This is like the third duplicate I saw in a week
The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
261–270 of 1001 posts
Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
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]?
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 bo…
Every time you use a kitten to support flawed logic, a kitten dies.
Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
#263Well 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.
Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
#264I 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...
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.
Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
#265I 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…
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
Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
#266Aren'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.
Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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.
Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
#268The 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.
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Also they are anti EU and NATO. Lot of astroturfing here.
Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
#269The 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.
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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.
Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Also they are anti EU and NATO. Lot of astroturfing here.
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.