"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 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"
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
>> 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.
They got 43.9% in what Wikipedia marks as "semi-free yet questionable election". Also more correct question IMHO would be "was the NSDAP extreme in 1933?" and the answer is probably "no as much as by today's standards".
What you're actually asking is whether people knew they were extreme. But this makes your overall point circular: we can't say a party is extreme if the majority of people don't call it screens.
They were definitely extreme by the standards of the time. Their aim was explicitly to completely revolutionise European politics, culture, religion.... everything. One comment I heard recent (on The Rest is History podcast, I think Tom Holland said it) they were the most radical movement in European history.
Their ideology implied at the very least getting rid of whole populations. They wanted to reset to an imagined ancient culture and rewrote history to justify it. Mostly imagined, anyway - Sparta was the one real example they looked to.
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?
Let's think of the other extreme as well: exactly the same excellent VPN service, is run by an almost-the-best-person-in-the-world who has just one small quirk that makes them not 100% perfect for you (they pat kittens not as often as you'd like them to do). Obviously there is a border between your extreme and mine, which border defines "use" and "no use" cases for you. And now: wherever this border is - should it be the same for everyone?
Because normal people don’t want to deal with the headaches. Your choices are weird people or intelligence cutouts. (Or abandoning any attempt at privacy in an attempt to be ideologically pure.) Sorry, but those are the options.
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.”
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.
Nothing, it's just an empty platitude that can be used for justifying any kind of abhorrent act against "others".
It's why it's so effective as a rallying cry, it means nothing substantial, can be molded into whatever the speaker wants it to mean, it's an empty vessel for the bearer's hatred.
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 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
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]
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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]
Why is Orebro a far-right party? I've not heard of them before so asked ChatGPT to summarise the party:
> Stricter immigration: The party supports significantly tighter immigration policies than Sweden has traditionally had. More recently, it has also advocated policies encouraging or expanding the return of some migrants to their countries of origin.
> Anti-establishment and anti-corruption: A central message is that established political parties are wasteful and disconnected from ordinary people. The party proposes reducing politicians' salaries and cutting what it considers unnecessary public spending.
> Protecting core public services: It argues that savings should come from administration and projects it views as non-essential, while prioritizing healthcare, schools, elderly care, and other local services.
Free dental care: This has been one of its more prominent welfare proposals.
> Social conservatism and secularism: The party is generally described by political scientists and reference works as socially conservative and nationalist, while also supporting a secular state.
I asked more about the immigration point which seems to be the only right-wing position here and even that seems based around reducing immigration from culturally incompatible (and often far-right) countries and migrants who are an economic burden to Swedish tax payers. Which would be weird to brand far-right? Maybe slightly right-wing, but hardly unreasonable.
ChatGPT seems to think they're neither really right-wing or left-wing, but more populist which seems to be a better description if this is a good summary of their beliefs?
Asking because I don't really trust MSM sources to be unbiased against populist parties and I know ChatGPT has it's biases and issues. Would be nice if a Swede can explain if this is actually a far-right party, or just "far-right" by Swedish standards.
As is typical, left ultras are once again being drafted (manipulated) into service against the few businesses that actually look out for their interests. Look out! Nazis under the bed again!
Anyone who still listens to these people after the last decade is hopelessly gullible.
Hey guys, ever wonder why your masters never get you to swarm the actually clearly evil businesses? Too scared to fight the real bad guys or what?
"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.
To be fair, Örebropartiet can also be called an extreme left party. It’s complicated…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party
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 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"
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.
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.
Sounds like the logical evolution of left/right-populism into 'absolutist-populism' ;)
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...
> 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.
They're all left-wing
Lol, so Hitler was 'left wing' because he built the Reichsautobahn, got it...
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Will you be creating a VPN?
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.
According to polls[0] the party gets ~20% votes in their region. IMHO 20% of voters can't be "extreme" [0] https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/orebro/orebropartiet-nast-... (swedish)
The AfD is a far-right extremist party in Germany with currently 28% projected support[0].
[0] https://dawum.de/Bundestag/
> IMHO 20% of voters can't be "extreme"
Was the NSDAP "extreme"? They got 43.9%
They got 43.9% in what Wikipedia marks as "semi-free yet questionable election". Also more correct question IMHO would be "was the NSDAP extreme in 1933?" and the answer is probably "no as much as by today's standards".
What you're actually asking is whether people knew they were extreme. But this makes your overall point circular: we can't say a party is extreme if the majority of people don't call it screens.
They were definitely extreme by the standards of the time. Their aim was explicitly to completely revolutionise European politics, culture, religion.... everything. One comment I heard recent (on The Rest is History podcast, I think Tom Holland said it) they were the most radical movement in European history.
Their ideology implied at the very least getting rid of whole populations. They wanted to reset to an imagined ancient culture and rewrote history to justify it. Mostly imagined, anyway - Sparta was the one real example they looked to.
