me decide that I'm switching from another VPN provider TO Mullvad. Not many people have the backbone to actually stand behind freedom of speech when it may cost them something. It's very admirable.
> I'm not defending his choice, but consider reading Daniel's rationale
This is literally defending his choice. More than that it is providing direct support to the views you are apparently trying to distance yourself from by suggesting people read literature in favour of them - not in a context where they even see opposing arguments.
But as a fun aside to the people debating that his views aren't right wing... consider this quote from the aforementioned blog (translation made via firefox's swedish to english model)
> A building permit officer at a municipal city building office is primarily dedicated to preventing, making it difficult, costly, delayed and uneasy construction. He causes great damage and thus produces negative value, but still also receives his salary from the tax of others and is thus supported by others.
Can we get more right wing than claiming that imposing standards on industry so they don't go around building death traps that kill people to save a few bucks "causes great damage and thus produces negative value". Not even as an argument that this particular office is overly restrictive, but just as a statement about building permit officers in general.
How did we get to the point where suggesting that you hear out what someone has to say for themselves get equated to "literally defending his choice"?
I'm very far left myself, but I hate this tendency to equate any intellectual engagement with the right wing thought whatsoever with support. It's almost as if rightist politics were some kind of cooties that you catch simply by being in the same room or something.
Gesturing at literature as a defense without engaging in the literature is, and always has been, an endorsement of the ideas in the literature and not "intellectual engagement".
If the other founder went "here's his blog post where he discusses <these ideas> that potentially justify the support for this party without just being support for right right hate and other political positions" that would be intellectual engagement. That's not what occurred here. What occurred here was a vague gesture in the direction of far right writing as if that somehow justifies the concept.
But as someone that has been in a similar situation to you, I understand it's tough to end up building something big with someone who's politics you do not agree with. I would seriously urge you to consider building something new that rejects this kind of politics explicitly.
I’m 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.
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.
Yeah, what's your point? Plenty of us are actively opposing the evil things our tax dollars fund all the time. If we could safely opt out of paying taxes for those things, we would.
But Mullvad isn't the government. I can get a VPN from somewhere else. I can opt out of funding something that I consider morally abhorrent.
> is that some of that money I paid, found its way to support an organisation that has extreme racist views.
Geez, I hope you do not pay give any money to Google, Microsoft and such. They 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.
And, I have to wonder, do you vet your local bakery as well on how they use their money?
So have I and I'm using lots of OSS by people and groups that I'm politically, ethically, morally and whatever else-ly incompatible with and yet they build great stuff for free without restricting me and my use of it. If my revenue allows for it I'll gladly donate to all of them for their work (that is also running my side gig and homelab) without looking into their spending OT donation habits.
I'll happily keep on listening to radical left punk, RAC/rock against Communism as well as anti fascist and NS Black Metal as long as the music moves me.
I can't go around judging all day. Wherever I spend money, I'll probably disagree with 99% of what the people at the receiving end will do with it.
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.
Their CEOs and the tech megacorps have been openly supporting Trump and financing both him personally and his political projects. There is no ambiguity in that at all.
> [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).
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.
So lets only boycott small and inconsequential companies like Mullvad that are easily replaceable. However not companies like Apple, Intel or Nvidia etc. whose CEOs have expressed their personal admiration of Trump and supported him financially because it would not be very convenient?
To be fair that seems to be reasonably rational i.e. anthropomorphising lawnmowers is a fool’s errand while its feasible to actually make a difference in cases like this
Unless you happen to be of Somalian descent in Sweden. Then you should be ripped away from the only home you've ever known, indeed possibly the only country you've ever been in, and sent to a foreign country you have no citizenship in, where you have no home, don't understand the language, know no one, and be forced to try and survive.
That's great and all but can I have a refund for the portion of my mullvad subscription that went to supporting organizations who think that people like me don't deserve to live?
Can you point to the charter where the Örebro party ever said that you don't deserve to live?
The embellishments of what people actually believe is extremely exhausting.
FWIW, I'm an immigrant in Sweden and if they gained power I would be affected, but we talk about people with differing views to us as if they're actively violent in order to shut down conversation.
This catasphrophising language will eventually not help your cause, because ordinary people start to feel numb to it and the hard-right will not be defeated by it.
Its not that they start to feel numb, they didn't care in the first place.
I have had random co-workers start talking about how they don't want foreigners in Finland and that in Sweden immigrants (maybe you) get free money and don't work.
Q: When people seek asylum, is the expectation that they should return when its safe?
Or is taking in 10% of population mean that you have a permanent minority population that is part of a permanent underclass similar to how black people have it in the US?
Hello Fredrik! As a heavy user of Mullvad in the past, easily spending hundreds of euros over the years, I was reserving my judgement to see what the official statement on this would be. Thank you, now I have my answer.
> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission.
It should be obvious that what people are concerned is their money being used to support these political causes, whether it was done in a way that keeps the company out of it or not is besides the point. Daniel, of course, is free to choose what to do with his money. I am, too, and based on this I will be making a choice to not spend any more money on Mullvad subscriptions. Nothing personal, and it's a shame because I have nothing but praise for the technical side of it. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
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.
The party he's donating money to (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party) is an advocate of "remigration" that is a policy of forced deportation including of citizens on the basis of ethnicity. They're also it should be added self-declared Marxists, so in this case that's not a hyperbolic usage of the term, it's literally a kind of national socialist party.
Personally I'm not going to not continue to pay for Mullvad any longer. I've never been super squeamish when it comes to disagreements about policy but when you're unironically starting to sound like the NSDAP I'm out.
Just to bring some of the quotes from that wikipedia article to this thread
> In 2026 ÖP party leader Markus Allard sparked controversy on several occasions. In a debate hosted by Studio3 with Liberal member of parliament Martin Melin, Allard asked: "why won't the Liberals push for deporting 100 000 social welfare-Somalis?" and in the same debate said that "Sweden belongs to the Swedes. We have to make sure that we take care of our own damn people and we must deport these damn parasites who sit and live at our expense." [57]
> In a podcast segment about immigration and deportations Allard stated his opinion and said that "They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish."
And where's your moral indignation for mass immigration policies that nobody voted for, over decades, that has led to the previous ethnic population going from 97% to 36% in 6 decades? (London, source: Census Data 1961 - 2021).
(Don't think we don't notice you using a phrase that has a meaning that includes genocide, btw, to really whip people up)
>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.
> 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.
What a dismissive way to treat your customer. Basically the equivalent of someone on the American right saying “if you don’t like it you can get the hell out”, which tracks given Mullvad’s party of choice.
Edit: Downvote me all you want but it doesn’t change the fact that ethnic cleansing is wrong and by definition counter to free speech and human rights in general.
It’s called voting with your wallet. People in America do this, and are told to do this, all the time.
What would you like them to do? Roll over on the co-CEO and throw him under the bus, signaling to everyone that there is a “correct” point of view to have that Mullvad as a company is going to push and promote?
Individuals should be allowed to think and do what they want as an individual, as long as it isn’t compromising the company. The fact that they have 2 CEOs with differing political views seems like a healthy thing.
Freedom of speech is a political view that shouldn’t be tied to any one party.
One could argue that 'politically neutral' could also be a policy they apply to their employees at all levels; i.e. if everyone gets along at the office and does their job, that's really all that matters.
If anything, respecting an employee's personal life privacy seems fairly in-line with the values one would want in a privacy-focused VPN company.
"We have worked extremely hard to ensure that your internet browsing cannot be retrieved by the police, even with a warrant, and that you can be anonymous online" is not at all "politically neutral"
Like, I agree with and support their politics, but that doesn't make something politically neutral.
> This is what allows us to advance our common causes. Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment is also liberating and promotes truth seeking.
Nope, that is what will get you taken over by the assholes. Reasonable defense is necessary in reality. There ARE bad actors, they must be kept out.
Everyone has their own definition of a bad actor. The fact that you're implying to know how to spot them says a lot about your tolerance for differences in opinion.
What you said makes sense, but what the founders do matters. I'll never buy a Tesla car because of Elon's actions. I cancelled my Amazon Prime subscription because of Bezos' actions.
There are plenty of people for whom it doesn't matter, but for some it does.
Indeed. It matters to me. In fact, most of my political opinions have atrophied, or rather I have self-censored. Daniel believes that is not the right trade-off to make in this case. I understand his point of view, and disagree.
And to be sure, I agree Daniel is entitled to his opinions and the right to do with his money as he pleases. Of course there may be business consequences for doing so in terms of how the user base reacts.
I think the bigger problem -- and I don't know the rules for political donations in Sweden -- is that any individual is able to pour millions into a political party of any persuasion. In the US this situation is made much worse since a Supreme Court ruling known as Citizens United which opened the floodgates for the ultra-wealthy to bankroll politicians. But that's another discussion altogether.
> 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?
To answer your question, we started building this organization in the summer of 2008 for idealistic reasons, and we are still idealists who think privacy is fundamental to a civilized society.
The best strategy for achieving societal impact through entrepreneurship is consistent, long-term, and value-based ownership. For us, this disqualifies taking outside investment, either through venture capital or going public. Mullvad has instead been growing organically without outside investments.
Our principles have withstood the test of time. Our conviction has remained unchanged through multiple serious offers of acquisition and outside investment. Words are cheap of course, but consistent action over the course of almost two decades is not.
Mullvad is about privacy. Neither Daniel nor I have used Mullvad's brand to promote our personal opinions.
It's stupid when one of the CEOs of a private VPN company decides to fund political actors. That's just PR issue bound to happen. Funding bad actors bites you every single time - so maybe have a chat about if you have seen this coming - and if not why were you blind to this?
On top of this don't change your service based on this outrage. If you change it, then you will prove that Mullvad is malleable by political pressure. You can guess what happens next...
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.
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.
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.
Thank you for the thoughtful response, you gained another customer. Whatever you do, do not apologize or backpedal to obvious sensationalist smear merchants or silicon valley fanatics.
I have to say, this is a disappointing message. The thing about intolerant movements is that tolerance doesn't fix them, it makes them worse and lets them accumulate power until they can destroy the tolerant.
I'd recommend reading Karl Popper and his Paradox of Tolerance, which he formulated after seeing this exact thing play out in his native Austria with the rise of the Nazis.
Money that leaves your wallet and goes to Mullvad ends up funding politicians that believe non-whites shouldn’t have speech at all, as a personal choice by a top executive of the company.
The company’s values aren’t reflected accurately if you believe your money is funding free speech regardless of race.
It's a HN thing, not down to the commenter. Sometimes threads are reactivated if the mods think a low profile discussion is worth a second chance or boost. The submission time doesn't always reflect the original submission. Sometimes it's due to a comment move or thread merge.
>> Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment ...
Karl Popper said, "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."
>> the same way that someone's opinions on animal rights, taxes or public healthcare ...
We're not talking about reasonable people disagreeing about tax policy, we're talking about free expression, the entire purpose of Mullvad.
When you make a large donation to a political party whose most fundamental policy is restricting the free expression of people, that is wholly incompatible with everything Mullvad says they stand for.
When a founder and executive with influence over Mullvad policy and operations is exposed actively and financially support restricting free expression of people, it's not "tolerant" to pretend that's somehow compatible with the mission and brand of the company.
I don’t support remigration, but calling immigration “the free expression of people” is a stretch. It’s orthogonal.
You can argue that remigration isn’t protecting the privacy of those who are surveilled by the government or deported to repressive countries that surveil their population. But Mullvad’s product protects even those people (it must, because it hides the identity of who’s using it from itself).
Örebropartiet policies directly target and restrict the religious, educational, and cultural expression of people who legally reside in Sweden.
Their polices focus on the way people dress, the languages they speak in public, the institutions and schools they build, the traditions they practice.
People would be forced to self-censor their speech, their beliefs, and their behavior.
> Their polices focus on the way people dress, the languages they speak in public, the institutions and schools they build, the traditions they practice.
Do you have sources and quotes for this? Wikipedia only says “remigration”, although another comment mentioned that the translated Swedish word implies “assimilation”. Trying to restrict what people (even immigrants) do goes against free expression: deporting those based on ethnicity is immoral for other reasons but does not.
It does not, but does appear on the party's English wikipedia page that they support 'remigration'. However when switching to Swedish, it seems they are pro (forceful) assmilation, rather than remigration.
I don't know enough of Swedish politics or social issues to determine which one is the more correct characterization of the party, but even that is a serious difference in policy.
> I don’t support remigration, but calling immigration “the free expression of people” is a stretch. It’s orthogonal.
Far right political parties have a marked tendency to severely restrict freedom of expression once they’re in power. They routinely call for it when they’re the underdogs, but that often changes fairly quickly once they get their way.
In some cases you can see hints of that before they came into power. In France for instance, our main far right party (Rassemblement National) supports drastic budget cuts to state-financed media, and I believe a more direct control of said media from executive power.
One would have to check whether the Swedish Örebro party is similar of course. I personally no absolutely nothing about that party. Still, it is not a stretch for me to strongly suspect that a party that calls for deportation (let’s call it what it is, okay?) is also a party that is, or at the very least will be, against freedom of expression and freedom of information.
If it is, then Mullvad’s co-founder has a serious conflict of interest, and I would have no choice but seriously lower my confidence in their VPN.
I hope their sister company, Tillitis, is mostly free of such. Though even if it too is tainted, their TKey is fully open source (schematics and all if I recall correctly), and simple enough to be independently audited. They even have an unlocked version you can burn yourself so you don’t even have to trust their provisioning process. That’s the difference with a VPN: a VPN is like a Palantir, you kinda have to trust Sauron will do right by you. The TKey is more like Nemik’s astro-navigator: the user can verify themselves they are its sole master, once they did they can trust it even if it was manufactured by the Empire itself.
I mean, I love my TKey. I don’t care if Elon Musk and Peter Thiel themselves oversaw its manufacture, now it’s mine, and there’s no way I’m letting the enemy have exclusivity over it.
This is an over-generalization: you even mention that you “have to check” the party’s policies, which seem to be far-left except for the immigration part.
I actually agree that many far-right parties seem to restrict freedom of expression when they have majority power, but so do many far-left parties. Far-right may be generally statistically worse, but again, this says nothing about Örebro specifically who aren’t typical.
Okay, let’s just focus on the "remigration" thing, then.
Sure, Örebro is not typical, and may indeed be an exception.
But.
This apparent racism remains cogent evidence that they are also against freedom of expression — even if perhaps not openly. Also, I have yet to know of one political party who sincerely advocates for both deportation and freedom of expression.
I'm always wary of people bringing up the paradox of tolerance; most of the time, it's just used as an excuse to justify censorship while claiming to be opposed to it. "When you censor me, you're being intolerant and that's wrong; when I censor you, I'm doing it in the name of tolerance, so I'm correct".
I'm not Swedish, so it's possible there's something that I am missing. But skimming the wikipedia page for the party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party#), I don't see anything that says the party is pro censorship.
No political party is going to say they're "pro censorship".
But if they promise to target specific groups of people to close their schools, regulate how they dress, ban their prayers, and suppress their art, it's all about restricting their freedom of expression.
> No political party is going to say they're "pro censorship".
There are plenty of political parties that proudly claim to oppose "hate speech".
> But if they promise to target specific groups of people to close their schools, regulate how they dress, ban their prayers, and suppress their art, it's all about restricting their freedom of expression.
I could be wrong, but it looks like their plan is to cut public funding, not to censor those things.
The "paradox of tolerance" is only a paradox to people who can't tell the difference between words and actions, anyway. There's no paradox in tolerating the words if you draw the line at action to implement those words.
>"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."
does that fight against "intolerant" also include fighting people from other culture that are systematically and religiously opposed against your current society and its tolerance and will undermine it within the next couple decades by reproducing more? nvm im aware asking for self awareness is too much.
So far as I can tell, the main source of this claim is the comment you are responding to, and similar.
I think the real issue is this: "The party is heavily opposed to political corruption and high politician incomes and wants to reduce the wages of politicians and senior officials." (from Wikipedia, among other sources.)
> Some of its key issues include lowered wages for politicians, ending the tax payer funding of various sculptures, monuments and art, large scale remigration, a stricter immigration policy, and free dental care.
I think most criticism of this party is probably around "large scale remigration" and "stricter immigration policy", which are often nice ways to word "getting rid of everyone that doesn't look like us".
But if you want to play this little game, I can play too. Personally I think the real issue people have with this platform is the free dental care. Big tooth obviously doesn't want to lose profit.
Is it? They appear to be some sort of hardcore pseudo libertarians with some nationalistic vibes. To an extent that seems to overlap with Mullvad’s declared value?
> If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."
yeah i'm sick and tired of hearing this, because it gets applied very asymmetrically.
we routinely tolerate certain kinds of intolerants and silence other, and that sucks.
people happily tolerate lgbt-intollerant people, afraid of being called islamophobic and/or intollerant, and but we do not tollerate at all people that have been calling that risk out for years.
so yeah, popper's writings are being grossly misused, and i'm sick and tired of seeing that come out in every discussion on these topics.
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Also: if only mullvad is taking that kind of political stance (no-log vpn etc)... maybe you should think twice about who is actually on your side.
> Karl Popper said, "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."
It's weird he said that, given that at the time there were many examples of intolerant societies that had become increasingly tolerant. So the statement is factually incorrect, and, given how educated he was, he knew this. In other words, the statement is a lie. But very useful if you manage to put yourself in the position of being the one to define what is intolerant, and which things are so important to tolerate that they should be beyond democratic decision-making.
That said, I don't disagree that private donations can be incompatible with (or more accurately, counter-productive to) the stated mission of a company. And it's not unreasonable for journalists to report on it, on the logic it may affect consumer choices. But I'm not familiar with Örebro, and nothing in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party#Policies indicates they're against online anonymity or free expression. But maybe I missed something?
I cannot speak for Daniel. I know there are some policies he likes and there are things he doesn’t like. Personally I am not a fan.
This morning Daniel explained his rationale to most of the company. Speaking for myself, I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues. Speaking as the co-CEO of Mullvad, we will continue to protect the universal right to privacy. People should feel safe using Mullvad regardless of their political affiliation.
Oscar: "Look it doesn’t take a genius to know that every organization thrives when it has two leaders. shakes head Go ahead, name a country that doesn’t have two presidents. A boat that sets sail without two captains. Where would Catholicism be without the popes?"
I don't see him saying he doesn't want people to look into that. What I see is an explanation for why he thinks the company is better for having a multitude of views and opinions on their staff, a correction of some lazy reporting in the media and stated tolerance for people who no longer want to use said company's products for perceived value incompatibility (which he also seems to disagree with though).
I'm pretty familiar with these right-wingers that claim to fight for "freedom of speech" they all end up fighting for "freedom of speech for the things I want to say, jail for those who oppose me." The 2024-2025 swing was pretty extreme on that front.
Political extremists are all the same, left or right, nobody should be surprised because they seek power above all else.
I had been pretty concerned about the level of advertising for Mullvad I've seen recently, that's usually a really bad sign for a VPN type company. But seeing this comment, in combination with the news article linked here, tells me everything I need to know for trust.
VPNs are all about trust. Mullvad has completely broken all trust with me.
Do you think any of the people publicly claiming that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because Daniel Berntsson donates to an anti-immigration political party, wouldn't make donating to that party an illegal, jail-able legal offense if they had the political power to do so?
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.
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.
you value privacy, but you don't think privacy is a political topic? VPNs, encryption, and other privacy tools are regularly under attack or protected by legislation and policy that is actively debated and lobbied for.
I think that you do care about politics, you just don't care about this particular topic or policy. That's your prerogative of course, but don't pretend you are wholly above the fray. I suspect if a company's founder had donated millions to a party aiming to mandate backdoored encryption you would suddenly find yourself to be a very political person.
And what does that have to do with the guy leaning right? He runs a VPN. If you care about privacy, that should be sufficient to support it, his other opinions aside.
Agreed. I use mullvad because I believe they are the best off the shelf choice. If I stopped using things because of the owners opinions, then I'd live in a cave.
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:
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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.
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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.
> 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
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.
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.
"and it's not that there is no burden on the immigrants. they still have to learn to understand the local language, culture, rule of law, etc..."
And there is the problem. You see, in modern Sweden (and many other European countries) it's entirely possible for migrants to live for decades without learning the language, understanding the culture, or even respecting the rule of law.
The majority needs to welcome and support the minority AND the minority needs to do their best to integrate. Right now the latter part is badly failing in Sweden, which is the reason for extreme amount of gang violence and social inequality plaguing Sweden. It's not even fault of the Swedes or the migrants, it's a systemic problem. The migration and integration policy is broken.
I appreciate the candid response. It shouldn't be so hard for people to just clearly state the premises that motivate their beliefs.
>the burden should always be on the ones who are stronger to accommodate those who are weaker.
Is this a universal principle? Does this come with any limits at all? A salient example that comes up often: classrooms tend to have a small handful of extremely disruptive students that ruin the experience for everyone else. The current thinking is to not suspend/expel these kids because they are disadvantaged or whatever. But in doing so the other kids suffer greatly, not to mention the teachers.
How do you manage different dimensions of strength/advantage? It is the weakest in society (women, children) that bear a disproportionate burden of allowing large amounts of immigration from third-world countries. Why are the rights of women and children secondary to the rights of immigrants?
I think one issue with thinking this way is that who is stronger and who is weaker isn't always so easy to suss out, particularly on the margins.
To give an example from my own life/experience, I'm an American and Canadian woman, but I'm also a disabled lesbian. I feel uncomfortable when I go places (e.g. Ikea) and see Muslim families where the men are dressed in Western clothing and the women are niqabis, because it's an outward signal to me that they follow an interpretation of religion that is sexist and homophobic and are likely to be hostile to my existing.
There can be power overlap between the weakest members of the stronger community and the strongest members of the weaker community.
For the record, I don't have those feelings around all people of Middle Eastern descent or people who are visibly Muslim but not displaying an adherence to a particularly conservative interpretation of their religion (e.g. a hijabi in Western clothes or a group where some of the women are hijabis/niqabis and others aren't). I do have those feelings around white people who similarly display such conservative religious leanings (Amish, Haridem, etc.). It's purely ideological, not ethnic or racial.
The thing is, as a native, I don't have a choice to be here, whereas immigrants do. So why am I assumed to be the 'stronger' one, and why should ethnicity and religion override any other power dynamic?
There are > 190 countries in the world and many of them require immigrants to meet at least the same criteria for employment and assistance as born citizens.
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.
I'm not saying that people shouldn't want to integrate, I'm saying that "demanding" it is problematic. Imagine grandparents being brought over from a different country and they don't speak the language - should they be forced to attend language school? What level of language ability would be considered the minimum and does that also include reading/writing?
By all means provide encouragement and resources so that people can adapt to their new situation, but don't demand it.
I think that most people arguing for integration are fine with grandparents being left to their devices. Where they get antsy is when the next generation grows up self-segregated into their own distinct culture.
Yeah, I know. That’s why I say that no one is ever happy with where you set the limit. I think demanding A2 in language is reasonable, for example. Yes, demanding, even if it’s in a reasonably long timespan. We demand much more out of everyone born in the country, don’t we?
I think most liberals have the intuition that laws should apply equally to citizens and non-citizens, and I think that's where a lot of the discomfort comes from when we talk about immigration. A citizen who doesn't meet those demands imposed on non-citizens (e.g., language, cultural assimilation, etc.) will never be at risk of deportation, simply because they were lucky enough to be born in the country.
However, it does seem that this Swedish party is willing to "repatriate" even Swedish-born citizens, so at least they're consistent.
It doesn't say that at all, Swedish-born citizens means at least one of the parent IS already Swedish, they aren't citizen at birth if none of the parents are swedish and that's just normal almost everywhere in the world.
You wouldn't expect your child to be Pakistani if you get birth over there as 2 German individuals.
compared to the rest of the world europe is absolutely not welcoming. heck, even as a native german if you move from one region in germany to another you are treated as an unwelcome outsider. less so in big cities where you are more anonymous but still. if you are lucky you can find "your tribe" and your children may be accepted if they grow up there. the only places in germany where i ever felt welcome was linux user groups, and other fringe groups which as a whole had more of an outsider status.
> heck, even as a native german if you move from one region in germany to another you are treated as an unwelcome outsider. less so in big cities where you are more anonymous but still. if you are lucky you can find "your tribe" and your children may be accepted if they grow up there.
This is standard for most of the world. Really, only some countries, all of them developed, are exceptions to this.
> Just, you know, leave women alone and don’t aim fireworks at ambulances.
Where I'm from (Northern Ireland) harassing women and attacking emergency services have been part of the culture for as long as I remember. Would you suggest that people arriving should actively take part in these behaviours?
I remember a discussion I had with a English teacher from UK who immigrated to Sweden during the 1990s. They said that in UK, when a government employee would visit a house regarding dept or some other problem, they would bring a large police escort and then they and the neighbourhood would had a big brawl that generally ended with the police winning and then most of the participants would go to the pub. It was just how things worked. The guy were majorly surprised that in Sweden, the government employee could just knock on the door and talk to the person with no police and no brawl.
