Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
So paying for Mullvad indirectly funds this party.
Yup. As in, referring to immigrants as 'parasites' level racism.
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.
One of the co-founders/co-ceo's almost single handedly funded a racist political party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party that wants Sweden to manufacture weapons.
The other co-founder/co-ceo stated he did not agree with it, but also doesn't really care because 'free speech'
Mullvad stated that users who were not happy could apply for refunds. some have, some haven't.
Lemmy, and other social media platforms have multiple threads about this, including very obviously biased threads designed to mislead people into believing it was the company who made the donation, or that there is only one ceo.
Paying mullvad does equal funding that political party.
But the profits of the company are being used to fund that political party. If people cancel their subscription the Mullvad CEO will earn less money and won't be able to spend as much funding racial segregation. You should vote with your wallet as much as possible.
As mentioned in the last line of my comment that you replied to.
That's basically it although I don't think it's technically alt-right. More specifically, he donated half a million USD to the Örebro Party
Nationally the party has set out large-scale remigration, closing the Swedish borders to immigration, a stricter assimilation policy and ending taxes on energy and fuel as some of its key issues.
Not alt-right, just fascist?
From what I've seen, it's a weird mishmash of ideologies and the party seems to be run by crazy people.
Alt-fascist
I'm missing even more. What does "paying for Mullvad" mean? What is the product?
their primary product is a VPN. for ages they've been the best in class for privacy vpn. however, it turns out their CEO is basically singlehandedly bankrolling a far right political party in Sweden so people are looking for alternatives
Thanks.
Daniel is one of the founders of Mullvad and part owner. He took a big chunk of change from his private wealth and donated it to a horseshoe loonie party. Horseshoe because they try to marry ideas from the extreme left to immigrant hateful ideas from the extreme right. Loonie is self explanatory. His donation made it possible for that party to run a nationwide campaign.
Mullvad users who got mad simplified this to Mullvad fees finance a Nazi party directly. Which isn't true. How much of this donation truly came from VPN fees is also a matter of debate. They aren't strictly Nazis, more xenophobic communists. But assholes are still assholes and people choose labels differently. There is a lot of kneejerk reacting going on.
The company seems to want to ride it out. They correctly point to this being a decision by a private citizen who may exercise his free speech by donating to the loonie party. But they either don't recognize the PR hell of being guilty by association as a company or they know the subscription drain isn't as bad as the online outrage makes it look like. They publicly say this is all about free speech, which is their DNA, yada yada yada.
Mullvad users who got mad simplified this to Mullvad fees finance a Nazi party directly.
You are making this up.
Those of us mad understand how the money changes hands.
It is mathematically correct to say that a portion of the energy I may contribute to Mullvad will end up financing fascism.
This isn't only about the political donations. That's a coowner/cofounder we are talking about. That's significant. If some rank and file schmuck donated to nazis in his spare time and not a cofounder, it would be less bad. Still bad, but less damaging.
This cofounder has outsized infuence on how the culture of Mullvad is shaping up.
Do I want to support that when there are better, more private, VPN companies without the nazi cofounders? For example NymVPN mixnet.
There is no good reason to prefer Mullvad.
It'd be a different story is we only had two VPN companies and both had nazi founders. Then we'd have to weigh privacy vs nazism. But that's not our situation right now.
more private
I thought Mullvad was famous for being the gold standard VPN provider. Can you elaborate on who is more private?
They suggested nym which uses a technology called a mixnet that’s almost self explanatory: you have a network that mixes up the path communication takes so that it’s harder to determine the sender.
Unfortunately that’s got a bunch of problems that basically boil down to it’s more complicated and therefore easier to screw up and the more compromised nodes an attacker has in the mixnet the easier it becomes for someone to screw up.
It’s cool tech but not trustworthy yet compared to the simple alternatives.
Also nym will let you log in with google credentials. Theres some very careful scrutiny a user would want to apply to that.
I do not think nym is a bad vpn like service thing, just that its not comparable to mullvad.
A cofounder donated to the Örebro Party, which has an eclectic platform. Mostly, progressive liberals of the imperial core are (justifiably) upset about its immigration/“remigration” policies and upset about its anti-NATO policies.
Companies are owned by the bourgeoisie, who are right wing[^1]. So “voting with your dollar” over this is largely performative, because the VPN you switch to will also be bourgeois-owned.
[^1]: With the rare exception of bourgeois class traitors.
Companies are owned by the bourgeoisie, who are right wing[1]. So “voting with your dollar” over this is largely performative
Yet they will still respond to capital pressure in large enough numbers. In a broken system like capitalism that's what holds power. If not you can write off BDS and any other type of boycotts.
Mullvad didn’t fund Õbrero; one of Mullvad’s owners did, and boycotting Mullvad won’t un-donate those funds, because there’s no return policy on political donations.
Mullvad didn't condemn the funding and the owner will certainly continue using profits from his company to fund far-right remigration efforts if he specifically chose that party instead of any other generic leftist party.
Also Mullvad is very expensive compared to other VPN's to begin with. And Mullvad's servers have been getting blocked everywhere lately so there's no real reason to use it either. Might as well use AirVPN or the likes. I'm probably switching to Proton for ease of use but i might choose another sooner or later.
Condemning the funding could (I’m not an expert or lawyer) open the company up to a different type of law intended for “terrorism” or “extremism”. I do not know what actually drove the publishing of such a fence riding post on their part but that’s a possible explanation that takes into account the conditions and foresight the company has exercised in the past.
Also as an airvpn user do not use it for security or privacy. It’s a really good piracy vpn just use it for that. If you’re concerned for your safety please consider carefully the consequences of your choices when you register for proton (don’t make a services account, don’t use a recovery email that can be tied to you or at all, pay cash). A lot of the services people hold up as alternatives have ways for the unaware user to accidentally screw it up and end up in a bad situation.
pay cash
Ooo! I didn't know Proton accepted cash payments. But you are right. They do.
My proton is tied to me, b/c I didn't really care and it wasn't important to my threat model. But it's good to know they offer this. I was paying for Mullvad with cash. Since the whole thing has happened with Mullvad, maybe I'll open a cash paid Proton just for the VPN option.
I really wish Proton offered Wireguard tho. It's so much nicer than OpenVPN.
I’m pretty sure you can do wg with proton: https://protonvpn.com/support/wireguard-configurations
Oh, thank you! Bookmarked it.
Are you talking about Proton or AirVPN in your second paragraph?
Both. The first couple of sentences are about air and the rest is about how you gotta keep your head on a swivel when you sign up for proton.
So largely performative. With enough pressure, Mullvad might say something negative about a bourgeois party, which won’t do anything.
There’s no reason to think Proton would be any different in this regard. Proton Mail Says It’s “Politically Neutral” While Praising Republican Party
They're nowhere comparable. Proton's case is relevant to their business and to VPN's as a whole. Not just doing random private donations to Nazis. As they stated in response to the article:
Also objectively Proton would receive less money because they're a lot cheaper.
Good share. Not seen this context before.
To be clear the notion that any of the two US parties would be better in any way than the other is just stupid. It's all good-cop bad-cop. But at least Proton isn't directly donating to any of them.