- cross-posted to:
- privacy@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- privacy@programming.dev
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There is no stance that Mullvad can take on this in order to make me want to stay with them, since this is not an abstract, philosophical matter. It’s simple: Daniel partially owns a pro profit company. I pay Daniel’s company some money. Daniel reaps - as he should - parts of the company’s revenue as wage (which is my money). Daniel uses that wage to fund whatever the hell he wants - as he should - with my money. I’m either fine with contributing to this or not. Period. I am not fine with it, so I’m flirting with IVPN.
Thought experiment time…
part of the company’s revenue as wage
How far down the chain does that count for you? If there was a VP, Manager, or Individual Contributor that took their (personal) wages and donated to a cause you didn’t like, would you still pull your money?
Good question! I guess it does matter that he’s a cofounder and CEO. I honestly don’t know how I would react if we were talking about an employee instead. I’d deliberate and make up my mind there and then. Which sheds light on the fact that the matter isn’t as black and white as my comment made it sound.
Possibly off topic:
I work within the criminal justice system and I believe cops are pigs, while I know for a fact that there are good people on the force too. I wouldn’t give up my current position just because another “lowly” employee is rotten.
It’s also the scale of the donation for me. He didn’t just make a donation the way you or I probably would - his donation accounted for 72% of the party’s entire income for 2025. So the money that Mullvad makes is now tied to the continued existence of the party, albeit indirectly.
It was something I didn’t have a good answer for either. I think ownership is a good criteria but then I was trying to figure out why it was to me. Since it’s passed to an individual, via salary, is it still “my money”?
Amount could have something to do, but it’s possible for a highly paid IC to donate quite a bit.
The one that is cut-and-dry for me is something like Chic-Fil-A. My money is going directly to their foundation, which is used against LGBTQ people, so that’s an immediate hard no.
He is providing that political party with over half of its income if I recall correctly.
If Mullvad’s janitor were someone doing that and Mullvad refused to terminate them, I’d quit Mullvad.
If Mullvad’s janitor were someone doing that and Mullvad refused to terminate them, I’d quit Mullvad.
It’s Swedish company, there(and probably in most of the world) it’s illegal to fire someone for such reason, worker’s rights and all that.
Then I’d quit them….
Don’t fund the guy funding the white nationalist party. That’s rule 1 and we can sort the rest out later.
How would you do it? There’s no way to “quit them” unless they want to quit themselves, it’s not the US. If you think you can fire them and pay some fines, that’s not the case, you’ll pay them fines AND will be required to rehire them. Like the only way is to shut down the whole company or make them a super sweet offer, both require giving them a lot of money.
Just to make sure I understand, you do support employer discrimination against employees, just only for the political beliefs you find offensive. Do I understand that correctly? While I believe the only good nazi is a dead one, I alao believe the systems we set up generate the crap we have to deal with later.
It’s Karl Popper’s tolerance paradox. To answer your question, yes I am in support of discrimination against anyone using their salary to fund over half the annual budget of a white nationalist political party.
I, for one, am in support of your ability to stop giving mullvad money as a consequence, but not in support of anyone being fired over a political donation regardless. I don’t want to be fired over donating to causes I support, and there is no universal moral judge to say what is fine to donate to, even if I have pretty strong opinions on the matter.
In any sane country a “national socialist” aka nazi party is illegal, an employee funding a party like that are committing a crime so any morality bullshit about freeze peach is beyond that.
The person you’re responding to is either speaking hyperbolically for Internet points or is actually too dumb to realize how stupid of a precedent that sets. Either way they aren’t worth engaging with.
I know… let’s have a spelling contest.
How’s I been treating you?
wat
Ivpn, how’s it working out?
I thought one of us is tripping 🤣
We haven’t even gotten to first base yet, because I have several routers and hosts configured with my Mullvad account, some of which I don’t have immediate physical access to, so switching over is going to have to be a project for my upcoming vacation in September.
I made a couple of accounts with them but havent messed with their config generator or apps yet. Still trying to figure out how to allow a pc to select a vpn server but never drop the vpn even through root user intervention.
Can’t help you there. My endpoint hosts are Android devices and Windows systems and on them, using the Mullvad app with its killswitch, connections are blocked while it changes Mullvad server.
As for the routers, I configured them following more or less this guide: https://mullvad.net/en/help/running-wireguard-router
If you’re using wrt or pfsense or something (no word on if their tomato guide works for freshtomato devices yet), you’ll probably like ivpns router support: https://www.ivpn.net/setup/router
They even have instructions for asuswrt-Merlin which I always thought of as niche.
even if you do believe in freedom of expression and information, why would you donate to a fascist group which have been using suppression of expression - either it is attacking immigrants, pushing age gate laws, or attacking trans rights - as their path to power?
It should be clear by now how the party donation relates to this. Mullvad does not condone it, nor condemn it.