I would assume that if attacking emergency services is the norm in Northern Ireland, so is police escorts of emergency services. That is not the norm in Sweden, through it has become the norm for certain regions where emergency services no longer feel safe going on an emergency call. The downside is that if the police is delayed, so is the emergency service, and naturally the quality of emergency service is reduce in those locations which some people say is a form of discrimination.
That’s… a tough one. Bit of a loaded question. I would say “don’t engage in anti-social behaviour regardless of the cultural milieu”, I’m sure NI has much better traditions to partake in?
But then we're getting a bit deeper into the issue. These are things that need to be considered if you want to mandate "integration" surely.
We now want people to integrate but we also recognise that there's a higher moral code which should supersede local customs. Is that correct? Then it seems like integration isn't the actual aim, but the shaping of people into a sort of ideal which is actually removed from local cultures.
We're also onto picking and choosing between the "better" and worse local traditions. But who is the arbitrator for which traditions are good and which are bad?
What if the purpose of integration is merely to bring people closer to the local average, ironing out the outlier kinks and helping them feel secure in society?
I did a bit of the integration course by choice, even though it’s not mandatory as a EU national. I found it fine, a bit boring because we grew up with most of these customs. The Flemish ‘traditions’ were all new to me, and I also realise I don’t follow them; but respect some if I’m invited to people’s houses.
I think we’ve made a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to integration. It’s neither super forced and awful nor useless.
Northern Ireland is definitely atypical. An English friend of mine moved over there a few years ago as his wife is from there and her family all live in the same area. I can't imagine him being considered as "integrated" for at least a few decades.
(My experience with Irish/Northern Irish people is that they're very friendly and welcoming, but I've only been there a couple of times).
> 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.
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’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).
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.
mullvad's mistake was to respond. it's all universally performative, the only reason it elicits reactions (1000+ comments here) when the view of a megacorp don't is because people anticipate the ability to elicit a response from a smaller company like mullvad.
rule number one: ignore any and all political controversies, don't respond in any way. deviation is nearly always punished. unless it's part of some PR campaign with a side-risk of backfire.
Mullvad did not respond, as far as I'm aware. One of the owners has chimed in with their opinion, but I have not seen any official acknowledgement from Mullvad, the business entity.
I try to turn it other way in my head, like if Mullvad got to know somehow political views of some of their customers and say "We don't like what you say, so we decide to end our business with you. We don't want our infra to be used to spread opinions like yours."
They could do it, some people would align with that stance, and some wouldn't. Exactly how it plays out being a customer: now we've discovered he supports a far-right party here in Sweden, I can choose to not support the CEO with my money and let others know about their political leaning to decide by themselves if they want to support him and his business aware that their money might got to far-right parties.
I don't see any issue with your flipped argument, it's the same thing, no?
I imagine that if a company really denied a customer due to disagreement on some views there would be similar flood of comments like "my views is my problem, I pay you money you must do business with me". Maybe I'm wrong though
Companies can absolutely refuse a customer and many do. Companies will often have public rules about not doing business with weapons manufacturers or tobacco producers.
They also can refuse business due to political stance. They can even give different prices to different customers.
As long as its not a protected class, by the letter of the law you’re right, but we’re not discussing law: we’re discussing human response.
If you were kicked off of a VPN provider (or, even a site) for financially supporting a non-proscribed political organisation: how would you talk about it.
There's an enormous imbalance between company and customer that you're ignoring, not to mention the difference between a private person and a company's very public personas who own said business.
If a company was sniffing around to learn my political views, that would be a bit intrusive, wouldn't it? I wouldn't expect the same level of anonymity if I were the CEO of a company like Mullvad. There's also a disparity between "I'm taking my business elsewhere, good luck without my $10 a month!" (or whatever Mullvad costs...) and "we've decided to not allow you to use this service".
How large a disparity is depends a lot on whether a company has a lock on a market. Generally, if a vendor in a crowded market decided to turn away customers who are XYZ voters (as an example) I'd be more apt to just comment on that as a business strategy than as a "how dare they, they must accept all customers!" Like, if you are one of 20 VPN providers and you think you can be successful by turning away customers.. well, OK. Good luck with that.
If it's a provider with a monopoly that's a bit different. I live in an area with only one choice of provider for electricity. So I don't think they should be allowed to refuse service to anybody who is paying their bill, even people I vehemently disagree with.
You’re not taking it far enough. What if Mullvad has someone you disagree with as a customer, and does nothing about it. Does this mean that Mullvad is supporting them? Does this mean that you have to stop supporting Mullvad? What about Mullvad’s landlord? The company that provides them their electricity? Their internet provider? Their internet provider’s internet provider? Should you boycott the entire internet because Mullvad has not been given the BGP death penalty?
What are you trying to say with this? This is absurd.
The outrage has nothing to do with Mullvad itself supporting people with certain opinions or not.
The problem I and many others have, is that if the founder takes our money and gives it to causes that I (edit: or rather we) find reprehensible, we don't want to give them our money anymore. Simple as that.
I will not try to stop you from using Mullvad by any other means than my arguments. Hopefully you understand now where we are coming from and agree. If not, just do your thing.
If the far-right parties they're supporting are similar to MAGA in the U.S., what they're doing is taking customer money and funneling it into a political effort to do just what you're describing - just in a different way. "We don't like groups X, Y, and Z, so we're going to fund a political effort to take their rights away by using government."
As I understand it, the Örebro party pushes for deporting immigrants and has a "Sweden belongs to the Swedes" policy that includes deportation for even those born in Sweden if their parents were born in, e.g., Somalia. So basically, "we don't like certain people, so we want to use customer money to force them out of our country". That really doesn't paint Mullvad as the victim, here.
When it comes to publishing anti-human, genocidal rhetoric, I hope they would say "we don't want your blood money."
Flipping that back around, I'm glad I'm not a Mullvad customer that would say "I'm okay with a portion of the money I give you being used to call for genocide."
Does not feel good to support such a cause. Will cancel mine and give ivpn a go. It really is a shame, I was happy with mullvad and their mission. I just wouldn't sleep well if I kept using it
The point is, they want to round up lawful citizens and turf them out of the country because they have the audacity to be slightly foreign, or worse born to someone foreign.
that is the issue, not how much tax/spend big/little government.
Exactly, the problem is not left/right it's the authoritarianism, which is again a huge threat to the world after being held mostly in check in Western democracies for many years.
People tend to forget about the "Last Man" part of Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man", but we are definitely in the phase of the Last Man seeking conflict and fighting against our hard-won freedoms.
> In a podcast segment about immigration and deportations Allard stated his opinion and said that "They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish."
> create unnecessary controversy, based on nothing but lies.
given how much Sweden likes to preen it's past about being right and just, the WWII neutrality and taking all of denmarks jews over night, to then have shit like "They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden" seems pretty opposed to what sweden likes to think it's self as.
Wait wait, that's the clipped video people are basing this controversy on? Repatriation grants and was considered Nazi ideology 10 years ago, look what our politicians are discussing now. What Allard said during that clipped video is not far from what normal citizens are already talking about today.
>The point is, they want to round up lawful citizens and turf them out of the country
The US isn't the only country in the world. Sweden does not have birthright citizenship. Many (most?) of those to be remigrated are not Swedish citizens.
> Many (most?) of those to be remigrated are not Swedish citizens.
You say tomAtoe, I say pogrom, lets call the whole thing off
In europe, when was the last time a mass ejection of normal people, who've not committed crimes, beneficial? When did it end well for either the ejectee, or the remaining domestic population?
I don't see how, given their answers to simple questions as described in the "2026 run up to the elections" section, this party could ever be considered a leftist party.
They are far too small to have any chance of influencing education. The simpler explanation would be that there is a strong nationalist current. Think "our people are the best, let's make them even better and throw out the others"
Why wouldn't educated people be swept up by populism? They're human like the rest of us. Maybe you should stop thinking that having an education makes you a moral person, it just means you have an education.
I just assume that once people start seeing how the dots connect in some areas, they will be able to quickly see that the populists' dots are all over the place. I believe the educated populist are only the ones that try to drive move, not participate in one.
Horseshoe theory, rather than being as described,is actually caused by far right parties being more willing to label themselves as left. E.g. national socialists.
To add to the context. The founder of the was the chairman for the youth organization of Vänsterpartiet (English name: The left party), the furthest left party in the Swedish parliament, and he recruited members primarily from the same organization when he was kicked out. The reason he got kicked out was that he was seen praising the Revolutionary Front, a far-left extremist political and militant network in Sweden.
It should be added that the area where they are active is in the local government of Örebro Municipality, a place with a total population of 160,143 people. Looking at the political leanings of parties for a small local government with the lens of national parties might not give a very clear picture. Their strategy is also directed toward local voters, not national voters, through a strategy called the 12% line.
It doesn't seem that complicated to be honest with you.
That is how they self identify but none of their policies seem particularly left wing.
At least not from that Wikipedia page.
Extremely left wing dental care is the best I will give them.
You could, just as long as you keep it at that. The term actually does describe a valid political ideology: socialism combined with nationalism instead of the more common socialism combined with globalism, i.e. internationalist socialism ('workers of the world, unite' etc.). The association with Nazism makes it close to impossible to use the term in a 'neutral' way but in itself it just describes a nationalist movement which espouses socialist ideas.
It's impossible to use in a neutral way because all such parties are inevitably authoritarian brand of socialist, and any time you have authoritarian nationalism, crimes against humanity follow.
The point you're trying to make here is the difference between Hitler and the Strasser brothers, which is valid, but irrelevant in this context - if the latter had won, the pile of bodies they'd produce would still be immense.
Yeah, and their leader just happens to be a man disgruntled with the inefficiency and bureaucracy of democracy, mostly famous for his intense emotional political speeches, who blames most if not all of society's problems on his political opponents and/or ethnic minorities.
> Extremely left wing dental care is the best I will give them.
Free dental care is considered "extemely left wing" now? That's just bizarre tbh.
If a country would decide to use tax money to provide health care services for free to everybody that's not much different than using tax money to maintain an infrastructure network that's free to use (like roads), or free police and firefighting services - and I think none of those examples are considered particularly 'left-wing'.
That's typical for extremist parties, AKA Horseshoe theory. IRL Erdogan's party went so far to the right that they started actually adopting very socialist/communist policies. The party names is AKP which stands for "justice and development party" but many people are calling it "Allahs Communist Party" since in Turkish communist is written with K and they are islamists doing communist stuff.
He's not just the CEO, he's a co-owner... Meaning that the profits from the business acrue to him...
and therefore enable this party.
So, it's a question of "am I ok paying for this service, knowing that a portion of that money will flow to this political party and how do I feel about the results of that funding?"
How do you feel about providing value to Hacker News, a plattform made by Y Combinator funding several startups, many of them destroying our society and benefiting from mass surveillance? You can do this argument with every company.
I'm not paying to use HN. I'm jaded and opposed to techno-optimism, so if anything by just expressing my honest opinions here I'm wearing away at those startups' power by challenging their most critical base of supporters.
We can easier look at conclusion people make about banks and stock options. Will people invest money into index fonds and pension fonds if those fonds invest money into companies that produce and sell weapons to abhorred brutal dictators? What about buying stocks from telecommunication producers who operate in abhorred brutal dictatorships and who helps those dictators to control their population?
That's different. Loads of animals will be unhappy if they see others being given something they're not. We have a lottery which 3 million people (in the tiny Netherlands) are subscribed to only because you win as a street, and you won't want to miss out if your street wins right? Can't see your neighbors have more than you for no good reason!
The feelings of missing out and unfairness are deeply ingrained and stock markets give you stuff. At Mullvad, you buy something instead. If that's a life-essential product you can't otherwise get then the situations would be comparable. There's loads of VPN providers though, maybe not all as good but I would also be considering my options if I were a customer and hear this sort of thing (I'm not a customer of any VPN service). For stock markets and banks, on the other hand: whatcha gonna do, just not have a pension and work until you know roughly how much longer you'll live and that your savings will last till death? Assuming you earn enough to put money to the side in the first place, virtually all options are going to end up being partially invested in things you disagree with. A bank account is a legal requirement here (there's also agreements between the government and some banks to provide basic accounts so you can't be excluded from society like that). I find it much harder to fault people for wanting essentials; the situations are not the same
This sounds very much far right and not left at all to me
> Markus Allard takes inspiration from marxist ideology[32] and unites the "productive" classes of society against the "Transferiat", with the "Transferiat" being a term coined by Allard to describe the classes of society that lives off of transfers that are a net negative for society such as those who, despite having an ability to work, live off of social welfare benefits, as well as those who work "made-up services"[33] that the party deems serve no societal function, such as bureaucrats, consultants, public sector communications specialists, strategists and HR-specialists.
It's practically a copy and paste of the ideology behind "doge".
"The technocracy movement proposed replacing partisan politicians and business people with scientists and engineers who had the technical expertise to manage the economy"
Whoa whoa whoa. I don't think it's at all fair trying to throw Technocracy under the bus. The guilt by association doesn't look great! But Technocracy was interesting. It had some hopes & values, and it wanted people thinking and working materially, scientifically, having a perception of the world better than just money. It had some real neat idea. Wild & absurd? Yes that too. But I don't enjoy the casual drive by shoot down!
This is just a rephrasing of the lumpenproletariat, coupled with the professional-managerial class. You could also refer to the latter as a modern version of the lumpenbourgeoisie (although this term is applied rather broadly). It sounds more like pro-labor, pro-work, anti-lumpen Marxism. In no way “right-wing” unless you want to call North Korea “right-wing”, which is a very ultra-left thing to do (what orthodox Marxists call left deviationism).
You would be wrong. The people you described were called "тунеядцы" in USSR. With a possible exception of bureaucrats who existed as a result of centralized government but were also called "a barrier for the working class" by Lenin etc.
I also highly doubt USSR would accommodate people who move in and don't bother to integrate into the culture and speak Russian. Ask people from entire countries where Moscow did Russification, and those people didn't even move in from outside they already lived there.
> I also highly doubt USSR would accommodate people who move in and don't bother to integrate into the culture and speak Russian
USSR was schizophrenic in that regard. Early on, it had https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korenizatsiia, which was quite literally about de-russifying the local elites and promoting local languages. Then Stalin did a hard 180 on that, like he did on so many other things (e.g. re-criminalizing abortion and homosexuality, or reintroducing paid high school). I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that under Stalin, the USSR truly switched from being a left totalitarian dictatorship to right totalitarian.
They had strong opinions of what was deemed "socially useful" work and were not above abolishing those pursuits they deemed to be useless.
All able-bodied people were expected to work (in approved roles) and you would be provided a job if you couldn't find one but if you refused to work they would deem you a "social parasite" and prosecute you if you didn't reform your behavior.
Somehow, people seem to forget that Marxism is an ideology of workers.
>Somehow, people seem to forget that Marxism is an ideology of workers.
Not really, Marx and company were nobles, lawyers, etc. The ideology concerns provoking a civil war and taking over, workers rights is just the rhetoric to cause the revolution. The worker’s paradise never materializes because it’s not actually about that.
This is true but the ideology was packaged and sold as a movement for the working class. My observation had more to do with the modern interpretation of it as somehow being a license to not work, which appears comical when compared with how it was instituted.
Not all of the component parts of the ideology are necessarily false due to their introduction and popularization by Marx. Personally, I find his writings obtuse and his beliefs abhorrent. There is, however, merit in the idea that the state should benefit its people, a large percentage of which are the productive working class, but it shouldn't be ruled by the working class. The state is its people and their culture, it shouldn't oppose their interests or subjugate and exploit them for the advancement of ideals alien to them.
I mean, if you subscribe to democracy, the only way this would not be true is if said democracy was somehow subverted into a caste system where only some people are de facto eligible to be elected.
This is actually very far left, just not the current wealthy-urban-lgbtq far left. USSR marxists and Maoists held the same views, where the individual's main function was to work and refusal to work or low productivity required either reformation (aka often, Gulag) or hunger.
"Those how do not work, do not eat" - Mao
Interestingly, psychoanalysis in the USSR was aimed at helping the patient to go back to work, for instance.
> Marxism, communism and socialism are all extreme far-left ideologies.
Yes, but the behavior in that quote, cutting social services, is none of the above. Using language associated with far left movements while promoting far right policies leaves you as a far right party.
> Being anti-immigration doesn't automatically swing the party to the right
Literally nothing in the quote I quoted is about immigration (though they hit that checkbox as well and it absolutely does swing you to the right).
In the U.S., before Trump was elected, immigration control and deportating illegal immigrants were things that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama ("left" politicians) campaigned on.
>> Mullvad is a political company fighting for free speech, free information and privacy, with two equal co-founders, co-owners and co-CEOs who fundamentally disagree on many issues. Daniel's donation to a political party is private and not part of Mullvad's mission. We protect the right to express and access views we disagree with. We welcome anyone sharing these core values, whatever their other opinions. We are happy to refund others who don't, where we can.
To be fair... I'm not sure how you could take any other position as a privacy-first VPN. By technical nature, you have to believe pretty hard in 'people's business is their own business and not mine.'
I'd rather have a founder who believes whatever, but supports others rights to disagree vehemently, than one who agrees with what I believe but is less flexible on allowing others choice.
A right to say something is not the same as the right to say (and do) something without being called out on it.
He has the right to do what he’s doing. Other people have the right to react and say “That sucks, it’s against my values, I no longer trust you or want to do business with you.”
Okay - but that doesn't mean I'm not going to weigh up what you say when I'm choosing a business to support; especially if it's not in a professional context.
We need to add something to this nice rule about using services that are good from people we don't (fully) agree with.
I'm not personally inclined to be so strict about this, but there are people with objections against the Proton CEO who once agreed with Trump on twitter, or DHH (there is this one blogpost about his extreme views). Etc.
Örebropartiet is like the weirdest party in Sweden. It's named after "Örebro", a Swedish city with 125k population. The party's founder, Markus Allard, used to be far left politician before turning far right.
Their party program is all over the place. They stand for free dental care, direct democracy and deporting immigrants.
Marcus is also known for profanity and foul language in council meetings.
An oddity in Swedish politics is that if a local party manages to get 12% of the votes in a constituency they are eligible for getting a seat in parliament, and can skip the regular 4% popular vote rule.
Örebropartiet actually has a chance to get into national government next election (Fall 2026) since their local support is quite strong. Times are weird
I get that this is in the news (or at least the nerd news), but really...do y'all canvass the companies you buy things from, figure out on net who the people who work for them support in politics, ask whether that's what you like, and move your business around based on that?
It seems crazy to me. Part and parcel of having a pluralistic society is that we treat each other the same in public-facing parts of life without regard for stuff like sex, political positions, etc.
You gonna refuse to accept mail from the postman who supports something you don't like?
What about the ice cream shop?
I don't know the verb canvassing (I'm not a native speaker) but assuming you mean something like vetting each company I buy from: that seems impossible. One can only do so much. Seems important to do what you can, though. I could understand the viewpoint that this person's earned money is theirs to spend; I can also understand people that don't want to fund this and are happy to have heard of it (even if the damage has been done now)
The argument, if I've understood it correctly, sounds a bit like the common pattern of asking someone who tries to buy ethical products whether they're impeccable/perfect themselves. Like asking someone who is in favor of a local wind turbine whether they've ever flown or such. You can only do so much as an average individual
Aren't far-right parties opposed to government control and censorship? Ideally a provider should be politically neutral, but I'm wondering if it's preferable to have one that is opposed to government control and censorship.
The party seems to have some bizarre policies, but on migration can't really blame them considering how badly Sweden has failed to integrate humanitarian migrants. There is so much gang violence, so many people of migrant background marginalized and living on welfare without any hope of a better future.
I will gladly continue buying from Mullvad. There is nothing wrong with forced deportations. Without them anyone can come, claim asylum, and stay indefinitely if their country of origin doesn't want them back. That is simply idiotic waste of tax payer's money, and in case of criminals, also a hazard to public safety. Pretty much every Western European country does forced deportations, especially those of criminals.
Why doesn’t Apple just make a built in iOS native vpn that can be toggled (effectively) from the swipe down menu control and is paid monthly or part of iCloud
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.
> for people who are marginalized. Therefore, they are either far-right or far-left.
There are many types of marginalised groups, and many other reasons to want to use VPNs. Putting everything on a left-right political axis seems more than a tad reductive.
Sure but far left and far right is a crude default way to generalize, the left folks will be especially annoyed by this but its still useful when the specifics don't matter.
Dutch person living in Germany. I'm not aware of a party in NL/DE labeled left whose values don't boil down to that everyone (and future generations) should have a chance to live a good life. I, too, would be curious what GP considers problematic about funding them the way that I find it objectionable to fund this party who calls refugees parasites
The wikipedia article about the party is pretty interesting [1]. "The party has also been described as both right-wing populist and left-wing populist as well as left-conservative"
The party was founded after the founder was thrown out of the Left party for liking a far-left extremist group on Facebook and not backing down from that. Since then the party has evolved to also include goals traditionally attributed to the right, like large scale remigration and a stricter immigration policy.
The party also seems inconsequentially small, even at the municipal and regional level. They have 0 seats at the national level
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
I use Mullvad because it physically prevents anyone from logging my data.
What a co-owner does with his personal money in a local Swedish municipal election has zero impact on the code protecting my traffic.
Did a quick research - calling a party that campaigns for a 30-hour work week and socialist dental care 'far-right' just because they have a strict immigration policy shows how carelessly people throw labels around these days.
> I use Mullvad because it physically prevents anyone from logging my data.
> They're known to run everything in RAM, nothing gets stored. You pull the plug and everything is gone.
> Of course, you have to trust the company on that.
So nothing actually physically prevents them from logging your data, and this entire series of statements from you mean nothing because it still boils down to "you have to trust the company". A statement which is true for every VPN provider.
The trust in Mullvad was put to a test two years ago when Swedish police raided their headquarters with a warrant to seize customer data. They left with absolutely nothing because the data didn't exist to be seized.
Furthermore, Mullvad doesn't even keep an email address or a credit card on file. You sign up with a random number and can pay with cash in an envelope. If a company doesn't know who you are, uses only RAM servers, open-sources their code, and successfully clears a police raid, it's no longer just a matter of blind trust
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.
Gosh, why do I not believe you, who is blaming black and brown immigrants (from multiple countries, even, as if they were coordinating) for violence
Your own link says,
"The defenders of Sweden’s once generous immigration policy will point out that, according to a report released in February 2024, 88% of the 14,000 people deemed to be active in criminal networks are Swedish citizens, and only 8% of these are dual citizens. 11% are non-citizens, and the remaining 1% was not known. An additional 48,000 people in Sweden were deemed to be linked to criminal networks, although not actively involved."
And it links to the report.
Did you think people wouldn't read it, or what? (Assuming you are not a bot, ofc. There seem to be a lot of them flooding every platform talking about this.)
The article you linked to also says:
"In an interview with SVT in January 2025, the Swedish Police’s Erik Lindblad said that they had seen an increase in what he termed “instrumental violence” where it is not people that are targeted but instead “fixed objects such as staircases and businesses”.
The reasons for the bombings are, in several cases, “suspected to be motivated by extortion against businesses or people linked to businesses and their families”, according to the Swedish authorities’ crisis information website. Mr. Lindblad also noted that the attacks can often be part of wider criminal conflicts, although these cases are often an exception to the rule, in their opinion.
Serious crime and the actors within those networks are often behind the attacks, according to Mr. Lindblad. “They use violence to get their way, irrespective of if it is revenge, or a battle over a drugs market, or extortion,” he said.
Thankfully, given that the explosions normally target doors, staircases, or businesses, the explosions do not always result in injuries and rarely kill people."
In any case, I do not actually care whether they are "far-right" or "far-left" or whateverthefuck. Left vs. Right is an infamously limited, binary horse-race way to talk about politics, one that groups disparate issues together arbitrarily. If you somehow convinced me they weren't fascist (though they are), I would not suddenly change my opinion of them just because the label changed.
The thing that actually matters is that they want to forcibly expel innocent people (including sending 2nd generation immigrants who were born and raised in Sweden to a country they have never lived in and have no connections to or familiarity with) from their homes en masse because it's convenient to blame them for all the nation's problems, based on zero evidence and maximum racism. There is no way to suggest something like this that is not monstrous.
Mullvad's mealy-mouthed defense of this is pathetic. There can be no tolerance for intolerance.
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.
> similar to how Japanese people and society broadly want people that move their to assimilate
And it's super racist there too, I can assure you. My father in law is Korean but lived in Japan his whole life. There's no way to describe what he experienced except racism. People just hated him for being Korean.
I have no respect for people that concern troll about some vague cultural purity to disguise their prejudices.
A friend of mine who is a non Japanese Asian lived in Japan and when asked said there's no racism. There's mild cases but if you are careful to follow the customs and speak the language, you are generally accepted as a Japanese in daily life.
No, there's a fundamental difference between what we both wrote. There's a difference between saying "I know someone who has experienced racism" and "My friend says there's no racism in X country." One is a personal experience, the other invalidates the experiences of everyone else. They are not two sides of the same coin like you are implying. If you take the phrase "There is no racism in Japan" at face value, you are either pushing an agenda or falling for someone else's.
