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.”
So if I use Mullvad, some of that is funding far-right politics?
At this point it’s safer to just assume every purchase you make is funding far right politics.
Yes, although frankly it’s really fucking hard to name anything that isn’t these days. Like, you probably can’t even go grocery shopping without some of that money finding us way to alt right politics.
People can look up how various grocery store brands fund the republicans here: https://shophowyouvote.com/
Thanks lol. Just learned Cheerios are fascist ;-;
That damn bee; I always knew.
It’s like the whole idea of accumulating as much wealth/power as you can leads to control and suffering of those with less wealth/power.
Yes
Nice. The others are finding far left.
Cool, which ones?
The laundry list, especially in the US is very big. Just look at the donations on any big left wing politician. Easy to find the donor lists. Starting from FTX and all their lying and scheming up to every big tech company that was tip toing around left and right when presidents change.
And who might that be?
They are a troll or a fascist, so any response is going to involve mental illness.
Damn, I was hoping to find a VPN donating to left wing politicians cause that would be dope.
Porque no los tres?
what an incredibly low effort troll. Mamdani might be the only center-left politician in the US. There are no far-left politicians in the US empire.
Well it doesn’t start with FTX because they didn’t offer a VPN service. Can you name just one then please?
You mean specifically a VPN? Nope, not really. I thought we are talking in general.
Yeah it’s weird how these generalizations fall apart when you try to find a single example of a far-left VPN provider but all you can come up with is a years-defunct criminal crypto hedge fund whose “far-left funding” was donating to a middle-right democrat’s election fund.
I never generilized nor I said VPN. I said people. If you actually put an effort in the conversation and pur your obvious left leaning biases aside and your right leaning hatetred you will understand my point. I could not care less who finds who, all of them are shit, and not a single politician left or right thinks of you or the good of the people. Not a single one.
You named a cryptocurrency company, not a VPN company.
My idea was tech in general. They flip to sides very fast when it suits them.
I’ve heard that one as well from graphene devs on mastodon and I agree that this is not you typical right wing populist. Don’t know if calling him left wing is any more appropriate though
This is a frustrating pposition to be in, particularly when few people are willing to offer viable alternatives in such threads.
I don’t want to let a purity test be the reason I impulse switch to a less effective VPN, but don’t want to indirectly fund things I don’t support. Yes, money I spend on Mullvad might go towards shit I don’t want, but what else is on par with Mullvad that doesn’t have some other downside?
Pretty happy for 8 years with Windscribe, a Canadian VPN. The fulfill their promises and no neo-nazis so far… 🤞
The only safe way to do that is to not spend at all. Unless you find a co-op, your money is going to some owner(s) who will use the money as they please. Commercial VPNs are mostly privacy snake oil and ways to get access to media, so abstaining for a while isn’t unreasonable.
At a co-op you’re funding the workers and some of them are routing your money straight to fascists, too.
Something something no ethical consumption under capitalism
The sentiment of this saying is true, but you should seek out the best options, anyway.
Indeed.
I don’t think the world has ever been black and white. Whatever you purchase is based on someone’s suffering or funds it in some way or another. The best we can do is be less evil. If you think you can still do good by using mullvad’s service, you should stay. If you think switching will be more beneficial for you—even at the cost of productivity and perhaps a difference in price—then you should ditch Mullvad.
Afaik IVPN is really the only alternative. I’ll be switching to them soon when my account expires.
Btw I had a lot of time left on my mullvad account and had paid for it a while back, when requesting a refund due to this shitshow they honoured it and paid back the rest.
Before I switched from proton VPN to mullvad VPN, I thought I remembered when doing research there was only a few providers that said they did no logs, and had proof either through 3rd party audits or shown they couldn’t provide anything when court ordered.
Does IVPN have proof they do not log? Because im in the same boat, I dont want my money supporting fascists, but i also dont know of any alternative to switch to?
Besides switching back to proton VPN (which id rather not get into any controversy around them)
They don’t keep logs but have also never been raided by police, only using a third-party auditor.
Thanks, thats helpful! I saw someone post a link in another comment to a comparison chart (i should have read the rest of the thread before replying), and it looks like they’re at the top of my list now.
Not as much as the food you eat or the utilities you use, but yes.
Appears to be the case.
No, no, its just the ceo’s personal politics that he donates lots of money get fwrs from his job to.
It seems so, and also who knows what else, maybe even the far left