Hi,
Mullvad has two owners, founders, and CEOs - Daniel Berntsson, and me, Fredrik Strömberg. All posts I've seen yesterday and today, including the newspaper articles, talk about Mullvad as if Daniel is the single owner, founder and CEO. It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns you're welcome to comment on this thread, or email our customer support.
See below for the response you'll get from support:
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Mullvad is a political company. We fight for freedom of speech, freedom of information and the right to privacy. These are firmly held values of the founders of Mullvad.
Mullvad protects the right for people to express things we don't agree with. We protect the right of everyone to access views we don't agree with.
We also live these values by being tolerant in our daily work. Everyone is welcome to collaborate with Mullvad if they share these narrow core values. As employees, contractors, customers, suppliers, lobbyists, campaign partners or whatever it might be. No matter what their other opinions are and no matter whether the founders or anyone else in Mullvad dislike them. The founders themselves fundamentally disagree on several important issues.
This is what allows us to advance our common causes. Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment is also liberating and promotes truth seeking.
The more people do this, the better a place the world will be.
It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission, in the same way that someone's opinions on animal rights, taxes or public healthcare policy isn't.
That said, if you no longer want to be a Mullvad customer for philosophical reasons, we think it's important to honor that. In that case, reach out to support.
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.
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.
> here's also his blog https://dberntsson.info, which explains some of his views.
https://web.archive.org/web/20260629185105/https://dberntsso...
That's a great backlink to his blog.
Oh no how dare they /s
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
Yes, I check whether my local bakery is run by people with hateful politics.
Hmm... where have I heard this before?
In fact, the politics of my local bakery are among the easiest to be aware of! These people are telling on themselves.
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This isn't an all or nothing approach. People can exercise the options they have without being a puritanical crazy about it. This isn't a strong argument. You can protest about how society is structured while still taking part it in.
So if Kim Jong Un ran your local bakery, you'd still buy his cakes? Or what's your point? That we need to be 100% flawless or else there is no point in doing anything at all?
You’re telling me you wouldn’t go to the Kim Jong Un bakery? I bet it would be delicious.
Anyway, yes, I do judge you if you publicly and loudly declaim small to medium sized businesses that work really hard for your privacy while handing out money to megacorps who are directly involved in tightening the global surveillance net.
I'd be among the first customers. North Korean dough products look quite delicious. They don't even use GMOs.
North Korean donuts would be all hole.
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.
Wait till you find out where your taxes end up fellow redditor
Godspeed!
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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.
Fredrik, your co-founder has erased all good-will your company ever had. Sucks to be you.
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.
> 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.
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What is "promoting mixing"?
What does this mean? Be specific.
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I have no idea what you're trying to say.
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. :)
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?
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.
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.
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 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...
You may try to unsuccessfully hold this distinction, but at the end of the day money that I give to your company ends up being used by far-right politicians to oppose Mullvad's supposed mission.
> This 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.
Fredrik, can we expect you to start a new company with the same values without the bullshit?
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.
> 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.
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There is a more nuanced argument against deportation as a policy. First of all it causes migrants to destroy their documentation and to be less coöperative with the immigration process. Second, some migrant countries refuse repatriation, which is currently an unsolved problem. Finally there's something to be said for immigrants to be registered regardless of status, rather than incentivising them to avoid authorities.
Now some of these problems could be solved, but there's a legitimate argument that the policy causes more problems than it solves.
Refusing repatriation of your own people is a hostile act something a bit short of a declaration of war, in my opinion. Which is why I assume that origin countries are cooperating with deportations from the USA, but not from Europe. Because they know there can be hell to pay if they outrage the Americans.
> It's common-sense, not an OPINION to deport illegal immigrants
It's not though. More immigrants mean more people buying products, paying taxes on them, supporting local business, more people contributing to the economy in general. Another important factor is that most european populations are aging, meaning that the ratio of working people versus older people who stopped working, is reaching unsustainable levels. Without migrants, our economies will be seriously hampered.
Illegal immigrants often don't carry the same level of education as Swedes (which is unfair to Swedes), else they could just emigrate there legally, so why aren't they doing so?
I agree that immigration is important and even giving chances to people that are willing to completely assimilate, change culture and loyalty to the said country to eventually after XX years to become a citizen, but starting by saying f*ck your laws before even arriving is just blatant disrespect.
Illegal immigrants are not paying social contributions because the can't be hired legally, so they don't really contribute to the retirement issue, and very often, let's be real, they must resort to even more illegal schemes to get by because of restrictions having no-paper, it's hard to even get a SIM card, so even to get a phone, they'll need to commit a crime of some sort by stealing an ID.
I just don't understand how we can reach fairness which is extremely important with people that want to do the right thing and actually apply properly and assimilate.
Making it easier to immigrate legally (with documentation and vetting etc...) is a different thing then just turning a blind eye to people who ignore the law. It seems the debate is "enforce vs not enforce" instead of "find some solution to a necessary but overbearing legal structure"
All that can happen with _legal_ immigration, by people who respect the laws and processes of the country. If the first thing someone does as an immigrant is commit a crime, which is the case with every illegal immigrant, by definition, that's a bad start.
