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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

#112
post #25

Any of the Swedes in here can corroborate the claims in the article about this right wing group? Especially about the extreme anti-immigration statements and put that in full translation and context? Also what this group leader has done in Örebro to contextualize this quote > ”I hope they will do similar things on the national level as in Örebro”, writes Daniel Berntsson to Flamman.

The claims in the social media post is pure bullshit. The party is a tiny (read: one person elected) radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists. They have gained popularity for pointing out wasteful use of Örebro's municipalities resources, and their leader's fondness of lengthy ridiculing other parties politicians in lengthy debates, that he often publish on Instagram and YouTube.

> read: one person elected

No, they have 8 people elected: 3 in the region, 5 in the municipality.

They got 4,46 % of the votes in the region, and 7,92 % in the municipality. And who knows, maybe they'll use that 5 million SEK to get more seats in this years election.

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

#113
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to speak for European countries. Never lived there, and I think people living there should be responsible for deciding how they navigate such issues. In the USA, where I live, there is not much of an ethical or cultural defense to prevent immigration. The dominant culture, white people, are themselves immigrants. To deny others the right to live and work here is selfish at best. If some people are allowe…

Legal immigration to the US for an every day person is nearly impossible. You can’t just decide one day that you will move to the US and try to make a life there. European countries are orders of magnitude more open than the US.

I agree, legal immigration is much too difficult and I think that's awful!

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

#114
post #101

[flagged]

[flagged]

Yes, some immigration is good. That doesn't mean all immigration is good. Are you willing to identify positive traits and limit immigration to those with those traits? Or do you balk at being selective? The defense of immigration always treats immigrants as one undifferentiated lump. But this is just the lumping fallacy.

>The "homogenous countries" started 2 world wars, one of them to "preserve their culture, ethnicities, identities". Would this not support the worldview that immigration has net benefits?

Oversimplification to the point of bad faith

>Also, can you explain how ethnic cleansing preserves culture and identities?

Obviously a disingenuous question

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

#115

What's going on? Proton faced a similar scandal recently. I think in their case sponsored a video by a far right vlogger. After that I saw people recommending Mullvad as an alternative.

Tweet from Proton's CEO last year: "10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned."

He repeatedly said his statement was politically neutral.

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

#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 to comment on this thread, or email our customer support.

See below for the response you'll get from support:

-----

Mullvad is a political company. We fight for freedom of speech, freedom of information and the right to privacy. These are firmly held values of the founders of Mullvad.

Mullvad protects the right for people to express things we don't agree with. We protect the right of everyone to access views we don't agree with.

We also live these values by being tolerant in our daily work. Everyone is welcome to collaborate with Mullvad if they share these narrow core values. As employees, contractors, customers, suppliers, lobbyists, campaign partners or whatever it might be. No matter what their other opinions are and no matter whether the founders or anyone else in Mullvad dislike them. The founders themselves fundamentally disagree on several important issues.

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.

The more people do this, the better a place the world will be.

It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission, in the same way that someone's opinions on animal rights, taxes or public healthcare policy isn't.

That said, if you no longer want to be a Mullvad customer for philosophical reasons, we think it's important to honor that. In that case, reach out to support.

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

#119
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…

Hello Fredrik! As a heavy user of Mullvad in the past, easily spending hundreds of euros over the years, I was reserving my judgement to see what the official statement on this would be. Thank you, now I have my answer.

> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission.

It should be obvious that what people are concerned is their money being used to support these political causes, whether it was done in a way that keeps the company out of it or not is besides the point. Daniel, of course, is free to choose what to do with his money. I am, too, and based on this I will be making a choice to not spend any more money on Mullvad subscriptions. Nothing personal, and it's a shame because I have nothing but praise for the technical side of it. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

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

#120
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…

Hi Fredrik, long time user of your service.

I have to say, this is a disappointing message. The thing about intolerant movements is that tolerance doesn't fix them, it makes them worse and lets them accumulate power until they can destroy the tolerant.

I'd recommend reading Karl Popper and his Paradox of Tolerance, which he formulated after seeing this exact thing play out in his native Austria with the rise of the Nazis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

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