"We just want assimilation" is the palatable marketing term for "We would be fine arresting people at their immigration hearings if they are brown enough." Just look at the U.S.
Rewrite my comment to say "my friend experienced no racism". Not more than in his home country at least.
What you said is the same. One is according to what your relative said another is according to what my friend said.
I don't think it's crazy to expect assimilation. We are fascinated with different countries and cultures and we generally consider it's a good idea they exist and are different. Diversity is strength. But they can only be different if they have their own culture and traditions. Would everyone be so fascinated with Japan or Korea if it was not for their culture? Would they be the same without high trust society that is made possible by it?
> I don't think it's crazy to expect assimilation.
What's that mean to you? In my city, immigrants work, run businesses, pay taxes, have kids and send them to local schools, ride the bus, complain about the weather, practice their religion. I guess the only thing they don't do is complain as loudly about the government as (many of) the rest of us. What more could they be doing to assimilate?
Probably nothing. Looks good to me, they speak your language, have jobs (don't abuse welfare), pay taxes, live legally. Reading about the party it seemed that they want to kick out people far from what you described (which can be still wrong, idk, but I'm not sure it's so outrageous I would boycott a business over its owner's preference). If they campaign to kick out people who are like what you described then I would think harder.
What qualifies as assimilation is completely up to the reader. To some people, it means holding a job (although I don't know of any white people that get deported for being laid off). For some, it means not committing crimes.
For many, it doesn't matter if you have a job or if you're even born here. There is no standard of assimilation you can meet if you are ethnically different enough. That is why, again, the U.S. is currently arresting people at their immigration hearings. This is what far right politicians really want, they don't give a fuck about assimilation.
> Would everyone be so fascinated with Japan or Korea if it was not for that culture and high trust society made possible by it
Buddy, come on. Most people I know are not fascinated by Japan, they are fascinated by a romanticized idea of Japan that has been filtered through Reddit posts and Anime. They cultivate a one-dimensional understanding of the country specifically so they can daydream about it. A lot of Americans that "love" Japan would lose all interest the second they were told they can't dump their trash outside.
> Most people I know are not fascinated by Japan, they are fascinated by a romanticized idea of Japan that has been filtered through Reddit posts and Anime
Somehow people I know who rave about Japan just don't watch anime that I know of. They just go there and like how everything is. The anime nerds I know don't talk about real Japan much.
If you don't have that fascination, fine. I was fascinated by tons of things there. I think most people were. And most people would say it's a horrible idea destroying that culture.
You are completely dodging the topic of assimilation. You are implying that Japan is great because it's culturally homogeneous, and the reason it's culturally homogeneous is because people assimilate, and therefore Sweden deporting teenagers is morally right because they are protecting their own culture from people that don't assimilate.
You have no specifics on how immigrants don't assimilate, and what part of the culture is worth preserving, or how you can even assimilate to a culture that is constantly developing. If I am ethnically Japanese and grow up in Japan, but I don't act like others, that is not a "lack of assimilation." That is me actively participating in a shift of the culture, and that's how everyone would see it. But if I were a different ethnicity in the same situation, I would be a problem immigrant anchor baby who is trying to destroy the culture of the country. Do you see the difference?
This idea that culture is able to be frozen in time and preserved is paradoxical. It's a cudgel used to bludgeon disadvantaged people who are perfectly functioning citizens, and even harm people who could make the country better, not worse. How do you expect immigrants to introduce new ideas to a culture if you elect politicians that will demonize and deport them if they are not sufficiently "assimilated"
> You have no specifics on how immigrants don't assimilate,
I haven't been to Sweden. I take the word of people who have been there or live there elsewhere in this thread.
But elsewhere I definitely have seen communities of immigrants which don't speak local language and treat local population as less than themselves because they are of different religion.
> If I am ethnically Japanese and grow up in Japan, but I don't act like others
Racism is one of those things that unfortunately crosses political and social boundaries. Some groups just hide it better than others by enforcing anti-racism as a group norm.
Racism definitely crosses all boundaries, but deporting people on the grounds they are not culturally aligned is what we'd call a positionally right policy. That does not mean left wing parties can't do it. It means it lies right on the political spectrum.
That's not a subjective opinion I made, that is just a textbook definition of what we consider authoritative right. Left and right mean things, and they don't mean what traditionally progressive or conservative parties happen to be doing at that time.
Left and right refers to where the Girondins and the Montagnards/Jacobins sat in the French revolutionary assembly. We’ve bastardized this into imaginary delineations of political positioning and for some reason we keep bolting on arbitrary positions as Girondin or Jacobin.
I don’t care what textbook you are looking at, I’m looking at (or maybe writing) a different one. Left and right do not actually “mean things” if you intend for “meaning” to be universally or even widely agreed upon. I suppose for you “meaning” may only be relevant if a certain group or class agrees upon the meaning, but the rest of us will continue to say and believe what we want!
You are being needlessly contradictory, in a pointlessly academic way. I can assure you nobody thinks of left or right as the French revolutionary assembly, any more than we think of "Wednesday" as the day of the Norse god Odin, or "a sandwich" as the Earl of Sandwich's gambling snack. The Etymological origin doesn't determine current meaning.
> but the rest of us will continue to say and believe what we want
Who is we? These definitions are mostly settled, and where they aren't, there are fuzzy differences, not huge gaps of disagreement. It's a shared language of understanding where people lie on a quadrant of politics. It's socially useful to have that language when posing political theory. Again, this does not mean political parties are permanently stuck to their quadrant. What do you think Republicans mean when they call themselves right wing? Nothing?
> I suppose for you “meaning” may only be relevant if a certain group or class agrees upon the meaning
What? You seem to be stuck on an idea that I am making some kind of partisan statement by saying a certain policy is left or right wing. That is not a value statement on whether it's good or bad. I don't know why you are so heated about this.
There is no shared language anymore, and I’m tired of pretending that there is. The 20th century notion of left and right, which was itself a fantasy, has been turned into a tool of propaganda. It does nothing but muddy the waters.
“Right-wing” politicians are arguing for nationalization in some cases and wielding industrial policy like they’re FDR. We may see price controls and even capital controls before long. The oil market interventions alone would make Stalin blush. Meanwhile they are jumping on regulation in other places, such as AI “safety”, and have floated hate speech bans (to combat antisemitism).
“Left-wing” pols (admittedly in the face of immense hate from their base) are coming out for free market solutions gently guided by the government and deregulation so we can build faster. Outside the US, you have bizarro world Labour policies in the UK (they seem to be aiming to absorb the Tories), China’s roaring Communist economy that’s the global hotbed of economic activity, etc.
The traditional categories still seem to hold in Latin America, for some reason. But that’s it.
What exactly does the left-right distraction provide except for an easily abused method for enforcing a (tenuous, completely malleable) group orthodoxy? These days it seems like people just use it as shorthand for “enemy”. Any heterodox position is automatically of the other wing, preventing adaptation to real-world circumstances. Some positions (like a land value tax) are somehow both left and right wing depending on who you ask. It’s infuriating.
You are taking me to say left means Democrat and right means Conservative, and acting like it's a gotcha when they criss cross. I already said all of this was possible.
> “Right-wing” politicians are arguing for nationalization in some cases and wielding industrial policy like they’re FDR
Nationalization is a policy lying on the left. State ownership of industry is the textbook left pole
> The oil market interventions alone would make Stalin blush
Price controls on markets are authoritarian left
> are coming out for free market solutions gently guided by the government and deregulation so we can build faster
Economic right, mildly libertarian
> What exactly does the left-right distraction provide except for an easily abused method for enforcing a (tenuous, completely malleable) group orthodoxy?
No, they provide categorization to resist group orthodoxy. People are going to categorize, that is human nature. Without these, the only way to categorize a policy is what the parties happen to be doing at the time. That causes a group orthodoxy. There are people describing themselves as "more left" or "more right" as a shorthand to reject group orthodoxy. There are people describing a policy as left or right, regardless of which party is doing it. You're not sparing anything by resisting policy categorization, you are making things less specific and more likely to default to broad buckets.
That doesn't mean you can't talk about the policies in specifics, it means they lie on a very flexible and descriptive map.
That isn’t at all useful. If a party adopts a few platform items that are “left” and some that are “right” (as all parties do), what good is it to point out that X party has adopted Y-wing stance on this issue? The only purpose that this could serve is to give ultras (left or right) ammunition to enforce orthodoxy to these “standard” categories. Meanwhile in the real world, as I mentioned, all parties and candidates adopt mixed platforms, and if you care at all about pragmatism and responding to real conditions, those positions should be evaluated individually on their merits rather than slapping on a left or right label.
This tendency to force everything into a black or white frame is what gives us politicians who run without platforms, on party label alone, and who then adopt unpopular or harmful positions when in office.
At some point we decided that platforms don’t matter, and if platforms exist, they must be orthodox. This is a problem!
> 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...
All white nationalist parties describe themselves in these neutral terms, of course. I've yet to find a hardline anti-immigration party that is not also virulently racist.
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]
In some ways I would say it could even increase trust: if the guy is a privacy absolutist, ultra-libertarian, "my business is not the state's business" type, his VPN products are likely to be pretty good.
On the other hand, he might have other strong right-wing views that users don't agree with, and which might take precedence in one's set of priorities. If I like football and they like football, but they also want to kill me because of <other reason>, I don't think I'd want to give them my money.
Look at Zuck and Musk. Their platforms are still used by millions. It's only "us" that care about the pedigree of our tech founders, most people couldn't care less.
I’d say entirely incorrect. It means exactly the opposite. I don’t buy the “it’s popular usage now so that makes it right” argument - it’s like saying 4 now equals 5 because more people use 4 to mean 5.
There has to be some reason that so many projects are started by right wing people. Something in their personality that makes them both RW and willing to start lots of projects.
Right wing thought patterns tend toward believing in oneself; predicating the worth of the individual on their objective behavior or output; valuing individual achievements; and also believing that effort is likely to result in those achievements.
Left wing thought patterns are biased toward less agency, e.g. the individual is a product of the system; systemic discrimination holds people back; one's trauma or neurodivergency is a valid anchor that makes achievements very difficult; failing to achieve is okay and doesn't reduce one's intrinsic value.
I'm aware that left wing patterns position individuals as moulded by systems but I'm not aware of any that explicitly deny the power of the individual to try weird stuff, especially in a low-barrier-to-entry industry like software. I guess maybe the overall level of that is somewhat lower and maybe low enough that it doesn't really happen?
I think it's just that rightists value personal success more and also think it's more attainable from their own efforts, so they make these efforts more often. Or it may be inverted, that privilege/success leads to right wing beliefs.
It is a sensible combination to me. If you first believe that the government should provide a bunch of free stuff, but it doesn't at the moment because it's too expensive, it kind of makes sense that you would then think there need to be fewer people getting the free stuff so it remains affordable. The first people on the exclusion list would naturally be noncitizens.
You could, but in practice illegals get/use a lot of public goods that cannot be reasonably gated. The "means testing costs more than just giving welfare" argument is cited. Plus things like public schools, parks, transportation don't require ID to use. Having an ID is not guaranteed, as voting advocates often point out.
> Also they are anti EU and NATO. Lot of astroturfing here.
At the same time, that big advertising and crony politicians are fighting to impose digital ID for all internet communications... one of the strongest privacy advocates is being attacked with non-sense.
Those are left wing positions. Until 2023 the UK's Green Party's policy was to leave NATO, and there is still a lot of support in the part for that. When the UK's Labour party was socialist they were anti-EU. If you look at campaigned for what in the 1975 referendum on EEC membership its pretty clear: for example, Thatcher campaigned to remain, Tony Benn campaigned to leave. The remnants of the old left remain anti-EU even now.
its not uncommon. The overtly racist parties in the UK (e.g. the BNP has quite a lot of left wing policies (e.g. nationalisation of utilities), ending NHS outsourcing to the private sector, and free healthcare.
Its a combination that appeals to the worst off who compete with unskilled immigrants for jobs and rely on free healthcare etc.
Parties get goverment funding based on election result, with a minimum floor of 2.5% votes in national elections. This party is way too small for that, and is primarily focused on local election.
A headline and 20 comments and no mention of what this party actually stands for. Only simple labels such as "far-right". Ehh. The Republican Party in America is EXTREMELY far right by Swedish standards. So maybe one should base this on the actual substance rather than labels?
Additional context here is that they donated 75% of *all donations* to that party last year. 3x everyone else combined.
And that party is not just "kind of right wing", they believe in large scale "remigration" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration), which, to save you clicking the link, means "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".
There is a wealth of difference between when random companies throw a few thousand at whatever the leading parties are, and this.
"ethnic cleansing" is an emotionally charged term that conjures genocide in the popular imagination. It is not a good descriptive term for what can rightly be described as regressive or ultra-nationalistic migration policy.
> Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction.
Ethnic cleansing is a completely accurate description of "remigration". It invokes strong emotions because the act itself is wrong.
Why are leftists so histrionic? If we had a thread made every time an executive espoused far left opinions we'd overload the HN servers. Why is an executive being far right even news?
What if the focus of their pro-remigration stance is families deemed impossible to integrate due to their persisting criminal activities and rejection of functional societal norms? Because that's the exact demographic this one policy of that party is concerned with.
Up/Down (authoritarian/libertarian) is what matters there.
If he has high allegiance to the extant power structure then promises should be questioned.
If he is for radical decentralization and antiwar then I'm more likely to trust promises made about privacy and autonomy.
Then there's international confusion about left/right. Scandinavia is known as a good place to run a business because businesses regulation is much lighter than places like the US which are heavily regulated. In the US business regulation is "left wing" in Scandinavia it's "right wing".
We'd use a 14-dimensional vector for political positioning if we wanted to be studious but most folks are just looking for a friend/enemy distinction. Even many of the comments here looking to dump a well-regarded service if either "tastes great" or "less filling" is confirmed. The false dialectic as means of control and all that jazz.
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?
Such a convenient time frame with all think-of-the-children bs wave to point fingers at the one of the best VPN services our there with spotless reputation and raise a hysteria with duplicated stream of posts, isn't it?
Welp, that vanishes my support for mullvad, despite I did recommend it to many of my friends who doesn’t want/can setup their own.
Im not against people having different political opinions, I personally agree with things from each side and disagree with them both too on other matters, plus having my own third option that doesn’t fit any side. But I am certainly against a company marketing itself as a “defender of personal and human rights and freedom”, yet they are sponsoring a party that obviously doesn’t hold these values, this company will report individuals in the future to deport them maybe, 5 years later they are reporting others for disagreeing with whatever agenda that party is having, it’s always a slippery slope, never think it will end at xyz and that’s it.
Goddammit it’s like companies are ALWAYS destined to turn to evil one way or another, it’s just how long it will take is the question. It’s a reminder that you should always host your own, trust nobody, none.
Well, I am a proud left-wing user and I don't care for the guy's politics. "I don't support X because of his opinion on Y" is a retarded and infantile way to approach policy and people in general. The guy is big on privacy and runs the most successful VPN; I dig.
If you know that he will spend his money in support of that party, and you still buy services from him, you are helping him promote whatever views he holds. As simple as that. There is no cop out.
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
OK, but please don't post low-substance comments on HN. Telling us you “don't care” about a topic achieves nothing other than instigating a generic tangent, which is against the guidelines. Please take a moment to read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them if you want to participate here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Disappointing if true. I can't read the original article[1], but the translation seems to agree. I've paid for Mullvad for _years_. Looks like I'll be taking my money elsewhere.
Article by a news media outlet that is considered very far left (communist). Try finding the same claim or description in any national Swedish media. You won't.
And everyone is free to chose not to buy products from people who have opinions that differs fundamentally from their own?
And some opinions cannot be tolerated in a democratic society. An obvious example is anti-liberal/anti-democratic opinions as they threaten the system itself. You cannot have a free democratic society if a majority removes the freedoms of a minority.
You have freedom of speech to advocate for your politics. The rest of us have the freedom of association to not want to be involved with you in any way.
These are not contradictory - they are both essential freedoms.
Very weird interpretation of "voluntarily choose to not continue supporting them financially"
Presumably you want everyone to be forcibly compelled to finance the political parties they disagree with? And you would define this as a democratic society?
The guy owns half the company, so a significant part of the money I'm paying is involved. Yes, it is quite ethical to decide based on matters like that. It's not an employee or minor shareholder.
Not doing business with a company (for any reason btw) is not 'punishment'. Nobody is taking away anything from the company or any people involved with that company.
For most people, the concern is the money, not the voting. People don't want wealthy people reshaping politics to fit their interests through their wealth. They can vote for whomever they want.
This sounds a bit irrational. Where does "wealthy" start? Mullvad co-CEO donated ~ $500K, would him donating $100K have the same effect? What about $10K? What if a Mullvad _employee_ donated $500K?
What about work in units of median annual household disposable income, which are at least somewhat responsive to the distribution of money?
What % do you think a reasonable voter should accept a person donating to a political campaign before it causes concern about the donor's influence vs the median household's voice?
Off the top of my head, I'd guess 500k USD is about 1000% / 10x median annual household disposable income in SE, which I think would give the median voter pause.
For what it's worth (my own view): I think about 10% (~5k USD) is obviously acceptable, and I expect most anyone would agree that donations at that level are fine. I think your proposed 1000% is obviously unacceptable, and I expect most people would agree with me on that as well.
I'm not sure exactly where the level is that opinion would flip, but I feel pretty confident about those boundaries.
A company shouldn't be able to fire an employee over their opinion,[0] so that wouldn't matter to me. For a major owner, the donation amount starts to matter to me around $5-10K, but YMMV.
[0] I suppose unless they have a very influential position and it's about a matter that contradicts main company goals
In a free democratic society nobody is forced to do business with anybody they don't agree with, and free speech means they can talk about their decision without fearing repercussion.
Haters will now say that the far right will destroy exactly that: "our" democracy. The Western morality is a joke, and many HN readers comment like an infant. I feel ashamed.
Everyone is free to make up their mind and vote for what they believe.
And if I disagree strongly enough then I am free to take my business elsewhere. Especially if the money I hand over might go to support speech and parties I fundamentally disagree with.
Freedom swings both ways, and freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from people thinking you're an asshole and not wanting anything to do with you. That's their freedom.
The initiative to found the Örebro Party was taken in early 2014 by Markus Allard, who is also the first party leader. Allard had previously held positions as substitute member of the Örebro municipal council and district chairman of the Young Left in Örebro; in December 2013 he was expelled from the Left Party and its youth wing Young Left for "liking" the Revolutionary Front, a militant revolutionary socialist and anti-fascist organization, on Facebook and refusing to disavow it when questioned.[6] Allard has stated that the real reason for his expulsion was that he was perceived as a threat to the established party bureaucracy.[7][8]
While Allard has described himself as a Communist,[9] and a Marxist,[8][10] at its founding in March 2014 he defined the Örebro Party as "broad left".[9] At that time the party considered itself a "local party that wants to carry on the labour movement's ideals", and "not interested in administrating the current society".[11]”
Colours:
Red
Black
This sounds like a socialist, anarchist or Ancap group that believes in borders
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.
Tried to find something from the party itself, but found nothing on their homepage other than that they plan to publish a party programme "gradually, starting some time during the summer of 2026".
The claims in the social media post is pure bullshit. The party is a tiny (read: one person elected) radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists. They have gained popularity for pointing out wasteful use of Örebro's municipalities resources, and their leader's fondness of lengthy ridiculing other parties politicians in lengthy debates, that he often publish on Instagram and YouTube.
No, they have 8 people elected: 3 in the region, 5 in the municipality.
They got 4,46 % of the votes in the region, and 7,92 % in the municipality. And who knows, maybe they'll use that 5 million SEK to get more seats in this years election.
Are his public stances on immigration precisely stated as remigration, or does he describe a thing such as remigration without explicitly naming it as such?
About his quote from wikipedia "They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish." which links to this video tweet https://x.com/AllardKlipp/status/2060109271635771457 can you give full context/translation?
He says what is quoted when talking about criminals with immigrant roots. "Those [criminals] - they should get out, even if they were born in Sweden, because they do not have a connection to Sweden. They received a swedish passport but they have not become swedish [as belonging to swedish culture]. They are not interested [in becoming swedish] and here I'm ready to go on corpses...".
Overall his stance on immigration (taken from this video) is not as extreme as one can imagine reading HN comments. It is extreme but not to the extent that he's ready to push out anyone whos granddad was not Andersson.
> takes inspiration from marxist ideology[42] and unites the "productive" classes of society against the "Transferiat", with the "Transferiat" being a term coined by Allard to describe the classes of society that lives off transfers that are a net negative for society
lmao This is like the song Tequila by The Champs but instead of a long instrumental it’s John Galt’s speech and instead of “Tequila!” it’s “Marxism!”
> The Örebro Party (Swedish: Örebropartiet, ÖP) is a political party in Sweden. The party was initially only a local party in Örebro, Sweden. Markus Allard is the party leader. According to Allard the party cannot be placed anywhere on the traditional left-right spectrum. Some of its key issues include lowered wages for politicians, ending the tax payer funding of various sculptures, monuments and art, large scale remigration, a stricter immigration policy, and free dental care.[3][4]
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 think this is more nuanced than this article or mullvad themselves present it as. What you give to mullvad as a form of payment will end up in the pockets of the funding members which allows them to make relatively large political donations, but it's also not as deep as presented. What gets seemingly glossed over how involved large companies are in pushing parties like orebro into relevancy.
As a basic example, youtube started pushing a LOT of anti-immigrant videos. I never watched them since after few minutes it's obvious that it is clear ragebait, but I keep getting them recommended without showing any interest in them and they're all clocking in anywhere from 300k to millions of views.
There is virtually no way to resist the temptation of being anti-immigrant/racist/whatnot when you see abusive behavior exploiting the good will of the european union especially when there is state level abuse to extract additional funding from the shared support pool. This being extremely unpopular gives motivation to keep all of this under wraps as much as possible which only fuels the fire when "information" is made available on social media platforms where you benefit from blowing this out of proportion and then if you try to question it you are labeled which naturally breeds resentment.
There have been multiple posts about this and hundreds of comments, so there is clearly appetite to discuss it, although none of the submitted links have been very detailed.
I've merged the other threads into this one, so you'll see some anachronistic timestamps below.
The post linked has been removed, so I don't know what more we can speculate upon, 650+ comments in.
It's strange to see HN mods allow this much attention to a political, and contentious issue.
I don't think "appetite to discuss" should be a justification to override the guidelines against political submissions and discussion. There is far too much politics on HN and it leaks into unrelated discussions too. There are plenty of other places to discuss politics on the internet.
The guidelines say that most political articles are offtopic. Most != all. The question is what should be in the setdiff of all - most.
About that, there are lots of past explanations: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
Edit: more at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48724830 in this thread
I'm aware of what you've said in the past about this. I'm expressing my disagreement. HN would be improved dramatically by a significant change in where this line is drawn.
The comment from the other Mullvad founder is here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48696800
What has been removed? The links I saw didn't have much information but as far as I can tell they're still up.
From an HN point of view the idea is to give the discussion a place, since the community obviously wants to have it.
The Mastodon post itself. I get a 404 error. It was fine when this reached the frontpage yesterday or when was it. Looks like the author deleted it.
EDIT: nvm it's rate limited
> From an HN point of view the idea is to give the discussion a place, since the community obviously wants to have it
So where do you draw the line?
Just this week I saw multiple offtopic Epstein schizoposts by 10+ year old accounts that were alternately flagged and vouched. Should we allow that too?
My takeaway is this is a highly politically charged rant on a niche social media site — exactly the kind of discussion we're meant to avoid.
Things are rotten below ground and you give an inch, they'll want a mile.
We try to draw the line according to principles that I've explained many times over the years. If you scroll back through the comments, for example, at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so..., you'll find them. If you read some of those and then still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
Btw, I'm not claiming that we make every individual call correctly - that's an undecidable question anyhow since everyone will have their own evaluation of "correctly". But at the more general level of what principles to apply, I do think there's a certain consistency: they've been the same for many years, and we do our (fallible) best to follow them.
Having had an old account nuked by ‘dang himself many years ago for engaging in the exact kind of flame bait arguments going on in this thread is… rich to say the least.
Well the title already says most of it, doesn't it?
I'm also surprised. Usually opinions opposing the far right are removed from HN.
Slightly tangential on Swedish society, there are similarities between USA and Sweden. There's a large segment of society that is white and very blond, and there's a largish segment which is not. Along that same line there are all kinds of divisions: economic, education, religious, sets of values, and of access to things and possibilities. What pisses me off is that the cast of "CEOs of successful companies" live in an sphere of privilege where they really are not bothered at all by the brown people. They in fact have plenty of places to go, a vast archipelago, out of reach for anybody who can't afford a boat. Though they get all the benefits, including cheap qualified labor from people who had to leave their homelands displaced by poverty, conflict and war. I'll switch VPN provider too.
One of these days we will elect somebody who is corrupt and morally corrupt, incompetent and poorly educated and who'll promise to screw us over many times and in many positions, and we will let him just do so so that there are concentration camps for the brown people.
What's the relationship between race and immigration status?