> It's common-sense, not an OPINION to deport illegal immigrants but apparently it's up for debate
I would assume that a company which prides itself on privacy and being immune to government overreach would not enable policies that encourage the dissolution of privacy and government overreach. But ultimately I know folks don't care about privacy as long as it targets people with certain colors of skin, ignoring that they get caught in the net as well. That's really what the arguments against in this thread boil down to.
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Let me ask you a blunt question to understand your headspace: Am I committing a crime if I cross South Korea border and stay over there without any form of consent? And more that the technicality of the crime, is it morally fine to do so?
No, crossing a border is not in and of itself a crime.
Unfortunately that is factually incorrect.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1325
https://elaw.klri.re.kr/eng_mobile/viewer.do?hseq=61640&type...
You can find similar laws for the majority of other first-world countries too.
Yeah I'm pretty sure hiding in a cargo while I cross border to Iran isn't shady at all, seems really a legit way to live life.
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.
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Their co-founder (not just an employee) is bankrolling a party that’s leader has called for the expelling of all immigrants. This fact is not in dispute.
That doesn't mean the behavior of the company is political in the same direction? Am I taking crazy pills?
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You're just playing with language. I can say:
"I'm surprised the co-founder of a freedom of speech company is contributing to a political party that wants to force religious charter schools to close."
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Can you show me a source where this party or Mullvad founder(s) are against non-white? Cite an exact statement please.
I don't think anyone gives a sh*t about skin color, but of course it's legitimate to care about cultural background and education, not wanting uneducated people with vastly different culture that doesn't align with the host country is a valid stance and it makes sense to maintain proper equilibrium in the said country.
It’s time to create nullvad, Fredrik.
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?
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
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The conclusions do not follow from the premise. Show actual examples of what you are afraid of?
Fascism isn't a generic term for "things I don't like".
It is a very specific ideology responsible for the worst atrocities in history that needs to be ruthlessly stomped out as soon as it rears its ugly head again.
This isn't about opinions or tolerance. It's about preventing crimes against humanity.
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People can just use language. Don't let clankers take it from us.
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I don't belong to any party.
I come from a country that was devastated by fascists like the ones the Mullvad founder funds and history taught us anything but opposition is collaboration.
Go ask the millions of people murdered in concentration camps how tolerating Nazi ideas worked out for them.
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> against whoever is labeled as intolerant
No. that's exactly not what is said.
it only is applicable to organisations and people who very clearly express not only some disagreement, but their intolerance and their plan and intent to enforce suppression of dissent once in power. and then suppression of whatever they are intolerant of.
and the far right very clearly announces that they will "eradicate" and "put to their (lower) place" whatever. immigrants. homosexuals. transgender humans. wom(b)en.
if you tolerate _that_, even pay for it, in times of ai boosted slander, you get queers in prisons, pregnant teenagers, and a few much richer very rich people.
> When our enemies say: well, we gave you the freedom of opinion back then - yeah, you gave it to us, that's in no way evidence that we should return the favor! Your stupidity shall not be contagious! That you granted it to us is evidence of how dumb you are!
-- Joseph Goebbels, 1935
The whole point is that fascist movements will abuse your tolerance to build themselves up to a position where they can take it away from you. The only answer is to not tolerate the intolerant.
Goebbels was an unreliable narrator who had strong incentive to promote the idea that freedom of speech makes a nation weak.
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It takes a special kind of person to use a warning about the dangers of right wing extremism to... argue in favor of right wing extremism.
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> 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.
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> Do you actually want voting to happen via wallet?
Money has a huge influence on politics, and recognizing that reality isn't the same as wanting it or encouraging it.
> An honest question: Would you like to live in a world where company/employer exerts more control over the views that are publicly expressed?
I don't really object to you asking this question, but I do object to you calling a rhetorical question "an honest question".
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This is about what customers are comfortable supporting. This guy doesn't just have what many consider to be unpalatable political beliefs, he's one of the biggest funders of what many consider to be an unpalatable political party. Lots of people don't want to give money to something which they feel will in part be funneled to an organization which is antithetical to their views. Realistically, I kind of doubt Mullvad is rolling in swimming pools filled with cash getting syphoned to neonazis, but that brings me to my next point...
For many, it's not just an intellectual position but an emotional one. This doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, but you probably won't be able to reason them out of it. It's the same reason I don't listen to Michael Jackson. He's dead and none of that streaming revenue would go to him or to raping children but...yuck.
At the end of the day, there's an irony in this guy supporting the very freedoms on the internet which are being used to disseminate criticisms against him, and perhaps inducing people to starve one of the vehicles which helps maintain those freedoms.
I can absolutely respect the emotional argument.
The "irony" in supporting that party I believe is a stretch. I don't see how support for some neo-nationalists is inherently "anti-freedom"; would that not apply to any party arguing against open borders?
