Mullvad does an excellent job, and I support them.
The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
651–660 of 1001 posts
Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
#652Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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Oh no how dare they
/s
Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
#653Earlier quoted context omitted.
An honest question: Would you like to live in a world where company/employer exerts more control over the views that are publicly expressed? Do you actually want voting to happen via wallet? This whole view kinda confounds me. I don't see how you can honestly profess to be on the tolerant/right side, morally, while trying to boycott someones business over his political views. Would you have preferred early feminists…
This is about what customers are comfortable supporting. This guy doesn't just have what many consider to be unpalatable political beliefs, he's one of the biggest funders of what many consider to be an unpalatable political party. Lots of people don't want to give money to something which they feel will in part be funneled to an organization which is antithetical to their views. Realistically, I kind of doubt Mullva…
I can absolutely respect the emotional argument.
The "irony" in supporting that party I believe is a stretch. I don't see how support for some neo-nationalists is inherently "anti-freedom"; would that not apply to any party arguing against open borders?
My personal belief is that professional discrimination because of political support is a very slippery slope, and I honestly think that a lot of people directly or indirectly advocating for it are not fully understanding of what this means and where that slope ends:
When asking about professional boycott for "questionable" past positions (like being gay in Turings time) I only get silence in response because people presumably realize that such witch-hunting often ends up looking really bad in retrospect.
edit: I just misunderstood your last point, completely agree.
Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
#654I 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 arou…
How does it physically prevent Mullvad from logging your data?
One option is to use Obscura, so then you at least spread the trust to two parties (one of which is Mullvad). Not great, but better.
Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
#655I get that this is in the news (or at least the nerd news), but really...do y'all canvass the companies you buy things from, figure out on net who the people who work for them support in politics, ask whether that's what you like, and move your business around based on that?
It seems crazy to me. Part and parcel of having a pluralistic society is that we treat each other the same in public-facing parts of life without regard for stuff like sex, political positions, etc.
You gonna refuse to accept mail from the postman who supports something you don't like? What about the ice cream shop?
Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
#656Nice to see some tech leadership with strong moral fibre. I'll definitely renew with mullvad too in the future.
Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
#657I understand Mullvad has historically been a leader in privacy among the big VPN options. What are some other equally affordable and user friendly options that you all have been satisfied with? Think for someone who saw Mullvad advertised during the Super Bowl but looking to leave because of this news.
I've been quite satisfied with AirVPN [0]. [0] https://airvpn.org/
+1 on AirVPN. They are amongst the handful of companies which successfully resisted the war on torrenting (targeting VPNs that allowed persistent ports) and still allow for port reservation.
Mullvad, like most other VPNs gave in in the end and removed port reservations.
Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
#658I’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.
He's not just the CEO, he's a co-owner... Meaning that the profits from the business acrue to him... and therefore enable this party. So, it's a question of "am I ok paying for this service, knowing that a portion of that money will flow to this political party and how do I feel about the results of that funding?"
How do you feel about providing value to Hacker News, a plattform made by Y Combinator funding several startups, many of them destroying our society and benefiting from mass surveillance? You can do this argument with every company.
Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
#659There have been multiple posts about this and hundreds of comments, so there is clearly appetite to discuss it, although none of the submitted links have been very detailed. I've merged the other threads into this one, so you'll see some anachronistic timestamps below.
The post linked has been removed, so I don't know what more we can speculate upon, 650+ comments in. It's strange to see HN mods allow this much attention to a political, and contentious issue.
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Re: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party
#660Hi, 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…
What you said makes sense, but what the founders do matters. I'll never buy a Tesla car because of Elon's actions. I cancelled my Amazon Prime subscription because of Bezos' actions.
There are plenty of people for whom it doesn't matter, but for some it does.