It's not entirely clear what the argument which unites them is supposed to be. This unification is always in the mind of the white matry not the person opposing immigration. In the UK polish immigration was opposed, en mass, poles are white.
SUPPOSE there are large numbers of poorly assimilated people in a country, whose culture of origin is very different than that of the host country. What does the minor coincidence of their common lack of european ancestry show, other than to prove the point, they lack such ancestry?
White skin evolved in europe, with the peoples of europe, as with european culture -- that whiteness tracks this culture is a conincidence. (There's less-and-less european diaspora in america -- which, if imported en mass, might also enrange europeans).
The refusal to treat large scale immigration as a cultural and economic phenomneon, to try and insult opponents of this position with a slander of racism -- this tactic doesnt work any more.
All you are doing is driving those people to say, "OK, so its racism. We'll vote for that then." And the result is real racists are elected.
Do you have any analysis of the issues people opposed to large scale immigartion, from non-western cultures, and who would reverse at least some of it -- do you have any arguments that engage the issues they actually raise?
It is strange, because this party’s platform seems to mirror the positions of the blackest Swede I know (Malcolm Kyeyune, a Marxist writer who is also often accused of being a right-winger). I suspect that the divisions in Sweden are much deeper than race.
> The refusal to treat large scale immigration as a cultural and economic phenomneon
> and insult opponents of this position as racist
On the other hand, you treat the negative effects of current immigrant milieus as eternal and innert to their ancestry (dare to say: genes).
This way, you can look at integration as if it has to happen in a single generation and also, allows you to ignore the more important part of diminishing social mobility, which effects the natives as much.
Look at germany, where after WW2, alot of turkish "guest workers" were invited and stayed. After several generations the descendant of those immigrants are as german as you can be. They are still soft muslims, drink alcohol, engage with german bureaucracy, have a heavy turkish accent -- some of them are even candidates for the far right AfD. Please note, they migrated into an economic boom.
Isnt that utterly ridiculous? When time proves you wrong, it reveals your narrow mindedness.
And when you reduce immigrants to percieved negative innert properties, isnt that racist? When you broaden your scope, youll see the bigger problems are elsewhere, dont get distracted by bigotted populists, that are as clueless about problems or their solutions.
> hand, you treat the negative effects of current immigrant milieus as eternal amd innert to their ancestry (dare to say: genes).
I don't think they did say any of this. I don't understand why people who debate against limiting immigration (and it often is only this way round) continually mis-represent the person's clear, stated concern and try and replace it. It is a completely transparent attempt, and no one is fooled. This isn't 2015 when an accusation of racism was taken seriously, because who would mis-accuse someone of such an awful thing? Well, it turned out millions of people would do that. The US President would do it[0].
As for the genetics comment, this is ridiculous on its face as well. Race and culture are in no way tied. But culture survives for many generations, particularly when the immigrating group is large enough. This is obvious. Germans in the 1900s could move almost anywhere in the world and become the best brewers in the region, not because they have the genotype of a brewer, but because they had (and still have) an incredible brewing tradition handed down from parent to child. Culture doesn't change because you move into another country. It moves because you assimilate, make lots of native friends, and learn the language. Lots and lots of people are not doing that.
[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kyle-rittenhouses-mothe...
I think racism comes from a cognitive bias, that eg, lets you read a text without ever engaging with the broader explanation offered (social mobility, time scale of integration) but instead engange with a side remark about genes.
GP ties negative properties to entire groups without differenciation, this is by definition racist.
To end on a constructive upside, if GP was really concerned about eg womens rights, any kind of stateful intervention should only target that. By being racist and eg trying to associate this issue with brown skins, stateful intervention becomes sweeping. By being more precise, migration politics that targets them all becomes social politics wich only effects some.
Can you see it now?
> By being racist and eg trying to associate this issue with brown skins
I have only seen you associate cultural issues and non-integration from mass immigration as being race-related. I have no idea who you think you're talking about when you say people are doing this.
>On the other hand, you treat the negative effects of current immigrant milieus as eternal and innert to their ancestry
A bad faith misrepresentation of the issue. The issue is why should existing citizens have to suffer the backwards views of the immigrant population while immigrants "assimilate over multiple generations"? Why should the host country have to absorb increased crime, feeling less safe, having their culture changed, etc for the sake of the immigrant population? Where does this supposed moral impetus come from?
Congrats, you touched my time scale argument, the other commenter didnt engage with anything important. Unfortunately you didnt touch the systemic problem of social mobility, which is much more striking.
To return the facor, the "moral impetus" comes from not elevating your culture as the only origing of truth, goodness, etc., but instead codify common basic needs, human dignity, etc. into law and sanction/integrate nased on this.
Im not saying that immigrarion is frictionless, the same way you non-racist arent saying, some undesirable negative traits (like crime) cannot emerge in the native population without immigration. The solution to native or migrant crime is identical.
Why you should take the hassle and hopefully adress social mobility and organize integration? Because of demographics and economic contribution -- the bigger picture yet again.
>To return the facor, the "moral impetus" comes from not elevating your culture as the only origing of truth, goodness, etc.
A country doesn't need to see its culture as an objective ideal to justify protecting its citizens from non-citizens that would victimize, cause discord, or otherwise strain the social fabric and institutions. A government's first and most important mandate is to act in the interests of its citizens. What impetus does a nation have to help non-citizens at the expense of the prosperity and comfort of citizens?
Immigrants economic contributions are net-positive, its not at the expense of anyone bc economies are no zero sum games. This is scientific consens.
Protecting citizens with closed borders and potentially harming them in the long term with or protecting them with capable institutions based on individual cases? (Hope you see the racism trick question here.)
> cultural and economic phenomenon
I don't think you understand very much about race theory if you think "I'm prejudiced against poles, but they are white" is any sort of gotcha.
More importantly, you show no signs of actually wanting to understand what people mean when using the term "racism" so there's no point in elaborating further.
So suppose there's a large group of people arriving into your country en mass, you poll them about eg., women's rights and you find that 80%+ of them hold highly regressive views that were rare and fringe in even in the last 100+ years of your own country. Indeed, women would be warned about them even in the antebellum south. Now suppose they're a different colour than the present inhabitants.
Which fact is most salient in your analysis of whether to retain their presence, or admit more?
If its the latter, then I think there's racism in play here, but not of the kind you imagine. Namely, it seems you'd think feminism is only for white people. Or perhaps that human rights are a white things. Others, of course, disagree.
Assuming you have an accurate individual level test, and the policy action you suggest is to not administer the test to each applicant and instead treat them all as homogeneous group and reject them based on older test results?
Yeah that's a racist idea.
Right, so what's the state policy you advocate here?
Import 1 million people, 800,000 of which are racist, sexist, homophobic and militantly conservative -- and you'll do that because the policy to prevent it is, as you say, "Racist" ?
You may think these imports are on your side for now, because of the cross you've nailed yourself to -- but be assured, as you see today in the US, their cultural conservatism comes out when their social position is safe.
You are importing the very people you claim to despise : racists, sexists, misoginsits, and the like. And you're doing it why?
I said it was "discriminatory" (which it is), I never said "racist" (but that case could easily be made).
How are you determining this group that holds these views? What criteria? Because I don't know any group that matches that description exactly. Could you be specific?
I think a human is a human and is deserving of the same rights as any other person. I don't believe this position is radical in any way; it is what most doctrines of fairness are based upon.
Again, who are these people? How are you lumping them together (their views or their religion or their race?) because no large group is a hegemony of exactly the same ideas or views; all groups have a diverse set of individuals and ideas among them (both progressive and regressive).
It’s a little befuddling that you are pretending it’s not possible to simply observe the nature of the countries from which these people arrived and make high probability conclusions about the mean views on, say, women’s rights. Is your belief that any particular view can and does get patched like software when someone passes through customs and stamps their passport?
It's a little befuddling that you are pretending there are countries where every person in that country share the exact same thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. Where is this mythical place?
Are we determining an individual's potential, liberty, rights and character based on group population polling now, or do we believe in individual autonomy and potential?
Anyone claiming an entire country holds one singular view (on any topic) is not truly discussing in good faith.
I think judging any group of individuals as if they are all a single entity (be it through the lens of a particular majority view or a particular race) is discriminatory to the individual (hence discriminatory overall).
In your example (with made up numbers), if 20% are being denied citizenship and opportunity simply because they once resided in the same geographic region as another 80% (with different views), then that is discriminatory because they are not being viewed as individuals but are guilty by simply existing as part of a larger group that they have no choice over.
This is why we screen individual applicants, view each person as a single human with their own thoughts and needs, and judge everyone as an individual and not as a group; to avoid the wrong of discriminating against entire classes of people.
State policies do not operate in this fashion. See, for example, the reality of importing 1 million people.
The existence of a state pressuposes two "classes" of people: citizens and non-citizens.
Citizens are those who have lived and died, who have laboured and been taxed, and have made the very state which is constituted by them -- and they are owed, by that state, a society they wish to live in.
Non-citizens are everyone else. They are owed very little, at best, not to be killed elsewhere; but certaintly, not even to be aided. Unless you want to divide the wealth of every nation by 8bn and watch all of it disappear.
In any case, to non-citizens nothing is owed. Certainly not being carefully scruitnized under a microscope to see if a border agent can detect a lack of cultural or ethical fit.
And in any case, such a fit can be determined by citizens themsevles. And polled, overwhelming, citizens of western nations have spoken. And they have seen your dice rolling at the border, and havent appreciated its concequences.
THe presumption you have on the consent of your fellow citizens to give what you eblieve is owed to other citizens of other states -- this presumption is extraordinary, obniouxous, and short-lived. And much of your attitue here is shortening it.
What state policies are you referring to? Laws/rights should apply equally to all people or else they are not really rights (are they?).
No, Enlightenment principles come from the idea that rights and laws belong to all people (citizen or otherwise) and the founders believed that to be "self-evident" and "unalienable" to all humans. The US Supreme Court has ruled as such again and again (non-citizens have protections of the US Constitution), and Enlightenment thinkers (and any decent person) would agree.
Your entire argument (and everything after) can be ignored because your premise is not just flawed, it is entirely incorrect (false) and goes against any principle of human rights that I'm aware of.
States are not the creations of the enlightment
I'll await your grant of medicare to the population of africa
Are you saying the population in Africa should not be provided healthcare? I fail to see your point here. If your argument is economic scarcity, then that can be solved eventually (and should be).
If citizenship isnt a line between two classes of people to which states owe obligations, then why isnt the USA obligated to pay for the healthcare of everyone in the world?
Why does medicare/medicaid end at the US border?
Because we don't live in a perfect world... yet. But we should always be working towards more prosperity for all, greater access to resources/services, more sharing of knowledge/assets, and improving the lives of all people on the planet (not just our preferred groups/tribes). Don't you think?
"you find that 80%+ of them hold highly regressive views"
Question is, does this info come from reputable pollsters? Or is it just a factoid propagated by right-wing media?
Also, impossible to square with a conservative white base *also* holding similarly regressive views. (Speaking from a US perspective, not a Euro one, but the same people yelling about regressive immigrants are also genuinely trying to disenfranchise women in favor of male-headed family units, and other things in this vein.)
It's not right-wing propaganda. Surveys from reputable sources like Pew Research have consistently shown that people from many countries in the Middle East and parts of Africa hold significantly more conservative views on women's rights, gender roles, and related issues than the European average.
so... when individuals from those regions migrate to Europe, they often bring those "attitudes" with them. Without meaningful assimilation, those views tend to persist in the next generation as well, this is literal y documented.
OK, well, so do Catholics and Orthodox Jews. As well as a large portion of religious folks in the nativist caucus. (I notice you completely ignored the second part of my comment.)
And "significantly more conservative" does not mean 80%+.
I'd point out that pointing at those largely powerless people is a tactic used by domestic power centres that have their own regressive views and policies which they want to draw discourse away from.
I'd ask for a comparison of how these arrivals have led to worse policy outcomes in terms of women's rights, and how that compares to the policy behaviour and outcomes of domestic groups.
I'd close out with a pointed question about which group it is that should be treated as a greater threat.
> a vast archipelago, out of reach for anybody who can't afford a boat
No. That is just false. There is a very well developed ferry/commuter boat network. [1] The cost on some lines are included in the Stockholm public transport pass. A five day ticket is €12/day. No need to buy a boat.
[1] https://images.ctfassets.net/4l7cjdaypzcu/UrqsczDUUVXP3wS6rU...
Sweden wasn't like USA until politicians decided to make Sweden a "humanitarian superpower" by establishing the most liberal refugee policy in the world, without thinking of how they can actually integrate and offer a better future for all those refugees. I guess the real motivation may have been getting cheap labor, rest of the society be damned.
In any case, Sweden's policies on humanitarian migration have been an utter failure, and I can't really blame Swedes for wanting to make it stricter. Obviously refugees are not the ones to be blamed here, but politicians who took in more than they could successfully integrate.
I lived in Stockholm for seven years. One of the biggest mistakes was not buying a boat. They‘re not as expensive as people make you believe; you can get a really nice day cruiser for around $10k, which you can sell again for $9k after a few years. Used boats have very little depreciation. Yes, you can go fancier; a nice weekender like a Nimbus 250 sets you back $60-70k, but that’s just like cars. You can get an Audi or BMW, or you start with a Kia.
The problem with boats isn’t that they’re expensive - the Stockholm archipelago can largely be considered like a lake, not like the sea. It’s education. And I don’t mean university.
I mean: which boat is appropriate? How do I navigate? On which cliffs can I stop, and how? How do I prepare for a nice day out? Which insurance do I choose, which parts need repair and when, what Mai tweets must I do myself vs pay someone, how much should I expect in upkeep costs, etc
These are all very manageable things to learn, but if you’re not used and not exposed to boat culture you won’t do it.
But the problem isn’t money. $10k isn’t free, but it’s less than most used cars, and annual upkeep is less than a car, too.
It took me 5 years to get the boat - a 22ft daycruiser with toilet. That was 15 years ago, haven't looked back. Got a daycruiser from the UK. Drove there, bought a trailer there, drove it home. Arbitrage during the financial crisis - half the price of the same boat in Sweden at the time.
"Mullvad AB and its parent company Amagicom AB are 100% owned by founders [1 person] and Daniel Berntsson [...]"[0]
So I'll assume he owns about 50%. Well, that ends my usage of Mullvad.[1] I appreciate that probably many of Mullvad's employees have different views, and obviously Berntsson has every right to his opinions and to express them, and I also appreciate that someone can have control over an opinionated company and run it for one particular set of reasons but not for other causes that someone believes in, but in the end I just don't want my money supporting anti-people causes.
[0] https://mullvad.net/en/about
[1] If it was a small amount, say less than 5% or maybe 10%, I might have decided differently. But it's still millions, so probably not.
I'm sorry to hear that. Yes, Daniel and I own 50% each.
> obviously Berntsson has every right to his opinions and to express them
Indeed.
> and I also appreciate that someone can have control over an opinionated company and run it for one particular set of reasons but not for other causes that someone believes in
That is exactly the case.
> but in the end I just don't want my money supporting anti-people causes.
As is your right. Daniel made his choice and now you make yours, as a number of other people in this thread has done. Some believe this party is left-wing, others right-wing. Some approve of it, others don't. Personally I don't, and as I've said elsewhere in this thread I wish he hadn't donated. As do many of our colleagues. To be fair though, there are also colleagues who do seem to approve. And then there are those who don't seem to care either way.
Still, I'm glad you recognize the possibility that Daniel and I are able to keep our personal opinions separate from the mission of our company. This is something we live in our daily work as well. As a workplace I'm glad we're not a monoculture of 100% like-minded individuals.
> As a workplace I'm glad we're not a monoculture of 100% like-minded individuals.
But if you're tolerant of someone in your workplace that wants to make it a monoculture, and then succeeds in doing so, will you remain glad?
I've known Daniel for 20 years. He's one of the most empathetic individuals I know. Neither he nor I wants to make our workplace a monoculture.
I get that you disagree with his choice, as do I. But please recognize that we've built this company together over 17 years. To suggest that you know better than me that he wants to create a monoculture at our workplace is ridiculous.
I'm not sure why you're arguing this point though. It seems we both believe he made the wrong choice?
Direct quote from the leader of the party Daniel is propping up:
"They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish."
Very empathetic indeed.
I've known pretty far right people that are empathetic. That doesn't matter, given what they support, though. I think you're focusing on the wrong thing.
And given the party Daniel supports, saying he doesn't want a monoculture... it seems like you are being naive. There are lots and lots of right-wing people in the USA that over the years never said far right things... but their actions have shown a different story.
I think you need to judge Daniel on his actions, not his words or your gut.
You set the focus. I was simply responding to your comment, same as I am now.
Again, I'm not defending his choice, but no, I'm not being naive. Over the 20 years I've known him he has demonstrated his values through consistent words and actions. I'd share details but that's not my place to do. You may choose to believe me or not.
I would like to add one note: if I were an activist in Iran, or in any other way my livelihood would depend on strong privacy services, I might keep using your service and even be (slightly) more certain of the company's resolve to keep my privacy protected. Although I would be very aware of the irony. But choosing for one's own safety can override other concerns. Very few things in life are black and white.
Indeed. What I hear you saying is that you recognize there is a kind of consistency, and benefit, to Mullvad's position.
I'll admit holding the line like this, when most people don't understand the nuance, and most of those who do don't value it, is irrational from a business perspective. Then again we founded the company because of our political convictions about free speech, free press, privacy, mass surveillance and censorship.
I respect your choice to leave, and also appreciate that we're both making an effort to understand each other. I wish all disagreements were like this.
Ironically, remigration is a means to achieve a monoculture.
Not all monocultures are created equal.
The thing is, you can't be pro freedom of speech and pro privacy yet support right wing extremists. They are totally against that.
It can only means that Daniel is setting up a trap with Mullvad.
Time for a new VPN co then, right?
> the possibility that Daniel and I are able to keep our personal opinions separate from the mission of our company
This isn't about opinions. Very large political financing is not a mere opinion. It has a much larger material effect.
I don't think it's possible to separate "mission of our company" from "large scale political financing", for purely structural reasons.
I think the legal and fiduciary concept of Conflict of Interest is relevant here, but perhaps only by analogy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest is quite informative.
In some business, political and legal roles, we deem certain structural relations to be a conflict of interest regardless of what people on those roles actually do..
The mere potential for excessive improper influence arising from the structure of their relationships and roles is what creates the deemed conflict.
As the owners of a company making substantial profit like Mullvad, you always had the potential capability to financially influence political outcomes on a scale which most your customers cannot, in ways that may seriously harm some of your customers and to be potentially against the stated mission of your company.
I think the relationship between running a company with an openly advertised public mission, or even an implied mission in the minds of customers, while in another role (wealthy private citizen) being able to make a substantial material action against the same mission, should be recognised as inherently a conflict of interest. But obviously it's one we can't avoid, as long as we allow people to get rich from a mission-driven company.
What we can do, is recognise that if someone actually takes a large material action against the company's mission, then they have gone a step further and demonstrated the conflict of interest.
We generally favour free speech, including political donations. But when the money for very large political financing comes mostly from customers who, by virtue of the advertising and marketing of the company's mission, are led to believe they are supporting the company's mission?
In my view, at that point the customers are being tricked into paying for something while their money is paying for something else which opposes the thing they thought they were funding.
At the least, it should be dealt with in a similar way that conflicts of interest are dealt with when, for example, directing multiple companies: By making sure everyone knows, so other people are able to consent or not on the major conflict issues those other people might have a view on. The analogy for customers is their consent shown by their informed decision to become or remain customers.
In Mullvad's situation, that would mean Mullvad should explain to customers, embedded clearly within it's public marketing of the company missions and values, that one of its current major owners receiving customer funds by way of profit, is the main financier of a political party which sponsors remigration in Sweden. Because that is clearly a thing some customers care about when evaluating whether to pay for Mullvad's services from now on. You know that, I know that, so there's no legitimate excuse for not letting customers who would care know.
Then, as you said, customers will be free to choose.
Well argued
> Some believe this party is left-wing, others right-wing. Some approve of it, others don't.
For a company that puts political principle so fundamentally at the core of its marketing strategy, it's astonishing to see this kind of stance being taken.
The man who owns half the company seemingly choosing to funnel his share of its profits to a political party that advocates the mass deportation of people is, in that context, something with significant consequences.
I understand how awkward the position you're in must be, but it's obscene to present this as somehow being a thing that one can be morally neutral on. In the context of rising fascism across the continent, it's dismaying to see a company that a lot of us rely on so decisively pick the worst possible side.
I was acknowledging gpvos position, as well as that of others, and then stating my own position on the matter. I as an individual understand that there are people who see this party as left-wing or right-wing. That doesn't mean I agree. I as an individual don't approve of this party or its rhetoric. Others do. None of this is Mullvad's official position.
Mullvad only concerns itself with its mission. Our customers and employees represent a wide spectrum of opinions. You may not like some of them. Regardless, Mullvad's position is that privacy is a universal right, regardless of political affiliation.
> I understand how awkward the position you're in must be
Yes. Thank you.
> Mullvad's position is that privacy is a universal right
this is kind of a confusing statement considering the source. if you hold that privacy is a universal right, but you profit from gating access to it (along with someone who appears to have directed this profit to an appalling political project), are you saying that this right should only be afforded to those who pay for it? or are you just cloaking your business model in a moral shroud?
> are you saying that this right should only be afforded to those who pay for it
Not at all. When we say we believe privacy is a universal right, we're saying that e.g. states and corporations that actively violate your privacy are in the wrong. We're not saying that Mullvad, you or anyone else are obligated to work for free in order to provide privacy as a service.
Does that make sense?
I think you know that this service is impossible to provide for free, and that the quality to cost ratio of Mullvad's service is highly competitive.
Who sees the party as left wing? Its seems like a disingenuous argument to make.
Hi,
Mullvad has two owners, founders, and CEOs - Daniel Berntsson, and me, Fredrik Strömberg. All posts I've seen yesterday and today, including the newspaper articles, talk about Mullvad as if Daniel is the single owner, founder and CEO. It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns you're welcome to comment on this thread, or email our customer support.
See below for the response you'll get from support:
-----
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, and I respect what the company has been doing and the pro-privacy political stance it openly and publicly stands for.
I agree that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission, and shouldn't be.
But what I do care about, strongly, is that Mullvad as a company doesn't bow to pressure from pro-immigration activists who are attempting to impose social and financial consequences on people and institutions like Mullvad that tolerate anti-immigration political speech. Which is of course why people are publicizing this donation and publicly stating that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because of it.
I want to state publicly that what would make me no longer do business with Mullvad is if Mullvad, organizationally, attempted to pressure Daniel Berntsson into not donating to anti-immigration political parties because it induces pro-immigration activists to attempt to boycott the company. I don't want to live in a world where people trying to run a pro-privacy VPN feel pressure to police anti-immigration speech unrelated to the core mission among people in their organization, and that's the principle that my customer dollars are riding on.
> I'm a long-time Mullvad customer, and I respect what the company has been doing and the pro-privacy political stance it openly and publicly stands for.
Thank you.
The speech people are objecting to isn't anti-immgiration. It is pro crimes against humanity against people who previously immigrated, and their descendants.
A stance that Sweden should reduce the amount of immigration they accept would be utterly unremarkable and never result in outrage like this.
> A stance that Sweden should reduce the amount of immigration they accept would be utterly unremarkable and never result in outrage like this.
I don't believe this claim, because immigration is a live political issue in my country (the United States) just as it is in Sweden; and people absolutely claim that reducing the amount of immigration the US accepts is immoral and genocidal. Seriously, claims of this nature are a huge amount of contemporary American politics and this is obvious to anyone who has seen the name "Donald Trump" in a news publication talking about the US in the past decade. Also I've read Bryan Caplan's argument that not having open borders is morally equivalent to Jim Crow, and read plenty of other people who think similarly to him.
> people absolutely claim that reducing the amount of immigration the US accepts is immoral and genocidal
I'm in the US too. Can you provide some sources?
> Which is of course why people are publicizing this donation and publicly stating that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because of it.
But you're doing the same thing, making the same threat. You've only escalated it from a conscientious protest to a Mexican stand off.
I'm not icked-out by immigration discussion, but I am concerned by business owners starting down a political path. VPNs are not a very glamorous segment of the industry, and Mullvad had carved out a niche in taking a neutral side and fostering trust through a transparent product. My former boss spoke well of them and visited their sites in-person after hearing the marketing line about their RAM-only VPNs. Their appeal was not in protecting politicized speech, but protecting all speech and defending it as an apolitical technological imperative.
Now more than ever, it's hard for me to believe their brand identity. You're allowed to have political opinions, voice them and vote for them when you're a CEO. But spending your paycheck on inordinate political investments is how you ask for a boycott. It's how I would feel about any political investment that their CEOs make, and its already tarnished the Mullvad brand for me.
> But you're doing the same thing, making the same threat. You've only escalated it from a conscientious protest to a Texas stand off.
Yup, because I want the people attempting the conscientious protest to have less power to influence businesses and the people businesses employ. An apolitical firm is less likely to bow to pressure from one group of activists if they know that another, opposing group of activists is paying attention to how they respond to pressure from the first group of activists. Really, this has nothing at all to do with Mullvad specifically, except it does happen that I am a long-time customer of theirs.