If they don’t condemn donating to Nazis then they’re Nazi’s. Pretty clear. Proton VPN it is.
Proton has dodgy dealings too. This whole situation sucks
Proton complimented one Trump policy about privacy which is stupid but they’re not donating to literal Nazi’s at least.
deleted by creator
What were you doing in 1940?
This isn’t purity politics. This is deciding you don’t like what someone is doing with money so you refuse to give them anymore.
Also having Nazis in your “privacy coalition” makes about as much sense as a coyote being a guard dog for chickens.
The purity politics of… not aligning with those who significantly fund far right national political parties??
“aren’t we living in a multicultural democracy, why can’t the minorities and the racists just get along and be respectful of each others’ ideas”
Absolutely pathetic response. I’m less likely to use them now than before I read this
Sorry, but where are you quoting from? It seems to be neither from mullvad’s last post, nor from the linked blog of Daniel Berntsson.
It’s a (butchered) joke from Peep Show, but I feel it captures the gist of the statement linked to by OP
Ah, understood, thanks. I thought at first it’s a quote.
I think they’re severely underestimating how valuable the recommendation of techies/word of mouth effect is to their business…
Time will tell, the industry is based on paid ‘reviews’, and manipulation. There is little reason for any of them to pretend to be ethical, the biggest companies definitely aren’t. Mullvad are likely to feel this though, since they most likely have a more ethical user base than the competition. Airvpn and ivpn are no doubt gaining new customers.
My point was that their user base is more technologically adept than other businesses, and therefore it matters more for them. Also their selling point is that you “trust” them not to give your info away, and anything that makes them seem untrustworthy is bound to hurt their business. So they’re not really comparable to regular businesses when it comes to that.
Most predictable response ever. Some shite about the free market of ideas and some other shite about the need to engage with “ideas you personally dislike”.
In other words, we should give fascists a seat at the table and hope we can debate them away. Been there done that, doesn’t work.
I don’t expect a company to just condemn fascism completely unprompted. But in a situation like this, if you can’t even commit to taking action to ensure that a fascist party does not receive any of your funding again, then your mission isn’t worth shit.
I’m sure that the people who would be forcibly “remigrated” by this particular political party would not feel very free from authority and surveillance.
I have had a Mullvad account for many years. I now have an iVPN acc. It’s a very simple choice for me. If Mullvad’s success results in funding far right racists then I don’t care to assist that happening
I have about 50 days left on my Mullvad subscription, so I figured I’d wait it out and see how they handled it. Going by this latest Mullvad response, I think I’ll probably have an IVPN account soon too.
They try to distance themselves from it as much as they can, but at the end of the day he is using money he obtained from Mullvad (us) in ways some people don’t like.
The only true way to stop it is for the CEO to leave the company and sell all shares and stakes…
Or to simply stop giving Mullvad money, which is what I’ve done. There are plenty other privacy focused vpns that don’t have this issue.
Are they trying to disrtance themselves, though?
Mullvad does not condone it, nor condemn it. It most likely was a bad idea; most things where there are a multitude of conflicting opinions necessarily are. But societies need a great diversity of ideas, initiatives and organizations who can be tested and sifted until the best ones remain.
But societies need a great diversity of ideas, initiatives and organizations who can be tested and sifted until the best ones remain.
need? At what point does a society NEED to test racism to see if it should remain?
When will these societies decide that they tested it long enough?
What VPN would you recommend which outs privacy first but also has good enough speed and ping to use as daily driver for HD videos and casual gaming?
There are definitely not plenty of them.
They really don’t get it, it is very disappointing, but they deserve to fail now. 99% of the VPN industry is dodgy, mullvad now included.
Self-censorship out of fear is an even bigger dampener than direct censorship.
Man, I hate having to think about the effects of my actions before I do something. It’s so much better to just do things, and then see if there are consequences.
/s
vpn company be normal for 1 second challenge [impossible]
Damn the radical woke left with their impossibly high expectation of basic human decency.
I’ve read the blog of the other guy… What a mutilation of marxism…
Its easy, just let racism blind you and kick immigrants out of the working class.
To be fair the 30 hour work week is a campaign promise from the real socialist parties in Sweden
What’s not to love, they simply want a national version of socialism. I’m sure that’s never come up before.
And he called himself an anarchist when he’s a textbook example of social darwinist, Armstrong type even. My anarchist brothers and sisters, when will you step up to not let them take the brand and banners of your hands?
Not even that. They straight up endorse capitalism over public work.
It’s like national liberal socialism
Wow I didn’t hate them before, but thanks to this post I stand corrected
We have nurtured a culture of radical tolerance. Even when some in our sphere of collaborators have advocated for actors and views that have personally and severely affected the founders and their family members, this has not stood in the way of cooperation.
The leopards that ate other people’s faces will definitely not eat my face too