My personal belief is that professional discrimination because of political support is a very slippery slope, and I honestly think that a lot of people directly or indirectly advocating for it are not fully understanding of what this means and where that slope ends:
When asking about professional boycott for "questionable" past positions (like being gay in Turings time) I only get silence in response because people presumably realize that such witch-hunting often ends up looking really bad in retrospect.
I think I wasn't as clear as I could have been in that last part. The irony I was referring to is that this guy is doing more than most people to support freedom online, and that very freedom he supports is being used by people who disagree with his political position to potentially organize a boycott of Mullvad and possibly deprive everybody of a tool which helps protect freedom online.
It's like people who think Americans shouldn't shouldn't have first amendment rights. The irony is that the first amendment protects their ability to criticize the first amendment.
For better or worse, the internet and all its collective outrage is now the world's HR department.
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>If you want to vote for or against Örebropartiet, then just do it at the booth.
I'm kinda confused here. The context of this is that a rich tech bro uses his money to fund and promote a political party, with our money, but we can't decide to not pay him because that's influencing money with politics (???)
What kind of bizarro world is this, he can use his vast wealth to promote racist parties but we can't collectively use ours? How about he just "does it at the booth" and donates his money to the against malaria foundation?
My point is that if you are boycotting the company despite living on the opposite side of the world from Örebro (thus being inherently unable to vote at the booth), then you are not really participating in politics, you are participating in a witchhunt (with negligible political effects).
I'm suggesting that small political progress is simply not worth witch-hunting for. If you have political concerns, engage by voting, starting your own party or advocating for your cause instead of ruining the career of a person you disagree with.
>if you are boycotting the company despite living on the opposite side of the world
If I'm living at the opposite side of the world and my money was indirectly influencing Swedish politics then I'm doing Sweden a service by discontinuing my payment. After all the only thing I'm doing is reduce the power of corporations in a democratic process, I literally cannot take any Swedish vote away. That's exactly what you asked for.
> If you have political concerns, engage by voting, starting your own party or advocating for your cause
I do all of that, I'm an active member of a European political party and engaged far beyond just voting. But I'm also not going to stop to make sure my money as far as I can control it does not go into the pockets of millionaires who single handedly decided to bankroll 70% of the funding of a party that runs on ethnic hate. That is money in politics. If there was no money in politics, these people wouldn't be able to spread their hate. All of these parties on our continent are funded and supported by oligarchs across the world.
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Is IKEA's founder alive and currently donating lots of money to a political party advocating for mass deportation of "parasites"? If so let me know and I will stop buying IKEA furniture!
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"Yet you participate in society. Curious!"
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Of course you would set up another strawman for this. Yes, very intelligent, declining to support a business when their founders have odious politics is exactly the government's thought police enforcing wrongthink violations.
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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.
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.
>"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.
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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?
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I see... so the people boycotting companies over jim crow policies in the civil rights era were the intolerant ones?
Sounds like myrmidon would have gleefully bought a Volkswagon Bug in 1941.
More tolerant of race presumably, less tolerant towards other people being bigots.
The big problem with discriminating against other people you disagree with is that you have to be right, or you are the bigot (doubly so!).
Just consider boycotting someone like Turing for being gay a century ago. That is a double self own with hindsight, that a lot of people (back then) could have been baited into.
So I'm advocating for not boycotting peoples careers until you are absolutely sure (even then you might be wrong!).
Also consider: How much social progress did we actually achieve with witch hunts? Would you really be comfortable crediting those with the repeal of Jim Crow laws? And how often, on the other hand, did they end up in a Salem-situation?
Got it. If the diner says "whites only" we should wait a few years to see if racism is actually good, otherwise we are discriminating against racists.
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).
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"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 it is utterly incompatible with the values and mission of Mullvad for a Mullvad executive to give a large amount money from Mullvad customers to advance public policy with the primary and direct intent to restrict freedom of expression.
> to advance public policy with the primary and direct intent to restrict freedom of expression.
I'd love to see you proving this claim as I believe that's not what the party stands for.
Do you have any links/context on how this party plans to restrict freedom of expression?
Ask the people they plan to deport for not acting and expressing themselves in a certain way.
I have yet to find any proof that this actually part of their political program. Can you elaborate on that?
Why do you think that quote supports your argument?
If we're going to sealion, why don't you first explain what you think my argument is and why the quote does not support it?
Accusation: "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."
Supposed evidence: "It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission."
But the second quote has nothing to do with the accusation. He never said that he was against people examining the politics of the people running the company. Not even hinting at it.
This hasn't anything to do with you, but I also notice that people are flagging and [dead]ing completely reasonable comments in this thread, making any kind of decent conversation quite hard. What is the point of being in a comment thread, if we figuratively "kill" every person who doesn't follow only one allowed view. Are hackers doing this because they are the same type of persons who would literally kill people with differing views if they had such opportunity and power?
sorry but your argument is sophomoric and disingenuous. and your absurd complaint about "killing" makes it pretty clear you're not engaging in good faith.
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> less likely
how so?
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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.