> Now more than ever, it's hard for me to believe their brand identity. You're allowed to have political opinions, voice them and vote for them when you're a CEO. But spending customer money on political campaigns is how you ask for a boycott. It's how I would feel about any political investment that their CEOs make, and its already tarnished the Mullvad brand for me.
I don't see a meaningful difference between voicing political opinions and voting based on them, and making private donations to a political cause. Any money at all that an owner of a company spends on anything, down to their groceries, comes from their ownership of the company; just as any money at all that an employee of a company spends on anything comes from their salary.
But also lots of CEOs of companies make all kinds of political donations, many of which I think are bad. The reason this particular donation is making the news is because it's to an anti-immigration party rather than a pro-immigration party or NGO or some other cause; and a lot of people want to exert social pressure to make that specific political stance dangerous. Those are exactly the people I want to lose.
> I don't see a meaningful difference between voicing political opinions and voting based on them, and making private donations to a political cause.
One of them is enabled by customer trust and investment, the other isn't? People wouldn't want to cut off their money if it wasn't going towards political parties. It's the connection between the business and the private donations that is causing the outrage, Mullvad's brand can't really escape that sort of conflation once their CEOs spend their paycheck on those donations. Same goes for the rest of Big Tech, look at Oracle or Meta for example.
> The reason this particular donation is making the news is because it's to an anti-immigration party
It's because Mullvad had an apolitical reputation. Maybe it was a lie, maybe it wasn't, but by either CEO investing in a non-privacy stance they're risking the brand appeal they once had. It's unfortunate, and I don't think it has to be a winners/loser mentality like you're pushing forward. These sorts of investments are the ones that erode principled businesses and divide their customerbase. Whether or not you agree with it is inconsequential, it's the political vacillation that is concerning beyond the outrage/fringe politics angle.
Today you might support them, next year you might be wishing you never gave them the confidence. I understand why many customers, even apolitically, see this as their breaking point.
Fredrik, while acknowledging everything you said, the fact remains some of my money can end up empowering politics I find repugnant.
If it were a small amount of money, it wouldn’t be an issue. If the politics at stake were less important, it wouldn’t be an issue.
They’re not going to stop at immigration, look at other places in the world to see the future risk.
Sorry, I was a paying and satisfied customer, and now I’m out.
I'm sorry to hear that. I'm not defending his choice, but consider reading Daniel's rationale in the Flamman article. There's also his blog [1], which explains some of his views. I know he doesn't share all of Örebropartiets views, but I should let him provide that nuance.
As I said in another comment, speaking for myself, I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues.
[1]: https://dberntsson.info
> As I said in another comment, speaking for myself, I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues.
Maybe there's a case to distance Mullvad from him, then. Not taking a stand is also a political choice.
Consider GWB's "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." For and against are not always the only options. Sometimes there are nuances, or other concerns.
Daniel made this decision as a private individual. Some of his colleagues (including me) dislike it as private individuals.
I recognize that the amount as well as his position of power within the company (co-founder, co-owner, co-CEO) make people who disapprove more uncomfortable than if it had been a much lower amount from a regular employee.
However, as others have argued, what would happen if Mullvad started weighing in on politics unrelated to its mission?
Better to see Mullvad almost like a force of nature: Mullvad believes privacy is a universal right. You might disagree but at least it's consistent, and I'd argue that's one path to trustworthiness - you know how we're likely to treat you as a customer. (equally, regardless of your political affiliation)
Obviously everyone is free to make their own choice on whether they like this stance or not.
Thank you for taking this stance. It is the mature, intellectual, and virtuous one, and with it you are on civilization’s side.
The US is currently in a very bad place politically. It’s visible not just in politicians, but in everybody’s minds, all the time. A person who believes they’re fighting for their life obsesses over “us vs them”, and forgets their every principle and even most reasoning, until the fight is over. When we spit on your principles, please know that they are our principles, too, we just are not currently well enough to remember it.
You can say Mullvad is apolitical all you want but the problem is money paid to Mullvad is eventually ending up in the hands of Örebropartiet by way of Daniel directing his compensation into his donations.
I know what you’re saying sounds perfectly rational to you and I do applaud you for holding the moral position separating someone’s private life from their contribution to the company. But, think about the number of people who were let go for far less controversial actions. At some point an officer of the company doing things in their personal life becomes a distraction to the company’s goals. My question is, would you act differently if this person were not a co-founder?
If Mullvad fired an ordinary employee for donating to an anti-immigration party or pressured them into not donating, I would absolutely find a new VPN provider that doesn't do this over it.
As would I. That doesn't seem like a nice workplace. I'm pretty sure it's illegal too, at least in Sweden.
> would you act differently if this person were not a co-founder?
I have several colleagues who I'm fairly certain are anarcho-syndicalists, meaning they want to abolish the state and capitalism. I don't know about my colleagues, but in general anarcho-syndicalists seek to bring about their vision through organising trade unions, and use that to seize control of the means of production and distribution. I on the other hand am clearly a capitalist pig seeking to oppress my workforce. Why else would I invite them to join me on the barricades against mass surveillance and censorship? Shared values around privacy? :P
I have no business questioning which demonstrations my colleagues participate in, or what they write on their blog. As long as they are not actively malicious against me, our workplace, or their fellow coworkers.
It's getting late, maybe I'm missing something in my description. I guess that's a rough approximation of how I feel about tolerating differences of opinion.
Of course the distinction itself is important in its own way, but I think/hope everyone here fully realizes and accepts that he technically donated as a private individual. You can clearly see it from the headline - it does not say "Mullvad VPN AB is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party", after all. For those who have an issue supporting Mullvad after this, that is unlikely to be the point of contention. The issue seems to be simply in this case, some people clearly find the private individual's actions objectionable enough to not want to support a product that individual is deeply associated with, profits from (and then funnels those profits into said actions), etc. Fixating on this being done as a private individual just comes off like a bit of a deflection attempt from a pretty straightforward case of individual actions having consequences.
> I think/hope everyone here fully realizes and accepts that he technically donated as a private individual
In this forum, yes. Unfortunately there are lots of people who don't care to inform themselves in the least. During the weekend my impression was that most people assumed Mullvad only had one founder, owner and CEO. Some people were implying that Mullvad's workforce supported this, which of course is ridiculous. I don't want to be associated with this donation. Then there are the people who think he donated 5 million USD or EUR. Sigh.
It would be nice if people didn't resort to make things up, and instead expressed their disapprovement based on fact. That's what I'm doing. As are several of my colleagues.
> The issue seems to be simply in this case, some people clearly find the private individual's actions objectionable enough to not want to support a product that individual is deeply associated with
Yes, that is clear.
> Fixating on this being done as a private individual just comes off like a bit of a deflection attempt from a pretty straightforward case of individual actions having consequences.
Ah, thanks. That was not my intent. For sure an individual's actions has consequences, especially when you're in a position of power. In this case people are holding Daniel accountable by switching providers. They are acting according to their beliefs. That's fine.
Meanwhile I am also trying to clarify Mullvad's position on the matter. Many people understand it and still disagree. That's also fine.
> Mullvad believes privacy is a universal right. You might disagree but at least it's consistent ...
Is privacy inconsistent with right to dignity, liberty, and equality?
There is a difference between "if you're not with us you're a terrorist" and "if you're with Al Qaeda you're a terrorist" and the situation here is of the latter type.
Örebropartiet is not Al Qaeda nor a terrorist organisation. They can have a controversial position, but I'm not sure it is worse than the position of the republican party in the US which has many supporters amongst CEO of big tech companies.
> Maybe there's a case to distance Mullvad from him, then. Not taking a stand is also a political choice.
They are making a stand. This stance that they've taken has made me decide that I'm switching from another VPN provider TO Mullvad. Not many people have the backbone to actually stand behind freedom of speech when it may cost them something. It's very admirable.
Depending on what your current VPN provider is, this might be a good idea anyway.
Purchasing political power has zero relation to freedom of speech.
> I'm not defending his choice, but consider reading Daniel's rationale
This is literally defending his choice. More than that it is providing direct support to the views you are apparently trying to distance yourself from by suggesting people read literature in favour of them - not in a context where they even see opposing arguments.
But as a fun aside to the people debating that his views aren't right wing... consider this quote from the aforementioned blog (translation made via firefox's swedish to english model)
> A building permit officer at a municipal city building office is primarily dedicated to preventing, making it difficult, costly, delayed and uneasy construction. He causes great damage and thus produces negative value, but still also receives his salary from the tax of others and is thus supported by others.
Can we get more right wing than claiming that imposing standards on industry so they don't go around building death traps that kill people to save a few bucks "causes great damage and thus produces negative value". Not even as an argument that this particular office is overly restrictive, but just as a statement about building permit officers in general.
Back in my day, the right wing was "conservative" and used to be the ones making the permitting processes to slow down "progress".
How did we get to the point where suggesting that you hear out what someone has to say for themselves get equated to "literally defending his choice"?
I'm very far left myself, but I hate this tendency to equate any intellectual engagement with the right wing thought whatsoever with support. It's almost as if rightist politics were some kind of cooties that you catch simply by being in the same room or something.
Gesturing at literature as a defense without engaging in the literature is, and always has been, an endorsement of the ideas in the literature and not "intellectual engagement".
If the other founder went "here's his blog post where he discusses <these ideas> that potentially justify the support for this party without just being support for right right hate and other political positions" that would be intellectual engagement. That's not what occurred here. What occurred here was a vague gesture in the direction of far right writing as if that somehow justifies the concept.
That's a great backlink to his blog.
Oh no how dare they /s
As a customer I can no longer support you.
But as someone that has been in a similar situation to you, I understand it's tough to end up building something big with someone who's politics you do not agree with. I would seriously urge you to consider building something new that rejects this kind of politics explicitly.
Hi Fredrik
I’m a long time Mullvad customer, likely paid Mullvad upward of 400€ in the past number of years, as well as recommended it to friends and family members.
What you seem to be missing in your comment, is that some of that money I paid, found its way to support an organisation that has extreme racist views.
I’ve reached out to support and requested a refund of my outstanding credit.
I’ll be moving on.
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
Hi. I get what you mean. I made that post with limited time. Sorry to hear you're leaving.
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.
Where will you move to?
Are there any alternatives left?
For me, Proton isn't one.. not sure what else there is.
Wait till you find out where your taxes end up fellow redditor
Yeah, what's your point? Plenty of us are actively opposing the evil things our tax dollars fund all the time. If we could safely opt out of paying taxes for those things, we would.
But Mullvad isn't the government. I can get a VPN from somewhere else. I can opt out of funding something that I consider morally abhorrent.
> is that some of that money I paid, found its way to support an organisation that has extreme racist views.
Geez, I hope you do not pay give any money to Google, Microsoft and such. They 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.
And, I have to wonder, do you vet your local bakery as well on how they use their money?
> Geez, I hope you do not pay give any money to Google, Microsoft and such.
Yes? I have been divesting from big tech. Not only do I feel good about it but the side effects have been positive too.
So have I and I'm using lots of OSS by people and groups that I'm politically, ethically, morally and whatever else-ly incompatible with and yet they build great stuff for free without restricting me and my use of it. If my revenue allows for it I'll gladly donate to all of them for their work (that is also running my side gig and homelab) without looking into their spending OT donation habits.
I'll happily keep on listening to radical left punk, RAC/rock against Communism as well as anti fascist and NS Black Metal as long as the music moves me.
I can't go around judging all day. Wherever I spend money, I'll probably disagree with 99% of what the people at the receiving end will do with it.
Yes, I check whether my local bakery is run by people with hateful politics.
In fact, the politics of my local bakery are among the easiest to be aware of! These people are telling on themselves.
Hmm... where have I heard this before?
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.
You don't think there's a difference between a founder and a random employee?
Also, the concentration of service cost to political affiliation is much higher here.
Their CEOs and the tech megacorps have been openly supporting Trump and financing both him personally and his political projects. There is no ambiguity in that at all.
> [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).
An employee is different from a cofounder.
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.
> do it where it is possible.
So lets only boycott small and inconsequential companies like Mullvad that are easily replaceable. However not companies like Apple, Intel or Nvidia etc. whose CEOs have expressed their personal admiration of Trump and supported him financially because it would not be very convenient?
To be fair that seems to be reasonably rational i.e. anthropomorphising lawnmowers is a fool’s errand while its feasible to actually make a difference in cases like this
You're missing the fact that Daniel is almost singlehandedly funding the Örebro Party.
Thank you for everything you do Fredrik. Very happy to be a customer of a company that supports freedom and privacy for everyone regardless of views.
> that supports freedom ... for everyone
Unless you happen to be of Somalian descent in Sweden. Then you should be ripped away from the only home you've ever known, indeed possibly the only country you've ever been in, and sent to a foreign country you have no citizenship in, where you have no home, don't understand the language, know no one, and be forced to try and survive.
That's great and all but can I have a refund for the portion of my mullvad subscription that went to supporting organizations who think that people like me don't deserve to live?
Can you point to the charter where the Örebro party ever said that you don't deserve to live?
The embellishments of what people actually believe is extremely exhausting.
FWIW, I'm an immigrant in Sweden and if they gained power I would be affected, but we talk about people with differing views to us as if they're actively violent in order to shut down conversation.
This catasphrophising language will eventually not help your cause, because ordinary people start to feel numb to it and the hard-right will not be defeated by it.
Its not that they start to feel numb, they didn't care in the first place. I have had random co-workers start talking about how they don't want foreigners in Finland and that in Sweden immigrants (maybe you) get free money and don't work.
Talking about how entire races of people deserve to be deported is active violence
So “don’t deserve to live” is down to “violence”.
Q: When people seek asylum, is the expectation that they should return when its safe?
Or is taking in 10% of population mean that you have a permanent minority population that is part of a permanent underclass similar to how black people have it in the US?
Genuinely asking.
Does that line of thinking hold when this party has also said they also want to deport people born in Sweden?
>"They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish."
Nope, sorry, talking is never violence.
Ah yes, so if say Hitler says "millions of people should die" then it's not violence, it's "just" words.
Fredrik, your co-founder has erased all good-will your company ever had. Sucks to be you.
Hello Fredrik! As a heavy user of Mullvad in the past, easily spending hundreds of euros over the years, I was reserving my judgement to see what the official statement on this would be. Thank you, now I have my answer.
> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission.
It should be obvious that what people are concerned is their money being used to support these political causes, whether it was done in a way that keeps the company out of it or not is besides the point. Daniel, of course, is free to choose what to do with his money. I am, too, and based on this I will be making a choice to not spend any more money on Mullvad subscriptions. Nothing personal, and it's a shame because I have nothing but praise for the technical side of it. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Of course. Sorry to hear you're leaving. Thank you for the compliment.
It should be obvious that he's perfectly fine with your decision because he wrote exactly that in the post you just replied to.
Thank you for supporting the civil liberties and individual freedom of expression!
Thank you. :)
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.
> Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment is also liberating and promotes truth seeking.
Maybe you should tell that to your cofounder? His actions certainly don't reflect this. Promoting ethnic cleansing is the opposite of this.
> Promoting ethnic cleansing
Do you have a source for this? I haven't seen this mentioned elsewhere.
The party he's donating money to (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party) is an advocate of "remigration" that is a policy of forced deportation including of citizens on the basis of ethnicity. They're also it should be added self-declared Marxists, so in this case that's not a hyperbolic usage of the term, it's literally a kind of national socialist party.
Personally I'm not going to not continue to pay for Mullvad any longer. I've never been super squeamish when it comes to disagreements about policy but when you're unironically starting to sound like the NSDAP I'm out.
Just to bring some of the quotes from that wikipedia article to this thread
> In 2026 ÖP party leader Markus Allard sparked controversy on several occasions. In a debate hosted by Studio3 with Liberal member of parliament Martin Melin, Allard asked: "why won't the Liberals push for deporting 100 000 social welfare-Somalis?" and in the same debate said that "Sweden belongs to the Swedes. We have to make sure that we take care of our own damn people and we must deport these damn parasites who sit and live at our expense." [57]
> In a podcast segment about immigration and deportations Allard stated his opinion and said that "They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish."
And where's your moral indignation for mass immigration policies that nobody voted for, over decades, that has led to the previous ethnic population going from 97% to 36% in 6 decades? (London, source: Census Data 1961 - 2021).
(Don't think we don't notice you using a phrase that has a meaning that includes genocide, btw, to really whip people up)
>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.
> 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.
What a dismissive way to treat your customer. Basically the equivalent of someone on the American right saying “if you don’t like it you can get the hell out”, which tracks given Mullvad’s party of choice.
Edit: Downvote me all you want but it doesn’t change the fact that ethnic cleansing is wrong and by definition counter to free speech and human rights in general.
It’s called voting with your wallet. People in America do this, and are told to do this, all the time.
What would you like them to do? Roll over on the co-CEO and throw him under the bus, signaling to everyone that there is a “correct” point of view to have that Mullvad as a company is going to push and promote?
Individuals should be allowed to think and do what they want as an individual, as long as it isn’t compromising the company. The fact that they have 2 CEOs with differing political views seems like a healthy thing.
Freedom of speech is a political view that shouldn’t be tied to any one party.
Isn't that how all businesses operate? If customers don't like it then they can find an alternative vendor.
Yeah I just expected better of Mullvad as a long standing customer. They seemed pretty politically neutral which I prefer.
One could argue that 'politically neutral' could also be a policy they apply to their employees at all levels; i.e. if everyone gets along at the office and does their job, that's really all that matters.
If anything, respecting an employee's personal life privacy seems fairly in-line with the values one would want in a privacy-focused VPN company.
"We have worked extremely hard to ensure that your internet browsing cannot be retrieved by the police, even with a warrant, and that you can be anonymous online" is not at all "politically neutral"
Like, I agree with and support their politics, but that doesn't make something politically neutral.
> This is what allows us to advance our common causes. Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment is also liberating and promotes truth seeking.
Nope, that is what will get you taken over by the assholes. Reasonable defense is necessary in reality. There ARE bad actors, they must be kept out.
Everyone has their own definition of a bad actor. The fact that you're implying to know how to spot them says a lot about your tolerance for differences in opinion.
Fascism is not an opinion, a thing we can simply disagree with and move on. It’s a crime.
How do you call a friend of a fascist?
What you said makes sense, but what the founders do matters. I'll never buy a Tesla car because of Elon's actions. I cancelled my Amazon Prime subscription because of Bezos' actions.
There are plenty of people for whom it doesn't matter, but for some it does.
Indeed. It matters to me. In fact, most of my political opinions have atrophied, or rather I have self-censored. Daniel believes that is not the right trade-off to make in this case. I understand his point of view, and disagree.
And to be sure, I agree Daniel is entitled to his opinions and the right to do with his money as he pleases. Of course there may be business consequences for doing so in terms of how the user base reacts.
I think the bigger problem -- and I don't know the rules for political donations in Sweden -- is that any individual is able to pour millions into a political party of any persuasion. In the US this situation is made much worse since a Supreme Court ruling known as Citizens United which opened the floodgates for the ultra-wealthy to bankroll politicians. But that's another discussion altogether.
> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission
Why should this be obvious? I don't think that's obvious at all. The owner of a company could very easily decide to one day use their company to further their political beliefs/ideologies (see: Twitter, FaceBook, etc..). Why would Mullvad be any different?
I'm sorry to hear you'll be leaving us.
To answer your question, we started building this organization in the summer of 2008 for idealistic reasons, and we are still idealists who think privacy is fundamental to a civilized society.
The best strategy for achieving societal impact through entrepreneurship is consistent, long-term, and value-based ownership. For us, this disqualifies taking outside investment, either through venture capital or going public. Mullvad has instead been growing organically without outside investments.
Our principles have withstood the test of time. Our conviction has remained unchanged through multiple serious offers of acquisition and outside investment. Words are cheap of course, but consistent action over the course of almost two decades is not.
Mullvad is about privacy. Neither Daniel nor I have used Mullvad's brand to promote our personal opinions.
It's stupid when one of the CEOs of a private VPN company decides to fund political actors. That's just PR issue bound to happen. Funding bad actors bites you every single time - so maybe have a chat about if you have seen this coming - and if not why were you blind to this?
On top of this don't change your service based on this outrage. If you change it, then you will prove that Mullvad is malleable by political pressure. You can guess what happens next...
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.
It’s time to create nullvad, Fredrik.
> We also live these values by being tolerant in our daily work.
> The more people do this, the better a place the world will be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
The more people tolerate the far right, the worse the world will be because they will take your good faith and use it to extinguish tolerance for anyone but themselves. This is literally textbook. I don't know how you can invoke the word tolerance without understanding this.
A lot of the far right is using anger about too much tolerance of intolerant religions brought into a country via immigration
Oh what a complex web this business of tolerance is...
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.
Fredrik, can we expect you to start a new company with the same values without the bullshit?
Thank you for the thoughtful response, you gained another customer. Whatever you do, do not apologize or backpedal to obvious sensationalist smear merchants or silicon valley fanatics.
Hi Fredrik, long time user of your service.
I have to say, this is a disappointing message. The thing about intolerant movements is that tolerance doesn't fix them, it makes them worse and lets them accumulate power until they can destroy the tolerant.
I'd recommend reading Karl Popper and his Paradox of Tolerance, which he formulated after seeing this exact thing play out in his native Austria with the rise of the Nazis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission.
No, in fact, the opposite of this is obvious.
How do you figure?
Money that leaves your wallet and goes to Mullvad ends up funding politicians that believe non-whites shouldn’t have speech at all, as a personal choice by a top executive of the company.
The company’s values aren’t reflected accurately if you believe your money is funding free speech regardless of race.
Why does it say your comment was made 2 days ago, when the thread has only been up for 6 hours?
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48721551 and let us know if you have any questions.
(aftbit already mentioned this link downthread but perhaps it's helpful to say this explicitly.)
Edit: actually I should probably pin that to the top. Done now. Sorry for the confusion!
It's a HN thing, not down to the commenter. Sometimes threads are reactivated if the mods think a low profile discussion is worth a second chance or boost. The submission time doesn't always reflect the original submission. Sometimes it's due to a comment move or thread merge.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48721560
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48721551
PR companies have found that getting ahead of controversies is useful, so they invented time travel.
So you're a political company, but you don't want people to examine the politics of the people running the company? That seems naive.
>> Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment ...
Karl Popper said, "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."
>> the same way that someone's opinions on animal rights, taxes or public healthcare ...
We're not talking about reasonable people disagreeing about tax policy, we're talking about free expression, the entire purpose of Mullvad.
When you make a large donation to a political party whose most fundamental policy is restricting the free expression of people, that is wholly incompatible with everything Mullvad says they stand for.
When a founder and executive with influence over Mullvad policy and operations is exposed actively and financially support restricting free expression of people, it's not "tolerant" to pretend that's somehow compatible with the mission and brand of the company.
> restricting the free expression of people
I don’t support remigration, but calling immigration “the free expression of people” is a stretch. It’s orthogonal.
You can argue that remigration isn’t protecting the privacy of those who are surveilled by the government or deported to repressive countries that surveil their population. But Mullvad’s product protects even those people (it must, because it hides the identity of who’s using it from itself).
Örebropartiet policies directly target and restrict the religious, educational, and cultural expression of people who legally reside in Sweden.
Their polices focus on the way people dress, the languages they speak in public, the institutions and schools they build, the traditions they practice.
People would be forced to self-censor their speech, their beliefs, and their behavior.
It's not a "stretch". It's the whole program.
> Their polices focus on the way people dress, the languages they speak in public, the institutions and schools they build, the traditions they practice.
Do you have sources and quotes for this? Wikipedia only says “remigration”, although another comment mentioned that the translated Swedish word implies “assimilation”. Trying to restrict what people (even immigrants) do goes against free expression: deporting those based on ethnicity is immoral for other reasons but does not.
The words "immigration" or "remigration" do not appear in the comment you are replying to. That's wholly your own construction.
It does not, but does appear on the party's English wikipedia page that they support 'remigration'. However when switching to Swedish, it seems they are pro (forceful) assmilation, rather than remigration.
I don't know enough of Swedish politics or social issues to determine which one is the more correct characterization of the party, but even that is a serious difference in policy.
> I don’t support remigration, but calling immigration “the free expression of people” is a stretch. It’s orthogonal.
Far right political parties have a marked tendency to severely restrict freedom of expression once they’re in power. They routinely call for it when they’re the underdogs, but that often changes fairly quickly once they get their way.
In some cases you can see hints of that before they came into power. In France for instance, our main far right party (Rassemblement National) supports drastic budget cuts to state-financed media, and I believe a more direct control of said media from executive power.
One would have to check whether the Swedish Örebro party is similar of course. I personally no absolutely nothing about that party. Still, it is not a stretch for me to strongly suspect that a party that calls for deportation (let’s call it what it is, okay?) is also a party that is, or at the very least will be, against freedom of expression and freedom of information.
If it is, then Mullvad’s co-founder has a serious conflict of interest, and I would have no choice but seriously lower my confidence in their VPN.