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.
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?
A thought experiment:
Let's think of the other extreme as well: exactly the same excellent VPN service, is run by an almost-the-best-person-in-the-world who has just one small quirk that makes them not 100% perfect for you (they pat kittens not as often as you'd like them to do). Obviously there is a border between your extreme and mine, which border defines "use" and "no use" cases for you. And now: wherever this border is - should it be the same for everyone?
I agree there might be a more or les arbitrary border, and it will probably be in different places for different people.
However the original statement:
> The CEO’s extracurricular activities are none of my business.
Basically says that no border should exist, and it makes no difference at all who provided the service as long as the service itself is excellent.
That is a fundamentally different argument that I very much disagree with.
Every time you use a kitten to support flawed logic, a kitten dies.
I don't really understand the point you're trying to make with that thought experiment.
Next iteration of this smear article: “Mullvad is basically HitlerVPN”
Someone doesn't want people using the best VPN available, hmm...
Why can't we have a VPN run by normal people?
Because normal people don’t want to deal with the headaches. Your choices are weird people or intelligence cutouts. (Or abandoning any attempt at privacy in an attempt to be ideologically pure.) Sorry, but those are the options.
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.”
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?
Agree. This is more of a "ST Voyager 'Nothing Human'"-case.
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.
Great, I will definitely go out of my way to purchase their products.
Uncontrolled migration needs to stop.
What does that mean?
Nothing, it's just an empty platitude that can be used for justifying any kind of abhorrent act against "others".
It's why it's so effective as a rallying cry, it means nothing substantial, can be molded into whatever the speaker wants it to mean, it's an empty vessel for the bearer's hatred.
So you’re accusing me of abhorrent acts based on what I said?
Did you think of that word salad yourself or you copied it from somewhere?
So you’re being extremely unjust by accusing me of something while presenting yourself on the moral high ground? Checks out.
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.
Any suggestions for a VPN service with similar security standards as Mullvad?
previously discussed[flagged: 251 comments]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48687508
Including a statement from the other founder.
This one's gone too.
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
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.
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"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
How does it physically prevent Mullvad from logging your 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 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.
This is like the third duplicate I saw in a week
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.
As it turns out you can't have strong socialist policies and also open borders.
Also they are anti EU and NATO. Lot of astroturfing here.
> 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.
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.
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.
If this is real I will stop my monthly subscriptions.
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...
[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
It is ignorant. And it's weird that you're so proud of your ignorance.
[flagged]
I didn't claim anything of the sort. And OP literally said "It might be ignorant, but I don't care," so...
They don’t care that the CEO is right wing, not that they’re ignorant.
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.
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?
> "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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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
Why is Orebro a far-right party? I've not heard of them before so asked ChatGPT to summarise the party:
> Stricter immigration: The party supports significantly tighter immigration policies than Sweden has traditionally had. More recently, it has also advocated policies encouraging or expanding the return of some migrants to their countries of origin.
> Anti-establishment and anti-corruption: A central message is that established political parties are wasteful and disconnected from ordinary people. The party proposes reducing politicians' salaries and cutting what it considers unnecessary public spending.
> Protecting core public services: It argues that savings should come from administration and projects it views as non-essential, while prioritizing healthcare, schools, elderly care, and other local services. Free dental care: This has been one of its more prominent welfare proposals.
> Social conservatism and secularism: The party is generally described by political scientists and reference works as socially conservative and nationalist, while also supporting a secular state.
I asked more about the immigration point which seems to be the only right-wing position here and even that seems based around reducing immigration from culturally incompatible (and often far-right) countries and migrants who are an economic burden to Swedish tax payers. Which would be weird to brand far-right? Maybe slightly right-wing, but hardly unreasonable.
ChatGPT seems to think they're neither really right-wing or left-wing, but more populist which seems to be a better description if this is a good summary of their beliefs?
Asking because I don't really trust MSM sources to be unbiased against populist parties and I know ChatGPT has it's biases and issues. Would be nice if a Swede can explain if this is actually a far-right party, or just "far-right" by Swedish standards.
"Here's an explanation by AI.
<Explanation>
Now if someone could give us a trustworthy explanation."
Look up what the word "remigration" means.
Far right? It's run by a literal marxist communist.
What does he or she want to do with immigrants?
As is typical, left ultras are once again being drafted (manipulated) into service against the few businesses that actually look out for their interests. Look out! Nazis under the bed again!
Anyone who still listens to these people after the last decade is hopelessly gullible.
Hey guys, ever wonder why your masters never get you to swarm the actually clearly evil businesses? Too scared to fight the real bad guys or what?
It seems like there is someone or some group, that doesn't want people using the best VPN available.
Far right isn't good enough for these people. They are radical-ultra-far-hard-alt right.