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The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party

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Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party

#571

Post by jasonvorhe »

kgwxd wrote: post #405
kfreds wrote: post #118

Hi, Mullvad has two owners, founders, and CEOs - Daniel Berntsson, and me, Fredrik Strömberg. All posts I've seen yesterday and today, including the newspaper articles, talk about Mullvad as if Daniel is the single owner, founder and CEO. It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission. If you have any questions, comments or concerns you're welcome t…

> This is what allows us to advance our common causes. Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment is also liberating and promotes truth seeking. Nope, that is what will get you taken over by the assholes. Reasonable defense is necessary in reality. There ARE bad actors, they must be kept out.

Everyone has their own definition of a bad actor. The fact that you're implying to know how to spot them says a lot about your tolerance for differences in opinion.

Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party

#572

Post by hagbard_c »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #123
lightbulbish wrote: post #58

I'm Swedish, but never heard of Örebropartiet before. I tried looking into their website and it doesn't say a lot. Translated from Swedish wikipedia: --- Örebropartiet was founded by Markus Allard in the spring of 2014, when he was recently expelled from the Left Party and the Young Left. [...] Among the party's main issues are reduced politicians' salaries, reduced bureaucracy, civil servant responsibility, assimila…

I don't think it's reasonable to "demand" integration. What should happen is that the existing cultures should be open and welcoming enough so that new-comers want to take part. Also, I like the idea of immigrants bringing their culture with them (and in some cases, that may be the last representation of that culture) and welcoming people to learn about it. Multi-culturalism should be about championing different cult…

> I don't think it's reasonable to "demand" integration

Yes, it is reasonable to demand people who come into a country adapt to rules - written and to a certain extent also the unwritten, of which Sweden has many - of that country. When in Rome, act as the Romans. This adaptation will never be 100% but that is not the point, what is most important is that newcomers learn to assimilate to such a level that the natives are open and willing to maybe integrate some parts of the newcomer's culture.

People who 'are the last representatives of [their] culture' can write a book about it while becoming part of their new culture since it is clear that their old one did not stand the test of time. They're much better off that way instead of living like cultural fossils for the likes of NPR and PBS to make documentaries about. By all means document what that extinct culture had to offer but life is for the living and culture is the commonly agreed upon set of rules how to live it.

Multiculturalism is a pipe dream, something dreamt up by people who listened to one too many version of John Lennon's Imagine. It has been shown not to work time and time again, it makes it harder for people coming in to a new country to assimilate and integrate because there is no clear target to aim for. Culture is not a fixed thing, it evolves through time by adopting new things and getting rid of old customs. Multiculturalism does not call for cultural evolution, it calls for revolution: here's a whole new culture, now deal with it. Revolution hardly every works and when it does it tends to go badly for those on the wrong side of it.

Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party

#573

Post by aoshifo »

teddyh wrote: post #493
yaris wrote: post #210

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."

You’re not taking it far enough. What if Mullvad has someone you disagree with as a customer, and does nothing about it. Does this mean that Mullvad is supporting them? Does this mean that you have to stop supporting Mullvad? What about Mullvad’s landlord? The company that provides them their electricity? Their internet provider? Their internet provider’s internet provider? Should you boycott the entire internet beca…

What are you trying to say with this? This is absurd.

The outrage has nothing to do with Mullvad itself supporting people with certain opinions or not.

The problem I and many others have, is that if the founder takes our money and gives it to causes that I (edit: or rather we) find reprehensible, we don't want to give them our money anymore. Simple as that.

I will not try to stop you from using Mullvad by any other means than my arguments. Hopefully you understand now where we are coming from and agree. If not, just do your thing.

Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party

#574

Post by anuramat »

iamnothere wrote: post #482
jespinel wrote: post #306

[flagged]

Notice how these people almost never go after the management of major multinationals, or even places like car dealerships and real estate firms. It’s almost always companies and projects that are critical to freedom and privacy. That should tell you all you need to know.

well yeah, would be kinda funny if people started exposing oil and tobacco companies as ethically questionable

Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party

#575

Post by dijit »

vitally3643 wrote: post #564
kfreds wrote: post #118

Hi, Mullvad has two owners, founders, and CEOs - Daniel Berntsson, and me, Fredrik Strömberg. All posts I've seen yesterday and today, including the newspaper articles, talk about Mullvad as if Daniel is the single owner, founder and CEO. It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission. If you have any questions, comments or concerns you're welcome t…

That's great and all but can I have a refund for the portion of my mullvad subscription that went to supporting organizations who think that people like me don't deserve to live?

Can you point to the charter where the Örebro party ever said that you don't deserve to live?

The embellishments of what people actually believe is extremely exhausting.

FWIW, I'm an immigrant in Sweden and if they gained power I would be affected, but we talk about people with differing views to us as if they're actively violent in order to shut down conversation.

This catasphrophising language will eventually not help your cause, because ordinary people start to feel numb to it and the hard-right will not be defeated by it.

Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party

#577

Post by dpoloncsak »

Auracle wrote: post #505
yreg wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Doesn't really sound all that far-right to me. To me too, then I got to the leaders quote on TV: "We must deport these damn parasites who sit and live at our expense." Yeah, okay. I know some politicians who speak like that, I feel I get the picture.

I think you'd be surprised at how quickly that sentiment has moved from the far-right to close to the center. People are (rightly, in my opinion) pretty upset at their governments for letting mass migration happen with pretty much only downsides for their actual citizens. People are all about the idea of helping the downtrodden when it's just an ideal, but when they realize it's having negative consequences for them…

I think, all pretty recently (atleast in the 'States), there's been much news and noise about the abuse and fraud of these systems designed to help the downtrodden.

Now whether that's all true, has always been true, is propaganda...whatever, but it's easy for me to understand why sentiment has been changing as the spotlight is focused more and more on the abuse of the systems as opposed to the benefits.

I also think there's some 'hierarchy of needs' going on here, where as the economy shifts and more and more Americans are struggling to afford housing, groceries, and other necessities, it's easy to feel like you should be putting yourself first over strangers. Combine that with the prior point, and you have a great recipe to build resentment. Selfish, maybe, but I can understand how you get there.

This is NOT to say 'There is no xenophobia' or anything...racism in general is alive and well in the USA... but I have pretty sound-minded people around me starting to echo this mindset, and this is my best understanding of what's been brewing.

Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party

#578

Post by georgemcbay »

jespinel wrote: post #306

[flagged]

> Isn’t he, like any one of us, entitled to hold the political views he wants and support the candidates or parties he wants?

He's perfectly entitled to hold whatever loony political views he wants. I haven't seen anyone calling for his arrest.

But customers are also entitled to decide whether or not to keep supporting a company for whatever reasons they choose, including the political ideology of its CEOs.

Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party

#579

Post by actionfromafar »

kfreds wrote: post #570
WhitneyLand wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fredrik, while acknowledging everything you said, the fact remains some of my money can end up empowering politics I find repugnant. If it were a small amount of money, it wouldn’t be an issue. If the politics at stake were less important, it wouldn’t be an issue. They’re not going to stop at immigration, look at other places in the world to see the future risk. Sorry, I was a paying and satisfied customer, and now I…

I'm sorry to hear that. I'm not defending his choice, but consider reading Daniel's rationale in the Flamman article. There's also his blog [1], which explains some of his views. I know he doesn't share all of Örebropartiets views, but I should let him provide that nuance. As I said in another comment, speaking for myself, I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues…

[flagged]

Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party

#580

Post by srik »

VortexLain wrote: post #508
srik wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt they’ll go beyond the currently bundled Safari iCloud Private Relay, which I quite appreciate actually.

And which they disable in any country with significant internet censorship, where having a VPN actually matters.

I believe their motivation leans towards tackling advertising based exploitation.
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