I hope their sister company, Tillitis, is mostly free of such. Though even if it too is tainted, their TKey is fully open source (schematics and all if I recall correctly), and simple enough to be independently audited. They even have an unlocked version you can burn yourself so you don’t even have to trust their provisioning process. That’s the difference with a VPN: a VPN is like a Palantir, you kinda have to trust Sauron will do right by you. The TKey is more like Nemik’s astro-navigator: the user can verify themselves they are its sole master, once they did they can trust it even if it was manufactured by the Empire itself.
I mean, I love my TKey. I don’t care if Elon Musk and Peter Thiel themselves oversaw its manufacture, now it’s mine, and there’s no way I’m letting the enemy have exclusivity over it.
This is an over-generalization: you even mention that you “have to check” the party’s policies, which seem to be far-left except for the immigration part.
I actually agree that many far-right parties seem to restrict freedom of expression when they have majority power, but so do many far-left parties. Far-right may be generally statistically worse, but again, this says nothing about Örebro specifically who aren’t typical.
Okay, let’s just focus on the "remigration" thing, then.
Sure, Örebro is not typical, and may indeed be an exception.
But.
This apparent racism remains cogent evidence that they are also against freedom of expression — even if perhaps not openly. Also, I have yet to know of one political party who sincerely advocates for both deportation and freedom of expression.
I'm always wary of people bringing up the paradox of tolerance; most of the time, it's just used as an excuse to justify censorship while claiming to be opposed to it. "When you censor me, you're being intolerant and that's wrong; when I censor you, I'm doing it in the name of tolerance, so I'm correct".
I'm not Swedish, so it's possible there's something that I am missing. But skimming the wikipedia page for the party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party#), I don't see anything that says the party is pro censorship.
No political party is going to say they're "pro censorship".
But if they promise to target specific groups of people to close their schools, regulate how they dress, ban their prayers, and suppress their art, it's all about restricting their freedom of expression.
That's the whole program.
> No political party is going to say they're "pro censorship".
There are plenty of political parties that proudly claim to oppose "hate speech".
> But if they promise to target specific groups of people to close their schools, regulate how they dress, ban their prayers, and suppress their art, it's all about restricting their freedom of expression.
I could be wrong, but it looks like their plan is to cut public funding, not to censor those things.
The "paradox of tolerance" is only a paradox to people who can't tell the difference between words and actions, anyway. There's no paradox in tolerating the words if you draw the line at action to implement those words.
>"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."
does that fight against "intolerant" also include fighting people from other culture that are systematically and religiously opposed against your current society and its tolerance and will undermine it within the next couple decades by reproducing more? nvm im aware asking for self awareness is too much.
> When you make a large donation to a political party whose most fundamental policy is restricting the free expression of people
Where can I read more about how this is the fundamental policy of the Örebro party?
So far as I can tell, the main source of this claim is the comment you are responding to, and similar.
I think the real issue is this: "The party is heavily opposed to political corruption and high politician incomes and wants to reduce the wages of politicians and senior officials." (from Wikipedia, among other sources.)
This is disingenuous.
From Wikipedia:
> Some of its key issues include lowered wages for politicians, ending the tax payer funding of various sculptures, monuments and art, large scale remigration, a stricter immigration policy, and free dental care.
I think most criticism of this party is probably around "large scale remigration" and "stricter immigration policy", which are often nice ways to word "getting rid of everyone that doesn't look like us".
But if you want to play this little game, I can play too. Personally I think the real issue people have with this platform is the free dental care. Big tooth obviously doesn't want to lose profit.
> restricting the free expression of people,
Is it? They appear to be some sort of hardcore pseudo libertarians with some nationalistic vibes. To an extent that seems to overlap with Mullvad’s declared value?
> If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."
yeah i'm sick and tired of hearing this, because it gets applied very asymmetrically.
we routinely tolerate certain kinds of intolerants and silence other, and that sucks.
case in point: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/17/hamtramck-mi...
people happily tolerate lgbt-intollerant people, afraid of being called islamophobic and/or intollerant, and but we do not tollerate at all people that have been calling that risk out for years.
so yeah, popper's writings are being grossly misused, and i'm sick and tired of seeing that come out in every discussion on these topics.
---
Also: if only mullvad is taking that kind of political stance (no-log vpn etc)... maybe you should think twice about who is actually on your side.
> Karl Popper said, "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."
It's weird he said that, given that at the time there were many examples of intolerant societies that had become increasingly tolerant. So the statement is factually incorrect, and, given how educated he was, he knew this. In other words, the statement is a lie. But very useful if you manage to put yourself in the position of being the one to define what is intolerant, and which things are so important to tolerate that they should be beyond democratic decision-making.
That said, I don't disagree that private donations can be incompatible with (or more accurately, counter-productive to) the stated mission of a company. And it's not unreasonable for journalists to report on it, on the logic it may affect consumer choices. But I'm not familiar with Örebro, and nothing in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party#Policies indicates they're against online anonymity or free expression. But maybe I missed something?
Allow me to provide some nuance.
I cannot speak for Daniel. I know there are some policies he likes and there are things he doesn’t like. Personally I am not a fan.
This morning Daniel explained his rationale to most of the company. Speaking for myself, I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues. Speaking as the co-CEO of Mullvad, we will continue to protect the universal right to privacy. People should feel safe using Mullvad regardless of their political affiliation.
Oscar: "Look it doesn’t take a genius to know that every organization thrives when it has two leaders. shakes head Go ahead, name a country that doesn’t have two presidents. A boat that sets sail without two captains. Where would Catholicism be without the popes?"
"Rules for thee, but not for me"
Classic
I don't see him saying he doesn't want people to look into that. What I see is an explanation for why he thinks the company is better for having a multitude of views and opinions on their staff, a correction of some lazy reporting in the media and stated tolerance for people who no longer want to use said company's products for perceived value incompatibility (which he also seems to disagree with though).
For whatever it's worth I use Mullvad because it lets me pay in Bitcoin is super easy to re-up and is super anonymous.
I don't really give a darn who you voted for or what your founder did. I like the product I'll keep using it.
Do you happen to drive a Tesla?
I'm pretty familiar with these right-wingers that claim to fight for "freedom of speech" they all end up fighting for "freedom of speech for the things I want to say, jail for those who oppose me." The 2024-2025 swing was pretty extreme on that front.
Political extremists are all the same, left or right, nobody should be surprised because they seek power above all else.
I had been pretty concerned about the level of advertising for Mullvad I've seen recently, that's usually a really bad sign for a VPN type company. But seeing this comment, in combination with the news article linked here, tells me everything I need to know for trust.
VPNs are all about trust. Mullvad has completely broken all trust with me.
Do you think any of the people publicly claiming that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because Daniel Berntsson donates to an anti-immigration political party, wouldn't make donating to that party an illegal, jail-able legal offense if they had the political power to do so?
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.
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.
I pay for and use Mullvad VPN. I believe they value everyone's privacy and I believe they are competent technologists.
I don't care about politics. I will continue to buy and use Mullvad VPN.
you value privacy, but you don't think privacy is a political topic? VPNs, encryption, and other privacy tools are regularly under attack or protected by legislation and policy that is actively debated and lobbied for.
I think that you do care about politics, you just don't care about this particular topic or policy. That's your prerogative of course, but don't pretend you are wholly above the fray. I suspect if a company's founder had donated millions to a party aiming to mandate backdoored encryption you would suddenly find yourself to be a very political person.
And what does that have to do with the guy leaning right? He runs a VPN. If you care about privacy, that should be sufficient to support it, his other opinions aside.
Agreed. I use mullvad because I believe they are the best off the shelf choice. If I stopped using things because of the owners opinions, then I'd live in a cave.
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.
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.
> 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
Would this change your mind?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48704714
Source
https://x.com/AllardKlipp/status/2060109271635771457
I not just agree ... I can't even fathom how one can not agree with your comment.
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.
Why is the burden always on the host nation and never the immigrants?
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.
the burden should always be on the ones who are stronger to accommodate those who are weaker.
the majority needs to welcome and support the minority.
and it's not that there is no burden on the immigrants. they still have to learn to understand the local language, culture, rule of law, etc...
we should learn from each other and take the good from each. the burden for that is on both sides.
"and it's not that there is no burden on the immigrants. they still have to learn to understand the local language, culture, rule of law, etc..."
And there is the problem. You see, in modern Sweden (and many other European countries) it's entirely possible for migrants to live for decades without learning the language, understanding the culture, or even respecting the rule of law.
The majority needs to welcome and support the minority AND the minority needs to do their best to integrate. Right now the latter part is badly failing in Sweden, which is the reason for extreme amount of gang violence and social inequality plaguing Sweden. It's not even fault of the Swedes or the migrants, it's a systemic problem. The migration and integration policy is broken.
I appreciate the candid response. It shouldn't be so hard for people to just clearly state the premises that motivate their beliefs.
>the burden should always be on the ones who are stronger to accommodate those who are weaker.
Is this a universal principle? Does this come with any limits at all? A salient example that comes up often: classrooms tend to have a small handful of extremely disruptive students that ruin the experience for everyone else. The current thinking is to not suspend/expel these kids because they are disadvantaged or whatever. But in doing so the other kids suffer greatly, not to mention the teachers.
How do you manage different dimensions of strength/advantage? It is the weakest in society (women, children) that bear a disproportionate burden of allowing large amounts of immigration from third-world countries. Why are the rights of women and children secondary to the rights of immigrants?
I think one issue with thinking this way is that who is stronger and who is weaker isn't always so easy to suss out, particularly on the margins.
To give an example from my own life/experience, I'm an American and Canadian woman, but I'm also a disabled lesbian. I feel uncomfortable when I go places (e.g. Ikea) and see Muslim families where the men are dressed in Western clothing and the women are niqabis, because it's an outward signal to me that they follow an interpretation of religion that is sexist and homophobic and are likely to be hostile to my existing.
There can be power overlap between the weakest members of the stronger community and the strongest members of the weaker community.
For the record, I don't have those feelings around all people of Middle Eastern descent or people who are visibly Muslim but not displaying an adherence to a particularly conservative interpretation of their religion (e.g. a hijabi in Western clothes or a group where some of the women are hijabis/niqabis and others aren't). I do have those feelings around white people who similarly display such conservative religious leanings (Amish, Haridem, etc.). It's purely ideological, not ethnic or racial.
The thing is, as a native, I don't have a choice to be here, whereas immigrants do. So why am I assumed to be the 'stronger' one, and why should ethnicity and religion override any other power dynamic?
Always? Never?
There are > 190 countries in the world and many of them require immigrants to meet at least the same criteria for employment and assistance as born citizens.
Why do people pretend they don't understand context? What do you get out of posting this irrelevant pedantic response?
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.
I'm not saying that people shouldn't want to integrate, I'm saying that "demanding" it is problematic. Imagine grandparents being brought over from a different country and they don't speak the language - should they be forced to attend language school? What level of language ability would be considered the minimum and does that also include reading/writing?
By all means provide encouragement and resources so that people can adapt to their new situation, but don't demand it.
I think that most people arguing for integration are fine with grandparents being left to their devices. Where they get antsy is when the next generation grows up self-segregated into their own distinct culture.
My Polish great-granddad didn’t have a home to return to following WWII and the Iron Curtain- they forced him to learn the language.
Because not everyone in the UK could even hope to bend to work with Polish as a language in 1946.
Yeah, I know. That’s why I say that no one is ever happy with where you set the limit. I think demanding A2 in language is reasonable, for example. Yes, demanding, even if it’s in a reasonably long timespan. We demand much more out of everyone born in the country, don’t we?
I think most liberals have the intuition that laws should apply equally to citizens and non-citizens, and I think that's where a lot of the discomfort comes from when we talk about immigration. A citizen who doesn't meet those demands imposed on non-citizens (e.g., language, cultural assimilation, etc.) will never be at risk of deportation, simply because they were lucky enough to be born in the country.
However, it does seem that this Swedish party is willing to "repatriate" even Swedish-born citizens, so at least they're consistent.
It doesn't say that at all, Swedish-born citizens means at least one of the parent IS already Swedish, they aren't citizen at birth if none of the parents are swedish and that's just normal almost everywhere in the world.
You wouldn't expect your child to be Pakistani if you get birth over there as 2 German individuals.
Jus soli is pretty much the norm in the Americas, so it's more of an Old World / New World thing.
compared to the rest of the world europe is absolutely not welcoming. heck, even as a native german if you move from one region in germany to another you are treated as an unwelcome outsider. less so in big cities where you are more anonymous but still. if you are lucky you can find "your tribe" and your children may be accepted if they grow up there. the only places in germany where i ever felt welcome was linux user groups, and other fringe groups which as a whole had more of an outsider status.
> heck, even as a native german if you move from one region in germany to another you are treated as an unwelcome outsider. less so in big cities where you are more anonymous but still. if you are lucky you can find "your tribe" and your children may be accepted if they grow up there.
This is standard for most of the world. Really, only some countries, all of them developed, are exceptions to this.
not my experience. sure, wherever i go i will always be an outsider. the difference is whether i am welcome or not.
even as a german i have not felt welcome anywhere in germany (i grew up im austria).
i have been around the world and lived in a number of countries. i felt more welcome in china and even in the US for example than anywhere in europe
> Just, you know, leave women alone and don’t aim fireworks at ambulances.
Where I'm from (Northern Ireland) harassing women and attacking emergency services have been part of the culture for as long as I remember. Would you suggest that people arriving should actively take part in these behaviours?
I remember a discussion I had with a English teacher from UK who immigrated to Sweden during the 1990s. They said that in UK, when a government employee would visit a house regarding dept or some other problem, they would bring a large police escort and then they and the neighbourhood would had a big brawl that generally ended with the police winning and then most of the participants would go to the pub. It was just how things worked. The guy were majorly surprised that in Sweden, the government employee could just knock on the door and talk to the person with no police and no brawl.
I would assume that if attacking emergency services is the norm in Northern Ireland, so is police escorts of emergency services. That is not the norm in Sweden, through it has become the norm for certain regions where emergency services no longer feel safe going on an emergency call. The downside is that if the police is delayed, so is the emergency service, and naturally the quality of emergency service is reduce in those locations which some people say is a form of discrimination.
That’s… a tough one. Bit of a loaded question. I would say “don’t engage in anti-social behaviour regardless of the cultural milieu”, I’m sure NI has much better traditions to partake in?
> That’s… a tough one.
But then we're getting a bit deeper into the issue. These are things that need to be considered if you want to mandate "integration" surely.
We now want people to integrate but we also recognise that there's a higher moral code which should supersede local customs. Is that correct? Then it seems like integration isn't the actual aim, but the shaping of people into a sort of ideal which is actually removed from local cultures.
We're also onto picking and choosing between the "better" and worse local traditions. But who is the arbitrator for which traditions are good and which are bad?
What if the purpose of integration is merely to bring people closer to the local average, ironing out the outlier kinks and helping them feel secure in society?
I did a bit of the integration course by choice, even though it’s not mandatory as a EU national. I found it fine, a bit boring because we grew up with most of these customs. The Flemish ‘traditions’ were all new to me, and I also realise I don’t follow them; but respect some if I’m invited to people’s houses.
I think we’ve made a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to integration. It’s neither super forced and awful nor useless.
Northern Ireland is definitely atypical. An English friend of mine moved over there a few years ago as his wife is from there and her family all live in the same area. I can't imagine him being considered as "integrated" for at least a few decades.
(My experience with Irish/Northern Irish people is that they're very friendly and welcoming, but I've only been there a couple of times).
> 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.
> 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.
What kind of things might be involved in a mandate for people to "get into the culture?"
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.
Tja.
TIL Belgians don't grope women.
Or pretend not to, at school. YMMV.
Don't we also get a dopamine release from empathy, or is it just no fun?
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).
Depends on if Atlas Shrugged is your Bible or not.
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.
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.
mullvad's mistake was to respond. it's all universally performative, the only reason it elicits reactions (1000+ comments here) when the view of a megacorp don't is because people anticipate the ability to elicit a response from a smaller company like mullvad.
rule number one: ignore any and all political controversies, don't respond in any way. deviation is nearly always punished. unless it's part of some PR campaign with a side-risk of backfire.
Mullvad did not respond, as far as I'm aware. One of the owners has chimed in with their opinion, but I have not seen any official acknowledgement from Mullvad, the business entity.
Their stance seems to be "people can do things on their own personal time":
https://mastodon.online/@mullvadnet/116822244689326681
And we can choose not to fund those things.
I try to turn it other way in my head, like if Mullvad got to know somehow political views of some of their customers and say "We don't like what you say, so we decide to end our business with you. We don't want our infra to be used to spread opinions like yours."
They could do it, some people would align with that stance, and some wouldn't. Exactly how it plays out being a customer: now we've discovered he supports a far-right party here in Sweden, I can choose to not support the CEO with my money and let others know about their political leaning to decide by themselves if they want to support him and his business aware that their money might got to far-right parties.
I don't see any issue with your flipped argument, it's the same thing, no?
I imagine that if a company really denied a customer due to disagreement on some views there would be similar flood of comments like "my views is my problem, I pay you money you must do business with me". Maybe I'm wrong though
Companies can absolutely refuse a customer and many do. Companies will often have public rules about not doing business with weapons manufacturers or tobacco producers.
They also can refuse business due to political stance. They can even give different prices to different customers.
As long as its not a protected class, by the letter of the law you’re right, but we’re not discussing law: we’re discussing human response.
If you were kicked off of a VPN provider (or, even a site) for financially supporting a non-proscribed political organisation: how would you talk about it.
There's an enormous imbalance between company and customer that you're ignoring, not to mention the difference between a private person and a company's very public personas who own said business.
If a company was sniffing around to learn my political views, that would be a bit intrusive, wouldn't it? I wouldn't expect the same level of anonymity if I were the CEO of a company like Mullvad. There's also a disparity between "I'm taking my business elsewhere, good luck without my $10 a month!" (or whatever Mullvad costs...) and "we've decided to not allow you to use this service".
How large a disparity is depends a lot on whether a company has a lock on a market. Generally, if a vendor in a crowded market decided to turn away customers who are XYZ voters (as an example) I'd be more apt to just comment on that as a business strategy than as a "how dare they, they must accept all customers!" Like, if you are one of 20 VPN providers and you think you can be successful by turning away customers.. well, OK. Good luck with that.
If it's a provider with a monopoly that's a bit different. I live in an area with only one choice of provider for electricity. So I don't think they should be allowed to refuse service to anybody who is paying their bill, even people I vehemently disagree with.
You’re not taking it far enough. What if Mullvad has someone you disagree with as a customer, and does nothing about it. Does this mean that Mullvad is supporting them? Does this mean that you have to stop supporting Mullvad? What about Mullvad’s landlord? The company that provides them their electricity? Their internet provider? Their internet provider’s internet provider? Should you boycott the entire internet because Mullvad has not been given the BGP death penalty?
What are you trying to say with this? This is absurd.
The outrage has nothing to do with Mullvad itself supporting people with certain opinions or not.
The problem I and many others have, is that if the founder takes our money and gives it to causes that I (edit: or rather we) find reprehensible, we don't want to give them our money anymore. Simple as that.
I will not try to stop you from using Mullvad by any other means than my arguments. Hopefully you understand now where we are coming from and agree. If not, just do your thing.
It's almost like there's a difference between selling services to someone and directly donating to a political party.
If the far-right parties they're supporting are similar to MAGA in the U.S., what they're doing is taking customer money and funneling it into a political effort to do just what you're describing - just in a different way. "We don't like groups X, Y, and Z, so we're going to fund a political effort to take their rights away by using government."
As I understand it, the Örebro party pushes for deporting immigrants and has a "Sweden belongs to the Swedes" policy that includes deportation for even those born in Sweden if their parents were born in, e.g., Somalia. So basically, "we don't like certain people, so we want to use customer money to force them out of our country". That really doesn't paint Mullvad as the victim, here.
When it comes to publishing anti-human, genocidal rhetoric, I hope they would say "we don't want your blood money."
Flipping that back around, I'm glad I'm not a Mullvad customer that would say "I'm okay with a portion of the money I give you being used to call for genocide."
I saw this a couple of days ago, here's the original article that broke the news, in Swedish: https://www.flamman.se/techprofil-ger-miljoner-till-orebropa...
It includes a short statement from the CEO.
Does not feel good to support such a cause. Will cancel mine and give ivpn a go. It really is a shame, I was happy with mullvad and their mission. I just wouldn't sleep well if I kept using it
To be fair, Örebropartiet can also be called an extreme left party. It’s complicated…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party
Does it matter if they are left or right?
The point is, they want to round up lawful citizens and turf them out of the country because they have the audacity to be slightly foreign, or worse born to someone foreign.
that is the issue, not how much tax/spend big/little government.
Exactly, the problem is not left/right it's the authoritarianism, which is again a huge threat to the world after being held mostly in check in Western democracies for many years.
People tend to forget about the "Last Man" part of Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man", but we are definitely in the phase of the Last Man seeking conflict and fighting against our hard-won freedoms.
Most people agree that immigration over X% amount is undesirable.
Many governments ignored people's will for many years.
Some new political parties want to fix that, is reasonable enough.
That's not at all what they want. It's comments like yours that create unnecessary controversy, based on nothing but lies.
> In a podcast segment about immigration and deportations Allard stated his opinion and said that "They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish."
Seems pretty cut and dry
Are you a trump supporter? Quoting without context!?
> create unnecessary controversy, based on nothing but lies.
given how much Sweden likes to preen it's past about being right and just, the WWII neutrality and taking all of denmarks jews over night, to then have shit like "They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden" seems pretty opposed to what sweden likes to think it's self as.
Now if my quote is lies, I will retract it, but the source is here: https://x.com/AllardKlipp/status/2060109271635771457
Wait wait, that's the clipped video people are basing this controversy on? Repatriation grants and was considered Nazi ideology 10 years ago, look what our politicians are discussing now. What Allard said during that clipped video is not far from what normal citizens are already talking about today.
>The point is, they want to round up lawful citizens and turf them out of the country
The US isn't the only country in the world. Sweden does not have birthright citizenship. Many (most?) of those to be remigrated are not Swedish citizens.
> Many (most?) of those to be remigrated are not Swedish citizens.
You say tomAtoe, I say pogrom, lets call the whole thing off
In europe, when was the last time a mass ejection of normal people, who've not committed crimes, beneficial? When did it end well for either the ejectee, or the remaining domestic population?
I don't see how, given their answers to simple questions as described in the "2026 run up to the elections" section, this party could ever be considered a leftist party.
Maybe the issue is that mapping political ideologies onto a 1-D line doesn't work if you have more than two distinct ideologies.
They are very pro education. But that's basically the only thing, all the other answers are enthusiastic right wing answers
How populist party can root for education? Educated people wouldn't go in populist direction. Of course, it the education stays unbent to their views
They are far too small to have any chance of influencing education. The simpler explanation would be that there is a strong nationalist current. Think "our people are the best, let's make them even better and throw out the others"
Because populists can say they are "For" something and just not do it. Their supporters largely won't check the results.
Same reason why US republicans say they are the party of fiscal responsibility despite being directly responsible for most of the debt of the US
> Educated people wouldn't go in populist direction.
Depends on "education".
Why wouldn't educated people be swept up by populism? They're human like the rest of us. Maybe you should stop thinking that having an education makes you a moral person, it just means you have an education.
I just assume that once people start seeing how the dots connect in some areas, they will be able to quickly see that the populists' dots are all over the place. I believe the educated populist are only the ones that try to drive move, not participate in one.
Horseshoe Theory strikes again:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
Horseshoe theory, rather than being as described,is actually caused by far right parties being more willing to label themselves as left. E.g. national socialists.
This is a bot. It has been commenting all day every day. Why has it still not been removed?
This is a bot. It has been commenting all day every day. Why has it still not been removed?
This is a bot. It has been commenting all day every day. Why has it still not been removed?
Sounds like the logical evolution of left/right-populism into 'absolutist-populism' ;)
To add to the context. The founder of the was the chairman for the youth organization of Vänsterpartiet (English name: The left party), the furthest left party in the Swedish parliament, and he recruited members primarily from the same organization when he was kicked out. The reason he got kicked out was that he was seen praising the Revolutionary Front, a far-left extremist political and militant network in Sweden.
It should be added that the area where they are active is in the local government of Örebro Municipality, a place with a total population of 160,143 people. Looking at the political leanings of parties for a small local government with the lens of national parties might not give a very clear picture. Their strategy is also directed toward local voters, not national voters, through a strategy called the 12% line.
It doesn't seem that complicated to be honest with you. That is how they self identify but none of their policies seem particularly left wing. At least not from that Wikipedia page. Extremely left wing dental care is the best I will give them.
What about more social housing, reductions in working hours, and opposition to privatisation? Sounds left wing to me.
They have been called Marxist-Lenninist by more mainstream politicians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party#2021_bus_rap...
Maybe we could meet in the middle and call them a nationalist socialist workers party.
You could, just as long as you keep it at that. The term actually does describe a valid political ideology: socialism combined with nationalism instead of the more common socialism combined with globalism, i.e. internationalist socialism ('workers of the world, unite' etc.). The association with Nazism makes it close to impossible to use the term in a 'neutral' way but in itself it just describes a nationalist movement which espouses socialist ideas.
