Swedish VPN vendor Mullvad is facing a backlash from some customers after co-founder Daniel Berntsson personally donated SEK 5 million (£385,000, $519,000) to the controversial populist Örebropartiet, which is running in Sweden’s national elections for the first time.
Berntsson has this week published a blog post explaining the donation, alongside posts titled “Immigration,” “Political individualism,” and “Moral individualism.” Before that, he had not posted since 2019.
The flurry of posts follows weeks of customer criticism over the donation – for example, Finnish blog Moonwriting’s post “I’m done with Mullvad.” Another blog, Unutterable, is more direct: “Mullvad funding the far-right and the problem with tech company ownership.” The Hacker News discussion thread about the donations has reached a remarkable 1,784 comments so far.
Mullvad was co-founded and is still jointly owned and run by two CEOs, Berntsson and Fredrik Strömberg. Its name, as reflected in the company’s logo, is Swedish for “mole.” It also offers the Mullvad Browser, a privacy-enhanced fork of Firefox ESR co-developed with the Tor Project. Swedish socialist newspaper Flamman (“The Flame”) revealed the donation in its story “High-profile techie gives millions to the Örebro Party.”
In a post on X, the company said it was devoted to freedom of speech and tolerance, saying: “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.”
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And everybody else has the freedom to not support him or his business. So, a win win for freedom then.
I’d say this Mullvad guy earning any more money is a lose lose for freedom.
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Customers also have the freedom to divest from his product as a direct consequence of his political activism, which many are doing.
On top of that, the “far-left” as fabricated by the far-right doesn’t exist. All who protest against capitalism and the fascist elite, all those that support social liberation, are comrades and allies of liberty.
That’s not true, I am the far left. I am so much lefter than all of you! 😎
Tankies exist, they just aren’t dangerous because they have no power right now. That and their intellectual bancruptcy. Authoritarianism is a disease. The fascists just happen to be both sick and in control.
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Is that guy funding the far-left in the room with you right now? He seems to play an important roll for you.
How is the Mullvad guy far right? I thought the Örebro Party was a Marxist party focused on expanding socialized services, like expanding healthcare, reducing costs for public transport, shortening the work week while keeping full pay, etc.
They are a confusing mix or far left and far right ideas and are a person cult around Allard that came from the left but has bridged the horse shoe and gone xenophobic totalitarian nationalist.
Its not far left to want nice things for your favoured in-group. That’s right.
Like, he has his own bodyguards or security agency?
(My understanding is it’s a local political party that operates in one town.)
Very few politicians here have that. No idea if he does, but it doesn’t seem likely.
They are a local political party operating out of the town Örebro, they have some regional seats in the region that’s also called Örebro.
Local and regional politics is still important though. Having fascists diddle around with that is bad news.
Supporting totalitarian nutjobs is telling regardless the position of the totalitarian nutjob.
For whom exactly? That’s your answer. The OG Nazis said that kind of thing too.
The Nazis were bad because they did the holocaust and tried to conquer Europe, not because they expanded the safety net and gave their citizens healthcare.
I’m just asking how they’re considered right wing.
You know the Nazis didn’t do that right?
Otto von Bismarck introduced health care
The Socialist Part in the name of the Party was not caused by actual socialist politics but because the voters were very pro socialst politics and the first thing nazis did was put socialists into Concentration camps.
Then why is the commenter above me saying they did? Listen, this whole conversation seems to be going nowhere.
I don’t think anyone here is really saying anything about Swedish politics. (It’s a country much smaller than the USA.) I keep receiving nonsense counter-factuals. I’m withholding judgement until someone links proof that they’re actually interested in committing genocide.
You almost got it. Its not the healthcare and social safety net that made them fascists, its the in-group (that gets it) and the out group (that gets evil) that made them fascists. A modern party that wants healthcare for white people and forced emigration for brown people are not socialist, they are far right.
And users have the choice to not fund his ability to do so in the future by finding a different place to spend their money.
Vote with your wallet is something not everyone believes in anymore, but at the same time, this doesn’t really have anything to do with the company’s values. It’s a simple equation. Giving the company money means this guy receives money. So people want to stop giving him money by proxy.
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Sweet, I found another worthless user to block
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