It's impossible to use in a neutral way because all such parties are inevitably authoritarian brand of socialist, and any time you have authoritarian nationalism, crimes against humanity follow.
The point you're trying to make here is the difference between Hitler and the Strasser brothers, which is valid, but irrelevant in this context - if the latter had won, the pile of bodies they'd produce would still be immense.
Yeah, and their leader just happens to be a man disgruntled with the inefficiency and bureaucracy of democracy, mostly famous for his intense emotional political speeches, who blames most if not all of society's problems on his political opponents and/or ethnic minorities.
> Extremely left wing dental care is the best I will give them.
Free dental care is considered "extemely left wing" now? That's just bizarre tbh.
If a country would decide to use tax money to provide health care services for free to everybody that's not much different than using tax money to maintain an infrastructure network that's free to use (like roads), or free police and firefighting services - and I think none of those examples are considered particularly 'left-wing'.
I was being facetious. Unfortunately enlightened horseshoe centrists didn't want to hear.
> Free dental care is considered "extemely left wing" now? That's just bizarre tbh.
No more bizarre than the idea of free speech being ceded to the right.
Apparently even air conditioning is now a left vs right culture war issue...
They're all left-wing
Lol, so Hitler was 'left wing' because he built the Reichsautobahn, got it...
Just like Franco in Spain created the social healthcare system, but they still executed "reds" in the street.
That's typical for extremist parties, AKA Horseshoe theory. IRL Erdogan's party went so far to the right that they started actually adopting very socialist/communist policies. The party names is AKP which stands for "justice and development party" but many people are calling it "Allahs Communist Party" since in Turkish communist is written with K and they are islamists doing communist stuff.
I’m not Swedish. Does Mullvad do what it says on the tin? That’s all that matters.
The CEO’s extracurricular activities are none of my business.
He's not just the CEO, he's a co-owner... Meaning that the profits from the business acrue to him... and therefore enable this party.
So, it's a question of "am I ok paying for this service, knowing that a portion of that money will flow to this political party and how do I feel about the results of that funding?"
How do you feel about providing value to Hacker News, a plattform made by Y Combinator funding several startups, many of them destroying our society and benefiting from mass surveillance? You can do this argument with every company.
I'm not paying to use HN. I'm jaded and opposed to techno-optimism, so if anything by just expressing my honest opinions here I'm wearing away at those startups' power by challenging their most critical base of supporters.
I'm not opposed to techno-optimisim and I absolutely love hearing opposing views here!
Let's draw this to its ultimate conclusion.
Would you subscribe to an excellent VPN service, if it was run by [insert universally abhorred brutal dictator from history here]?
We can easier look at conclusion people make about banks and stock options. Will people invest money into index fonds and pension fonds if those fonds invest money into companies that produce and sell weapons to abhorred brutal dictators? What about buying stocks from telecommunication producers who operate in abhorred brutal dictatorships and who helps those dictators to control their population?
That's different. Loads of animals will be unhappy if they see others being given something they're not. We have a lottery which 3 million people (in the tiny Netherlands) are subscribed to only because you win as a street, and you won't want to miss out if your street wins right? Can't see your neighbors have more than you for no good reason!
The feelings of missing out and unfairness are deeply ingrained and stock markets give you stuff. At Mullvad, you buy something instead. If that's a life-essential product you can't otherwise get then the situations would be comparable. There's loads of VPN providers though, maybe not all as good but I would also be considering my options if I were a customer and hear this sort of thing (I'm not a customer of any VPN service). For stock markets and banks, on the other hand: whatcha gonna do, just not have a pension and work until you know roughly how much longer you'll live and that your savings will last till death? Assuming you earn enough to put money to the side in the first place, virtually all options are going to end up being partially invested in things you disagree with. A bank account is a legal requirement here (there's also agreements between the government and some banks to provide basic accounts so you can't be excluded from society like that). I find it much harder to fault people for wanting essentials; the situations are not the same
We should improve society somewhat
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-som...
holy shit a sane person
all this “cancel mullvad!” nonsense is 2020 cringe all over again
You are responsible for the consequences of your actions
A big question I suppose is what Mozilla are going to do in reaction?
As Mozilla VPN is white labelled Mulvad I think
They already ousted their own ceo over a political contribution so I'd imagine they'd do something here too, sadly
Örebropartiet is not a extremist far-right party. All their policies is extreme far-left except immigration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
Seems more complicated than that, in reading the wiki.
This sounds very much far right and not left at all to me
> Markus Allard takes inspiration from marxist ideology[32] and unites the "productive" classes of society against the "Transferiat", with the "Transferiat" being a term coined by Allard to describe the classes of society that lives off of transfers that are a net negative for society such as those who, despite having an ability to work, live off of social welfare benefits, as well as those who work "made-up services"[33] that the party deems serve no societal function, such as bureaucrats, consultants, public sector communications specialists, strategists and HR-specialists.
It's practically a copy and paste of the ideology behind "doge".
Sounds like a branch of the Technocracy movement which Musks grandfather helped found.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_N._Haldeman
"The technocracy movement proposed replacing partisan politicians and business people with scientists and engineers who had the technical expertise to manage the economy"
Whoa whoa whoa. I don't think it's at all fair trying to throw Technocracy under the bus. The guilt by association doesn't look great! But Technocracy was interesting. It had some hopes & values, and it wanted people thinking and working materially, scientifically, having a perception of the world better than just money. It had some real neat idea. Wild & absurd? Yes that too. But I don't enjoy the casual drive by shoot down!
Weird, I didn't think I was throwing technocracy under the bus. What makes you say that?
This is just a rephrasing of the lumpenproletariat, coupled with the professional-managerial class. You could also refer to the latter as a modern version of the lumpenbourgeoisie (although this term is applied rather broadly). It sounds more like pro-labor, pro-work, anti-lumpen Marxism. In no way “right-wing” unless you want to call North Korea “right-wing”, which is a very ultra-left thing to do (what orthodox Marxists call left deviationism).
By your logic USSR was far right.
No, I'm fairly sure you could not find a quote like that about the USSR.
You would be wrong. The people you described were called "тунеядцы" in USSR. With a possible exception of bureaucrats who existed as a result of centralized government but were also called "a barrier for the working class" by Lenin etc.
I also highly doubt USSR would accommodate people who move in and don't bother to integrate into the culture and speak Russian. Ask people from entire countries where Moscow did Russification, and those people didn't even move in from outside they already lived there.
> I also highly doubt USSR would accommodate people who move in and don't bother to integrate into the culture and speak Russian
USSR was schizophrenic in that regard. Early on, it had https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korenizatsiia, which was quite literally about de-russifying the local elites and promoting local languages. Then Stalin did a hard 180 on that, like he did on so many other things (e.g. re-criminalizing abortion and homosexuality, or reintroducing paid high school). I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that under Stalin, the USSR truly switched from being a left totalitarian dictatorship to right totalitarian.
The trial of Joseph Brodsky is a fascinating insight into the workings of the USSR https://www.nytimes.com/1972/10/01/archives/the-trial-of-jos...
They had strong opinions of what was deemed "socially useful" work and were not above abolishing those pursuits they deemed to be useless.
All able-bodied people were expected to work (in approved roles) and you would be provided a job if you couldn't find one but if you refused to work they would deem you a "social parasite" and prosecute you if you didn't reform your behavior.
Somehow, people seem to forget that Marxism is an ideology of workers.
>Somehow, people seem to forget that Marxism is an ideology of workers.
Not really, Marx and company were nobles, lawyers, etc. The ideology concerns provoking a civil war and taking over, workers rights is just the rhetoric to cause the revolution. The worker’s paradise never materializes because it’s not actually about that.
This is true but the ideology was packaged and sold as a movement for the working class. My observation had more to do with the modern interpretation of it as somehow being a license to not work, which appears comical when compared with how it was instituted.
Not all of the component parts of the ideology are necessarily false due to their introduction and popularization by Marx. Personally, I find his writings obtuse and his beliefs abhorrent. There is, however, merit in the idea that the state should benefit its people, a large percentage of which are the productive working class, but it shouldn't be ruled by the working class. The state is its people and their culture, it shouldn't oppose their interests or subjugate and exploit them for the advancement of ideals alien to them.
> but it shouldn't be ruled by the working class
Why not, though?
I mean, if you subscribe to democracy, the only way this would not be true is if said democracy was somehow subverted into a caste system where only some people are de facto eligible to be elected.
Whoever downvotd you is unaware that the USSR tried a seven day work week. It was not about workers.
From "An Evaluation of the Program for Reducing the Workweek in the USSR"
> There is considerable evidence that the reduction in hours of work is a basic goal and commitment of the Communist movement and the Soviet state.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP64B00346R0001002...
This is actually very far left, just not the current wealthy-urban-lgbtq far left. USSR marxists and Maoists held the same views, where the individual's main function was to work and refusal to work or low productivity required either reformation (aka often, Gulag) or hunger.
"Those how do not work, do not eat" - Mao
Interestingly, psychoanalysis in the USSR was aimed at helping the patient to go back to work, for instance.
Marxism, communism and socialism are all extreme far-left ideologies.
Being anti-immigration doesn't automatically swing the party to the right. As written on Wikipedia, "left-conservative" is probably the best label.
The Swedish far-left loves to, for instance, brand the governing party in Denmark as far-right, but they are actually also left-conservative.
It is possible (shocker) to be liberal and progressive, whilst also being pro-assimilation, pro-deportation, anti-immigration.
I find it amusing that westerners are only now discovering that left wing politicians can be not just authoritarian but socially conservative as hell.
USSR notably banned abortions for 20 years under Stalin, and homosexual intercourse for most of its existence.
> Marxism, communism and socialism are all extreme far-left ideologies.
Yes, but the behavior in that quote, cutting social services, is none of the above. Using language associated with far left movements while promoting far right policies leaves you as a far right party.
> Being anti-immigration doesn't automatically swing the party to the right
Literally nothing in the quote I quoted is about immigration (though they hit that checkbox as well and it absolutely does swing you to the right).
> cutting social services
By providing free healthcare and dental care or at least reducing out of pocket costs?
National Socialism in a nutshell.
In the U.S., before Trump was elected, immigration control and deportating illegal immigrants were things that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama ("left" politicians) campaigned on.
I guess emotions/politics are more important than facts?
A very quick search yielded this short clip of Hillary Clinton:
https://youtube.com/shorts/Zsq32nNjNoE (no endorsement of overlays/etc intended, just the first result in the search)
Wild. I spent about 3 months living in Örebro while on contract with a company based there.
Well guess I won’t be renewing my subscription this month then.
Any other verified sources?
Somewhat of a verification, here's Mullvad's response to the post on Mastodon: https://mastodon.online/@mullvadnet/116822244689326681
(Mullvad reply content copied here)
>> Mullvad is a political company fighting for free speech, free information and privacy, with two equal co-founders, co-owners and co-CEOs who fundamentally disagree on many issues. Daniel's donation to a political party is private and not part of Mullvad's mission. We protect the right to express and access views we disagree with. We welcome anyone sharing these core values, whatever their other opinions. We are happy to refund others who don't, where we can.
To be fair... I'm not sure how you could take any other position as a privacy-first VPN. By technical nature, you have to believe pretty hard in 'people's business is their own business and not mine.'
I'd rather have a founder who believes whatever, but supports others rights to disagree vehemently, than one who agrees with what I believe but is less flexible on allowing others choice.
Thanks. Also fuck.
The other founder made a comment on another HN submission.[1]
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48696800
Will you be creating a VPN?
Yes. With blackjack and hookers.
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
A right to say something is not the same as the right to say (and do) something without being called out on it.
He has the right to do what he’s doing. Other people have the right to react and say “That sucks, it’s against my values, I no longer trust you or want to do business with you.”
but if Mullvad did that to you, you would (rightly) be angry. Hence the irony.
There are some things that I won't ever defend your right of saying them, to be honest.
But does this swedish Party say any things like that?
Yes. They want to get rid of immigrants for example.
Mass deportation like that is a terrible and destructive idea but that's well short of being unspeakable.
Mass deportation is terrible and destructive, but mass immigration is all good and has 0 negative consequences
Agree. This is more of a "ST Voyager 'Nothing Human'"-case.
Okay - but that doesn't mean I'm not going to weigh up what you say when I'm choosing a business to support; especially if it's not in a professional context.
brave! but fortunately you are safe because no one is challenging his right to say it.
We need to add something to this nice rule about using services that are good from people we don't (fully) agree with.
I'm not personally inclined to be so strict about this, but there are people with objections against the Proton CEO who once agreed with Trump on twitter, or DHH (there is this one blogpost about his extreme views). Etc.
Örebropartiet is like the weirdest party in Sweden. It's named after "Örebro", a Swedish city with 125k population. The party's founder, Markus Allard, used to be far left politician before turning far right.
Their party program is all over the place. They stand for free dental care, direct democracy and deporting immigrants.
Marcus is also known for profanity and foul language in council meetings.
An oddity in Swedish politics is that if a local party manages to get 12% of the votes in a constituency they are eligible for getting a seat in parliament, and can skip the regular 4% popular vote rule.
Örebropartiet actually has a chance to get into national government next election (Fall 2026) since their local support is quite strong. Times are weird
> Markus Allard, used to be far left politician before turning far right.
Less weird than you might think, Mussolini was one of the most prominent socialists in Italy before turning fascist.
I get that this is in the news (or at least the nerd news), but really...do y'all canvass the companies you buy things from, figure out on net who the people who work for them support in politics, ask whether that's what you like, and move your business around based on that?
It seems crazy to me. Part and parcel of having a pluralistic society is that we treat each other the same in public-facing parts of life without regard for stuff like sex, political positions, etc.
You gonna refuse to accept mail from the postman who supports something you don't like? What about the ice cream shop?
I don't know the verb canvassing (I'm not a native speaker) but assuming you mean something like vetting each company I buy from: that seems impossible. One can only do so much. Seems important to do what you can, though. I could understand the viewpoint that this person's earned money is theirs to spend; I can also understand people that don't want to fund this and are happy to have heard of it (even if the damage has been done now)
The argument, if I've understood it correctly, sounds a bit like the common pattern of asking someone who tries to buy ethical products whether they're impeccable/perfect themselves. Like asking someone who is in favor of a local wind turbine whether they've ever flown or such. You can only do so much as an average individual
Aren't far-right parties opposed to government control and censorship? Ideally a provider should be politically neutral, but I'm wondering if it's preferable to have one that is opposed to government control and censorship.
> Aren't far-right parties opposed to government control and censorship?
They say they are, but their behaviour once they get into power suggests otherwise.
> Aren't far-right parties opposed to government control and censorship?
Not more consistently than other parties.
lack of nuance in human affairs - is what ends up killing these conversations & making them explosive.
The party seems to have some bizarre policies, but on migration can't really blame them considering how badly Sweden has failed to integrate humanitarian migrants. There is so much gang violence, so many people of migrant background marginalized and living on welfare without any hope of a better future.
I will gladly continue buying from Mullvad. There is nothing wrong with forced deportations. Without them anyone can come, claim asylum, and stay indefinitely if their country of origin doesn't want them back. That is simply idiotic waste of tax payer's money, and in case of criminals, also a hazard to public safety. Pretty much every Western European country does forced deportations, especially those of criminals.
previously discussed[flagged: 251 comments]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48687508
Thanks, we'll merge that thread hither.
Including a statement from the other founder.
This one's gone too.
Why doesn’t Apple just make a built in iOS native vpn that can be toggled (effectively) from the swipe down menu control and is paid monthly or part of iCloud
I doubt they’ll go beyond the currently bundled Safari iCloud Private Relay, which I quite appreciate actually.
And which they disable in any country with significant internet censorship, where having a VPN actually matters.
I believe their motivation leans towards tackling advertising based exploitation.
Any suggestions for a VPN service with similar security standards as Mullvad?
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.
> for people who are marginalized. Therefore, they are either far-right or far-left.
There are many types of marginalised groups, and many other reasons to want to use VPNs. Putting everything on a left-right political axis seems more than a tad reductive.
Sure but far left and far right is a crude default way to generalize, the left folks will be especially annoyed by this but its still useful when the specifics don't matter.
Fredrik,
I just wanted you to know that while I dont support Daniels views, I believe you guys at Mullvad are doing the right thing.
I despise cancel culture, but I understand people want to "vote with their wallet" . I will be staying a Mullvad customer.
Companies funding far-left parties seem to be much bigger problem.
Which companies fund Deutsche Wohnen Enteignen? Let me know so I can boycott them
Steven Schuurman (Elastic) has given millions to left parties in Germany and The Netherlands.
Which ones? What are their policies?
Dutch person living in Germany. I'm not aware of a party in NL/DE labeled left whose values don't boil down to that everyone (and future generations) should have a chance to live a good life. I, too, would be curious what GP considers problematic about funding them the way that I find it objectionable to fund this party who calls refugees parasites
Go Mullvad!
The wikipedia article about the party is pretty interesting [1]. "The party has also been described as both right-wing populist and left-wing populist as well as left-conservative"
The party was founded after the founder was thrown out of the Left party for liking a far-left extremist group on Facebook and not backing down from that. Since then the party has evolved to also include goals traditionally attributed to the right, like large scale remigration and a stricter immigration policy.
The party also seems inconsequentially small, even at the municipal and regional level. They have 0 seats at the national level
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party
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
"They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish"
For all the stuff about free dentists this sounds pretty right wing to me.
I use Mullvad because it physically prevents anyone from logging my data.
What a co-owner does with his personal money in a local Swedish municipal election has zero impact on the code protecting my traffic.
Did a quick research - calling a party that campaigns for a 30-hour work week and socialist dental care 'far-right' just because they have a strict immigration policy shows how carelessly people throw labels around these days.
Remigration is more than a strict immigration policy. And calling legal immigrants parasites is going too far.
How does it physically prevent Mullvad from logging your data?
One option is to use Obscura, so then you at least spread the trust to two parties (one of which is Mullvad). Not great, but better.
They're known to run everything in RAM, nothing gets stored. You pull the plug and everything is gone.
Of course, you have to trust the company on that.
> I use Mullvad because it physically prevents anyone from logging my data.
> They're known to run everything in RAM, nothing gets stored. You pull the plug and everything is gone.
> Of course, you have to trust the company on that.
So nothing actually physically prevents them from logging your data, and this entire series of statements from you mean nothing because it still boils down to "you have to trust the company". A statement which is true for every VPN provider.
The trust in Mullvad was put to a test two years ago when Swedish police raided their headquarters with a warrant to seize customer data. They left with absolutely nothing because the data didn't exist to be seized.
Furthermore, Mullvad doesn't even keep an email address or a credit card on file. You sign up with a random number and can pay with cash in an envelope. If a company doesn't know who you are, uses only RAM servers, open-sources their code, and successfully clears a police raid, it's no longer just a matter of blind trust
So nothing prevents them
By that logic, nothing prevents your ISP, your OS, or your hardware manufacturer from logging you either. Ultimate trust is an illusion in tech.
Correct and we know several of these parties do log you.
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.
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.
Gosh, why do I not believe you, who is blaming black and brown immigrants (from multiple countries, even, as if they were coordinating) for violence
Your own link says,
"The defenders of Sweden’s once generous immigration policy will point out that, according to a report released in February 2024, 88% of the 14,000 people deemed to be active in criminal networks are Swedish citizens, and only 8% of these are dual citizens. 11% are non-citizens, and the remaining 1% was not known. An additional 48,000 people in Sweden were deemed to be linked to criminal networks, although not actively involved."
And it links to the report.
Did you think people wouldn't read it, or what? (Assuming you are not a bot, ofc. There seem to be a lot of them flooding every platform talking about this.)
The article you linked to also says:
"In an interview with SVT in January 2025, the Swedish Police’s Erik Lindblad said that they had seen an increase in what he termed “instrumental violence” where it is not people that are targeted but instead “fixed objects such as staircases and businesses”.
The reasons for the bombings are, in several cases, “suspected to be motivated by extortion against businesses or people linked to businesses and their families”, according to the Swedish authorities’ crisis information website. Mr. Lindblad also noted that the attacks can often be part of wider criminal conflicts, although these cases are often an exception to the rule, in their opinion.
Serious crime and the actors within those networks are often behind the attacks, according to Mr. Lindblad. “They use violence to get their way, irrespective of if it is revenge, or a battle over a drugs market, or extortion,” he said.
Thankfully, given that the explosions normally target doors, staircases, or businesses, the explosions do not always result in injuries and rarely kill people."
In any case, I do not actually care whether they are "far-right" or "far-left" or whateverthefuck. Left vs. Right is an infamously limited, binary horse-race way to talk about politics, one that groups disparate issues together arbitrarily. If you somehow convinced me they weren't fascist (though they are), I would not suddenly change my opinion of them just because the label changed.
The thing that actually matters is that they want to forcibly expel innocent people (including sending 2nd generation immigrants who were born and raised in Sweden to a country they have never lived in and have no connections to or familiarity with) from their homes en masse because it's convenient to blame them for all the nation's problems, based on zero evidence and maximum racism. There is no way to suggest something like this that is not monstrous.
Mullvad's mealy-mouthed defense of this is pathetic. There can be no tolerance for intolerance.
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.
> similar to how Japanese people and society broadly want people that move their to assimilate
And it's super racist there too, I can assure you. My father in law is Korean but lived in Japan his whole life. There's no way to describe what he experienced except racism. People just hated him for being Korean.
I have no respect for people that concern troll about some vague cultural purity to disguise their prejudices.
A friend of mine who is a non Japanese Asian lived in Japan and when asked said there's no racism. There's mild cases but if you are careful to follow the customs and speak the language, you are generally accepted as a Japanese in daily life.
> A friend of mine who is a non Japanese Asian lived in Japan and when asked said there's no racism
Well I'm convinced.
:shrug: same back to you?
No, there's a fundamental difference between what we both wrote. There's a difference between saying "I know someone who has experienced racism" and "My friend says there's no racism in X country." One is a personal experience, the other invalidates the experiences of everyone else. They are not two sides of the same coin like you are implying. If you take the phrase "There is no racism in Japan" at face value, you are either pushing an agenda or falling for someone else's.
"We just want assimilation" is the palatable marketing term for "We would be fine arresting people at their immigration hearings if they are brown enough." Just look at the U.S.
Rewrite my comment to say "my friend experienced no racism". Not more than in his home country at least.
What you said is the same. One is according to what your relative said another is according to what my friend said.
I don't think it's crazy to expect assimilation. We are fascinated with different countries and cultures and we generally consider it's a good idea they exist and are different. Diversity is strength. But they can only be different if they have their own culture and traditions. Would everyone be so fascinated with Japan or Korea if it was not for their culture? Would they be the same without high trust society that is made possible by it?
> I don't think it's crazy to expect assimilation.
What's that mean to you? In my city, immigrants work, run businesses, pay taxes, have kids and send them to local schools, ride the bus, complain about the weather, practice their religion. I guess the only thing they don't do is complain as loudly about the government as (many of) the rest of us. What more could they be doing to assimilate?
Probably nothing. Looks good to me, they speak your language, have jobs (don't abuse welfare), pay taxes, live legally. Reading about the party it seemed that they want to kick out people far from what you described (which can be still wrong, idk, but I'm not sure it's so outrageous I would boycott a business over its owner's preference). If they campaign to kick out people who are like what you described then I would think harder.
One note: I didn't say anything about the language they speak, and what language other people speak is none of my business.
How do you know they complain about the weather, if they don't speak your language?
> Not more than in his home country at least
So in other words he did experience racism?
> I don't think it's crazy to expect assimilation
What qualifies as assimilation is completely up to the reader. To some people, it means holding a job (although I don't know of any white people that get deported for being laid off). For some, it means not committing crimes.
For many, it doesn't matter if you have a job or if you're even born here. There is no standard of assimilation you can meet if you are ethnically different enough. That is why, again, the U.S. is currently arresting people at their immigration hearings. This is what far right politicians really want, they don't give a fuck about assimilation.
> Would everyone be so fascinated with Japan or Korea if it was not for that culture and high trust society made possible by it
Buddy, come on. Most people I know are not fascinated by Japan, they are fascinated by a romanticized idea of Japan that has been filtered through Reddit posts and Anime. They cultivate a one-dimensional understanding of the country specifically so they can daydream about it. A lot of Americans that "love" Japan would lose all interest the second they were told they can't dump their trash outside.
> So in other words he did experience racism?
Not according to him.
> Most people I know are not fascinated by Japan, they are fascinated by a romanticized idea of Japan that has been filtered through Reddit posts and Anime
Somehow people I know who rave about Japan just don't watch anime that I know of. They just go there and like how everything is. The anime nerds I know don't talk about real Japan much.
If you don't have that fascination, fine. I was fascinated by tons of things there. I think most people were. And most people would say it's a horrible idea destroying that culture.
You are completely dodging the topic of assimilation. You are implying that Japan is great because it's culturally homogeneous, and the reason it's culturally homogeneous is because people assimilate, and therefore Sweden deporting teenagers is morally right because they are protecting their own culture from people that don't assimilate.
You have no specifics on how immigrants don't assimilate, and what part of the culture is worth preserving, or how you can even assimilate to a culture that is constantly developing. If I am ethnically Japanese and grow up in Japan, but I don't act like others, that is not a "lack of assimilation." That is me actively participating in a shift of the culture, and that's how everyone would see it. But if I were a different ethnicity in the same situation, I would be a problem immigrant anchor baby who is trying to destroy the culture of the country. Do you see the difference?
This idea that culture is able to be frozen in time and preserved is paradoxical. It's a cudgel used to bludgeon disadvantaged people who are perfectly functioning citizens, and even harm people who could make the country better, not worse. How do you expect immigrants to introduce new ideas to a culture if you elect politicians that will demonize and deport them if they are not sufficiently "assimilated"
> You have no specifics on how immigrants don't assimilate,
I haven't been to Sweden. I take the word of people who have been there or live there elsewhere in this thread.
But elsewhere I definitely have seen communities of immigrants which don't speak local language and treat local population as less than themselves because they are of different religion.
> If I am ethnically Japanese and grow up in Japan, but I don't act like others
Examples please.
Racism != rightism. It is even possible to be both Communist and racist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_the_Soviet_Union
Racism is one of those things that unfortunately crosses political and social boundaries. Some groups just hide it better than others by enforcing anti-racism as a group norm.
Racism definitely crosses all boundaries, but deporting people on the grounds they are not culturally aligned is what we'd call a positionally right policy. That does not mean left wing parties can't do it. It means it lies right on the political spectrum.
That's not a subjective opinion I made, that is just a textbook definition of what we consider authoritative right. Left and right mean things, and they don't mean what traditionally progressive or conservative parties happen to be doing at that time.
Left and right refers to where the Girondins and the Montagnards/Jacobins sat in the French revolutionary assembly. We’ve bastardized this into imaginary delineations of political positioning and for some reason we keep bolting on arbitrary positions as Girondin or Jacobin.
I don’t care what textbook you are looking at, I’m looking at (or maybe writing) a different one. Left and right do not actually “mean things” if you intend for “meaning” to be universally or even widely agreed upon. I suppose for you “meaning” may only be relevant if a certain group or class agrees upon the meaning, but the rest of us will continue to say and believe what we want!
You are being needlessly contradictory, in a pointlessly academic way. I can assure you nobody thinks of left or right as the French revolutionary assembly, any more than we think of "Wednesday" as the day of the Norse god Odin, or "a sandwich" as the Earl of Sandwich's gambling snack. The Etymological origin doesn't determine current meaning.
> but the rest of us will continue to say and believe what we want
Who is we? These definitions are mostly settled, and where they aren't, there are fuzzy differences, not huge gaps of disagreement. It's a shared language of understanding where people lie on a quadrant of politics. It's socially useful to have that language when posing political theory. Again, this does not mean political parties are permanently stuck to their quadrant. What do you think Republicans mean when they call themselves right wing? Nothing?
> I suppose for you “meaning” may only be relevant if a certain group or class agrees upon the meaning
What? You seem to be stuck on an idea that I am making some kind of partisan statement by saying a certain policy is left or right wing. That is not a value statement on whether it's good or bad. I don't know why you are so heated about this.
There is no shared language anymore, and I’m tired of pretending that there is. The 20th century notion of left and right, which was itself a fantasy, has been turned into a tool of propaganda. It does nothing but muddy the waters.
“Right-wing” politicians are arguing for nationalization in some cases and wielding industrial policy like they’re FDR. We may see price controls and even capital controls before long. The oil market interventions alone would make Stalin blush. Meanwhile they are jumping on regulation in other places, such as AI “safety”, and have floated hate speech bans (to combat antisemitism).
“Left-wing” pols (admittedly in the face of immense hate from their base) are coming out for free market solutions gently guided by the government and deregulation so we can build faster. Outside the US, you have bizarro world Labour policies in the UK (they seem to be aiming to absorb the Tories), China’s roaring Communist economy that’s the global hotbed of economic activity, etc.
The traditional categories still seem to hold in Latin America, for some reason. But that’s it.
What exactly does the left-right distraction provide except for an easily abused method for enforcing a (tenuous, completely malleable) group orthodoxy? These days it seems like people just use it as shorthand for “enemy”. Any heterodox position is automatically of the other wing, preventing adaptation to real-world circumstances. Some positions (like a land value tax) are somehow both left and right wing depending on who you ask. It’s infuriating.
You are taking me to say left means Democrat and right means Conservative, and acting like it's a gotcha when they criss cross. I already said all of this was possible.
> “Right-wing” politicians are arguing for nationalization in some cases and wielding industrial policy like they’re FDR
Nationalization is a policy lying on the left. State ownership of industry is the textbook left pole
> The oil market interventions alone would make Stalin blush
Price controls on markets are authoritarian left
> are coming out for free market solutions gently guided by the government and deregulation so we can build faster
Economic right, mildly libertarian
> What exactly does the left-right distraction provide except for an easily abused method for enforcing a (tenuous, completely malleable) group orthodoxy?
No, they provide categorization to resist group orthodoxy. People are going to categorize, that is human nature. Without these, the only way to categorize a policy is what the parties happen to be doing at the time. That causes a group orthodoxy. There are people describing themselves as "more left" or "more right" as a shorthand to reject group orthodoxy. There are people describing a policy as left or right, regardless of which party is doing it. You're not sparing anything by resisting policy categorization, you are making things less specific and more likely to default to broad buckets.
That doesn't mean you can't talk about the policies in specifics, it means they lie on a very flexible and descriptive map.
That isn’t at all useful. If a party adopts a few platform items that are “left” and some that are “right” (as all parties do), what good is it to point out that X party has adopted Y-wing stance on this issue? The only purpose that this could serve is to give ultras (left or right) ammunition to enforce orthodoxy to these “standard” categories. Meanwhile in the real world, as I mentioned, all parties and candidates adopt mixed platforms, and if you care at all about pragmatism and responding to real conditions, those positions should be evaluated individually on their merits rather than slapping on a left or right label.
This tendency to force everything into a black or white frame is what gives us politicians who run without platforms, on party label alone, and who then adopt unpopular or harmful positions when in office.
At some point we decided that platforms don’t matter, and if platforms exist, they must be orthodox. This is a problem!
> 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...
All white nationalist parties describe themselves in these neutral terms, of course. I've yet to find a hardline anti-immigration party that is not also virulently racist.
does it change your trust in the company?
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
It's not only about trust, but also about not wanting to give money to an entity that will pass it on to a political party you don't want to support.
Yes, not only trust but my willingness to contribute money towards his paycheck. I don't want my money to end up in far-right parties.
In some ways I would say it could even increase trust: if the guy is a privacy absolutist, ultra-libertarian, "my business is not the state's business" type, his VPN products are likely to be pretty good.
On the other hand, he might have other strong right-wing views that users don't agree with, and which might take precedence in one's set of priorities. If I like football and they like football, but they also want to kill me because of <other reason>, I don't think I'd want to give them my money.
Look at Zuck and Musk. Their platforms are still used by millions. It's only "us" that care about the pedigree of our tech founders, most people couldn't care less.
I commend your correct use of “couldn’t care less”. It’s so rare to see people get this one right these days.
really? how would/did you see others use it?
they mean it's pretty common to see the less-correct "could care less"
I’d say entirely incorrect. It means exactly the opposite. I don’t buy the “it’s popular usage now so that makes it right” argument - it’s like saying 4 now equals 5 because more people use 4 to mean 5.
There has to be some reason that so many projects are started by right wing people. Something in their personality that makes them both RW and willing to start lots of projects.
I would argue that right-wing people are now the left-wing people from like 30-40 years ago.
Don't think so. When did left wing people want remigration?
Right wing thought patterns tend toward believing in oneself; predicating the worth of the individual on their objective behavior or output; valuing individual achievements; and also believing that effort is likely to result in those achievements.
Left wing thought patterns are biased toward less agency, e.g. the individual is a product of the system; systemic discrimination holds people back; one's trauma or neurodivergency is a valid anchor that makes achievements very difficult; failing to achieve is okay and doesn't reduce one's intrinsic value.
I'm aware that left wing patterns position individuals as moulded by systems but I'm not aware of any that explicitly deny the power of the individual to try weird stuff, especially in a low-barrier-to-entry industry like software. I guess maybe the overall level of that is somewhat lower and maybe low enough that it doesn't really happen?
I think it's just that rightists value personal success more and also think it's more attainable from their own efforts, so they make these efforts more often. Or it may be inverted, that privilege/success leads to right wing beliefs.
Wanted to mention the Analogue since ModRetro was mentioned.
https://www.analogue.co/products
https://www.analogue.co/editions
I think these look a lot cooler, though they're less hackable.
guess I'll cancel my tailscale mullvad sub
The party in question seems to be an anti-immigration strongly secularist left wing party with Marxist roots. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party
I am not sure "far right" is an accurate label. Maybe populist? Its a mix that would probably get a lot of support in other European countries.
Huh, so they want free healthcare and also ethnic cleansing. That's a pretty strange combination.
It is a sensible combination to me. If you first believe that the government should provide a bunch of free stuff, but it doesn't at the moment because it's too expensive, it kind of makes sense that you would then think there need to be fewer people getting the free stuff so it remains affordable. The first people on the exclusion list would naturally be noncitizens.
You can exclude people you don't like from free healthcare without physically removing them from the country.
You could, but in practice illegals get/use a lot of public goods that cannot be reasonably gated. The "means testing costs more than just giving welfare" argument is cited. Plus things like public schools, parks, transportation don't require ID to use. Having an ID is not guaranteed, as voting advocates often point out.
Also they are anti EU and NATO. Lot of astroturfing here.
> Also they are anti EU and NATO. Lot of astroturfing here.
At the same time, that big advertising and crony politicians are fighting to impose digital ID for all internet communications... one of the strongest privacy advocates is being attacked with non-sense.
Expect EFF to be bought or attacked.
> Lot of astroturfing here.
The guidelines say "assume good faith"
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Those are left wing positions. Until 2023 the UK's Green Party's policy was to leave NATO, and there is still a lot of support in the part for that. When the UK's Labour party was socialist they were anti-EU. If you look at campaigned for what in the 1975 referendum on EEC membership its pretty clear: for example, Thatcher campaigned to remain, Tony Benn campaigned to leave. The remnants of the old left remain anti-EU even now.
They're neither wing. A foo-wing person could want to leave the EU because it's too bar-wing for any values of foo and bar.
its not uncommon. The overtly racist parties in the UK (e.g. the BNP has quite a lot of left wing policies (e.g. nationalisation of utilities), ending NHS outsourcing to the private sector, and free healthcare.
Its a combination that appeals to the worst off who compete with unskilled immigrants for jobs and rely on free healthcare etc.
As it turns out you can't have strong socialist policies and also open borders.
Damn. Well, if that gets confirmed I'm going to get my company off mullvad.
It's confirmed. And the party in question is quite extreme, at least by Swedish standards.
Mullvad does an excellent job, and I support them.
Discussed three days ago (251 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48687508
The other owner replied here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48696800
Aren’t Swedish political parties mostly publicly funded?
Parties get goverment funding based on election result, with a minimum floor of 2.5% votes in national elections. This party is way too small for that, and is primarily focused on local election.
A headline and 20 comments and no mention of what this party actually stands for. Only simple labels such as "far-right". Ehh. The Republican Party in America is EXTREMELY far right by Swedish standards. So maybe one should base this on the actual substance rather than labels?
Additional context here is that they donated 75% of *all donations* to that party last year. 3x everyone else combined.
And that party is not just "kind of right wing", they believe in large scale "remigration" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration), which, to save you clicking the link, means "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".
There is a wealth of difference between when random companies throw a few thousand at whatever the leading parties are, and this.
It's funny how remigration never involves sending white folk back to europe.
>ethnic cleansing via mass deportation
"ethnic cleansing" is an emotionally charged term that conjures genocide in the popular imagination. It is not a good descriptive term for what can rightly be described as regressive or ultra-nationalistic migration policy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing
> Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction.
Ethnic cleansing is a completely accurate description of "remigration". It invokes strong emotions because the act itself is wrong.
As economies shrink and jobs become scarce, we may reach pre-ww2 order.
Why are leftists so histrionic? If we had a thread made every time an executive espoused far left opinions we'd overload the HN servers. Why is an executive being far right even news?
Because their puppeteers know exactly what buttons to push when they need a good smear campaign. (And because lumpens despise the pro-labor left.)
archive link? the post got deleted
They might be having some capacity issues, it was 404 for me for a while but now it's back.
Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20260629105534/https://det.socia...
thanks, i got to the actual article that was linked: https://web.archive.org/web/20260628170131mp_/https://www.fl...
This "far right" slur on any party that is anti immigration makes me immediately suspect this party probably isn't far right.
It's a shame, because real racist extremists/nazis benefit from this lumping together of legitimate concern about immigration and actual Nazis.
There is a difference between being anti-immigration and pro-remigration.
Being anti-immigration in a country that is shrinking is just stupid. Being pro-remigration is far-right and evil.
> Being anti-immigration in a country that is shrinking is just stupid.
No, it's not.
What if the focus of their pro-remigration stance is families deemed impossible to integrate due to their persisting criminal activities and rejection of functional societal norms? Because that's the exact demographic this one policy of that party is concerned with.
Left/right doesn't matter much for a no-logs VPN.
Up/Down (authoritarian/libertarian) is what matters there.
If he has high allegiance to the extant power structure then promises should be questioned.
If he is for radical decentralization and antiwar then I'm more likely to trust promises made about privacy and autonomy.
Then there's international confusion about left/right. Scandinavia is known as a good place to run a business because businesses regulation is much lighter than places like the US which are heavily regulated. In the US business regulation is "left wing" in Scandinavia it's "right wing".
We'd use a 14-dimensional vector for political positioning if we wanted to be studious but most folks are just looking for a friend/enemy distinction. Even many of the comments here looking to dump a well-regarded service if either "tastes great" or "less filling" is confirmed. The false dialectic as means of control and all that jazz.
This is a bizarre thread.
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?
This is like the third duplicate I saw in a week
Such a convenient time frame with all think-of-the-children bs wave to point fingers at the one of the best VPN services our there with spotless reputation and raise a hysteria with duplicated stream of posts, isn't it?
Surely just a coincidence.
Welp, that vanishes my support for mullvad, despite I did recommend it to many of my friends who doesn’t want/can setup their own.
Im not against people having different political opinions, I personally agree with things from each side and disagree with them both too on other matters, plus having my own third option that doesn’t fit any side. But I am certainly against a company marketing itself as a “defender of personal and human rights and freedom”, yet they are sponsoring a party that obviously doesn’t hold these values, this company will report individuals in the future to deport them maybe, 5 years later they are reporting others for disagreeing with whatever agenda that party is having, it’s always a slippery slope, never think it will end at xyz and that’s it.
Goddammit it’s like companies are ALWAYS destined to turn to evil one way or another, it’s just how long it will take is the question. It’s a reminder that you should always host your own, trust nobody, none.
Well, I am a proud left-wing user and I don't care for the guy's politics. "I don't support X because of his opinion on Y" is a retarded and infantile way to approach policy and people in general. The guy is big on privacy and runs the most successful VPN; I dig.
If you know that he will spend his money in support of that party, and you still buy services from him, you are helping him promote whatever views he holds. As simple as that. There is no cop out.
And what if he is also donating to a hospital in Ethiopia?
Indeed, "There is no ethical consumption under capitalism" but some is still more ethical than others.
Sigh, people that bring politics to the forefront with everything are so miserable.
I'm still amused that so many people got brainwashed into thinking that VPNs give privacy :D
If my house isn't a fortress I should just leave my doors open :D
I'm so clever, everyone else is stupid
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
Far right? It's run by a literal marxist communist.
People change. Mossulini was a socialist in his youth.
What does he or she want to do with immigrants?
Lol. Not all communists are Marxists on immigration
What did Marx write about immigration?
[flagged]
OK, but please don't post low-substance comments on HN. Telling us you “don't care” about a topic achieves nothing other than instigating a generic tangent, which is against the guidelines. Please take a moment to read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them if you want to participate here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Disappointing if true. I can't read the original article[1], but the translation seems to agree. I've paid for Mullvad for _years_. Looks like I'll be taking my money elsewhere.
[1]: https://www.flamman.se/techprofil-ger-miljoner-till-orebropa...
Article by a news media outlet that is considered very far left (communist). Try finding the same claim or description in any national Swedish media. You won't.
I have Mullvad to avoid age check gateways, not super anonymity. I'll absolutely be taking my business elsewhere.
Because of hyperbolic headlines?
I used Mullvad before this because they passed a bunch of tests and legally denied claims to user data. I don’t have the reference but it was on HN.
So who do people recommend now?
Proton
I love how we pretend to live in a free democratic society where everyone is free to make up their own mind and vote for what they believe...
...as long as they don't have opinions that differ from ours, in that case we might punch em in the face...
And everyone is free to chose not to buy products from people who have opinions that differs fundamentally from their own?
And some opinions cannot be tolerated in a democratic society. An obvious example is anti-liberal/anti-democratic opinions as they threaten the system itself. You cannot have a free democratic society if a majority removes the freedoms of a minority.
You have freedom of speech to advocate for your politics. The rest of us have the freedom of association to not want to be involved with you in any way.
These are not contradictory - they are both essential freedoms.
> "punch em in the face"
Very weird interpretation of "voluntarily choose to not continue supporting them financially"
Presumably you want everyone to be forcibly compelled to finance the political parties they disagree with? And you would define this as a democratic society?
Punishing a company because someone does something in their free time with their own money ....
The guy owns half the company, so a significant part of the money I'm paying is involved. Yes, it is quite ethical to decide based on matters like that. It's not an employee or minor shareholder.
Not doing business with a company (for any reason btw) is not 'punishment'. Nobody is taking away anything from the company or any people involved with that company.
That's how markets work. People have the right to choose to do business, or not, based on whatever criteria they value.
For most people, the concern is the money, not the voting. People don't want wealthy people reshaping politics to fit their interests through their wealth. They can vote for whomever they want.
This sounds a bit irrational. Where does "wealthy" start? Mullvad co-CEO donated ~ $500K, would him donating $100K have the same effect? What about $10K? What if a Mullvad _employee_ donated $500K?
What about work in units of median annual household disposable income, which are at least somewhat responsive to the distribution of money?
What % do you think a reasonable voter should accept a person donating to a political campaign before it causes concern about the donor's influence vs the median household's voice?
Off the top of my head, I'd guess 500k USD is about 1000% / 10x median annual household disposable income in SE, which I think would give the median voter pause.
For what it's worth (my own view): I think about 10% (~5k USD) is obviously acceptable, and I expect most anyone would agree that donations at that level are fine. I think your proposed 1000% is obviously unacceptable, and I expect most people would agree with me on that as well.
I'm not sure exactly where the level is that opinion would flip, but I feel pretty confident about those boundaries.
A company shouldn't be able to fire an employee over their opinion,[0] so that wouldn't matter to me. For a major owner, the donation amount starts to matter to me around $5-10K, but YMMV.
[0] I suppose unless they have a very influential position and it's about a matter that contradicts main company goals
What if the employee's opinion is that the employee should murder the CEO?
Oh, come on. If you're trying to make a point, be more clear.
What's wrong with choosing who you give your money to?
Is that somehow undemocratic?
Is anyone censoring the guy?
> in that case we might punch em in the face
Nobody is calling for violence though?
In a free democratic society nobody is forced to do business with anybody they don't agree with, and free speech means they can talk about their decision without fearing repercussion.
So far in this thread you’re the only one mentioning punching anyone in the face.
The Nazis are sad that people want to punch them in the face.
https://knowyourmeme.com/sensitive/memes/richard-spencer-pun...
Surprised it took that long for a Godwin.
Haters will now say that the far right will destroy exactly that: "our" democracy. The Western morality is a joke, and many HN readers comment like an infant. I feel ashamed.
Everyone is free to make up their mind and vote for what they believe.
And if I disagree strongly enough then I am free to take my business elsewhere. Especially if the money I hand over might go to support speech and parties I fundamentally disagree with.
Freedom swings both ways, and freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from people thinking you're an asshole and not wanting anything to do with you. That's their freedom.
Seems to be intentionally defamatory
From the Wikipedia article on the Orebro party
“ Split from the left
The initiative to found the Örebro Party was taken in early 2014 by Markus Allard, who is also the first party leader. Allard had previously held positions as substitute member of the Örebro municipal council and district chairman of the Young Left in Örebro; in December 2013 he was expelled from the Left Party and its youth wing Young Left for "liking" the Revolutionary Front, a militant revolutionary socialist and anti-fascist organization, on Facebook and refusing to disavow it when questioned.[6] Allard has stated that the real reason for his expulsion was that he was perceived as a threat to the established party bureaucracy.[7][8]
While Allard has described himself as a Communist,[9] and a Marxist,[8][10] at its founding in March 2014 he defined the Örebro Party as "broad left".[9] At that time the party considered itself a "local party that wants to carry on the labour movement's ideals", and "not interested in administrating the current society".[11]”
Colours:
Red Black
This sounds like a socialist, anarchist or Ancap group that believes in borders
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.
Tried to find something from the party itself, but found nothing on their homepage other than that they plan to publish a party programme "gradually, starting some time during the summer of 2026".
https://www.orebropartiet.se/var-politik/
The claims in the social media post is pure bullshit. The party is a tiny (read: one person elected) radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists. They have gained popularity for pointing out wasteful use of Örebro's municipalities resources, and their leader's fondness of lengthy ridiculing other parties politicians in lengthy debates, that he often publish on Instagram and YouTube.
> read: one person elected
No, they have 8 people elected: 3 in the region, 5 in the municipality.
They got 4,46 % of the votes in the region, and 7,92 % in the municipality. And who knows, maybe they'll use that 5 million SEK to get more seats in this years election.
Thank you for providing context.
Are his public stances on immigration precisely stated as remigration, or does he describe a thing such as remigration without explicitly naming it as such?
About his quote from wikipedia "They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish." which links to this video tweet https://x.com/AllardKlipp/status/2060109271635771457 can you give full context/translation?
He says what is quoted when talking about criminals with immigrant roots. "Those [criminals] - they should get out, even if they were born in Sweden, because they do not have a connection to Sweden. They received a swedish passport but they have not become swedish [as belonging to swedish culture]. They are not interested [in becoming swedish] and here I'm ready to go on corpses...". Overall his stance on immigration (taken from this video) is not as extreme as one can imagine reading HN comments. It is extreme but not to the extent that he's ready to push out anyone whos granddad was not Andersson.
It is an extreme point of view, it's just that far right is booming everywhere.
> takes inspiration from marxist ideology[42] and unites the "productive" classes of society against the "Transferiat", with the "Transferiat" being a term coined by Allard to describe the classes of society that lives off transfers that are a net negative for society
lmao This is like the song Tequila by The Champs but instead of a long instrumental it’s John Galt’s speech and instead of “Tequila!” it’s “Marxism!”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=U_JFLb1IItM
It is amazing that if you say “Marxist” after any possible combination of words some people will go “oh wow that is leftism”
Utter gibberish, like a picture of Ayn Rand wearing an ironic Hugo Chavez shirt.
> The Örebro Party (Swedish: Örebropartiet, ÖP) is a political party in Sweden. The party was initially only a local party in Örebro, Sweden. Markus Allard is the party leader. According to Allard the party cannot be placed anywhere on the traditional left-right spectrum. Some of its key issues include lowered wages for politicians, ending the tax payer funding of various sculptures, monuments and art, large scale remigration, a stricter immigration policy, and free dental care.[3][4]
I see no problems
me neither ... Mullvad is fantastic.
Disgusting. You cannot trust a racist with your privacy.
"a racist", you haven't even read anything, that's straight defamation and a dumb take.
And let's play along, why can't you trust a racist with your privacy?
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.
If this is real I will stop my monthly subscriptions.
I think this is more nuanced than this article or mullvad themselves present it as. What you give to mullvad as a form of payment will end up in the pockets of the funding members which allows them to make relatively large political donations, but it's also not as deep as presented. What gets seemingly glossed over how involved large companies are in pushing parties like orebro into relevancy.
As a basic example, youtube started pushing a LOT of anti-immigrant videos. I never watched them since after few minutes it's obvious that it is clear ragebait, but I keep getting them recommended without showing any interest in them and they're all clocking in anywhere from 300k to millions of views.
There is virtually no way to resist the temptation of being anti-immigrant/racist/whatnot when you see abusive behavior exploiting the good will of the european union especially when there is state level abuse to extract additional funding from the shared support pool. This being extremely unpopular gives motivation to keep all of this under wraps as much as possible which only fuels the fire when "information" is made available on social media platforms where you benefit from blowing this out of proportion and then if you try to question it you are labeled which naturally breeds resentment.
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Scrolled for few minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6-zhxpNsVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARKZMX4iGZ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmlI4ICp-OI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX-IKLSFH_I
It is a trend now, loby your way to lawmaking. Then set the laws as you need. No surprises.
This is great news. New Mullvad subscriber here!