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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

#981

Post by OkayPhysicist »

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #655

I 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 withou…

This guy isn't just the CEO (someone who "works for them"), it's a cofounder with 50% ownership. Personally, I avoid buying anything from the KKK bake sale.

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

#982

Post by fastball »

miyoji wrote: post #974
fastball wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you figure?

Do you typically start companies that are opposed to your values, or do you start companies that align with your values? If you are the co-CEO of a company, will you push it to align more with your values, or less? This isn't a company founded 300 years ago by a long-dead evil man in a business vertical completely unrelated to how it started, it's a baby company with the evil founder still actively involved at the hi…

Two things:

1. People definitely start companies with a certain set of values and behaviors (as a company) and do entirely separate things in their private life. This is trivially true.

2. I don't think the personal values and the business mission in this case are even in conflict. You can be a racist and support free speech / privacy. Indeed, I'd actually say the venn diagram of "racists" and "people who vociferously espouse free speech ideals" is more union than it is disjoint.

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

#983

Post by spockz »

cedws wrote: post #800
spockz wrote: post #298

Is it so hard to imagine that someone willing to take such a principled stance on privacy that they start a company to provide a privacy focused vpn company that they also hold other extreme views? It takes a certain kind of personality to become a founder especially more do for such a strongly principled company and adhere to it.

Can it really be called "extreme" anymore? Europe is swinging strongly towards being anti-migration at the moment. Other parts of the world like Japan are also going through such swings. Many countries never opened their borders to begin with. This political party sounds like it's closer to the average than people would like to admit.

I was mostly going by the “far-right” classification in the title. If indeed the whole spectrum has switched it will be less extreme when viewed from within the spectrum.

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

#984

Post by chlorion »

animuchan wrote: post #954
kfreds wrote: post #570

Earlier 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…

I wonder if by this thread's logic, it is now my turn to virtue signal as if I'm leaving Mullvad as a customer, because now you said that don't like someone else's freedom of conscience, and I value freedom of conscience. Such a bad place we're in: people say they value "freedom", but then you can't choose you own political representation without being witch-hunted to death by the same "freedom" group. (I honestly th…

I don't think you understand what these people view as "freedom".

This isn't a simple difference in political beliefs, they believe that certain groups of people are basically subhuman and don't deserve basic human rights.

How can you support that?

It seems there are a lot of far-right extremest trolls/psychopaths on hacker news. What a disgrace.

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

#985

Post by pidgeon_lover »

I will be buying a Mullvad subscription because of this. Keep up the good work! Private individuals should have the right to free speech/expression, whatever that is, and that is a value I admire this VPN company for standing up for.

Too many companies pay lip service to the current political fad du jour, and it's annoying. I like an apolitical company that does its thing and doesn't pretend more.

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

#986

Post by sergiogjr »

I thought people were paying for Mullvad for a service. "Oh, my money is going to fund a political party I disagree with". You pay for a service, and thinking you now have a say on how the service provider decides to use the money they've received is such hubris. "But instead of using the money I gave the company to buy healthy food for his kids, he chose to buy processed food. I'm out." It's sad, almost immature.

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

#987

Post by pgug »

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…

I am really frustrated about that donation. I am an LGBT person, and I fear that a service I have paid for for many years will found someone who wants all my human rights gone. That I am supporting someone who just wants me to stop existing. I am not sure what VPN provider I could use that is even half as trustworthy as mullvad and I am not sure what to do.

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

#988

Post by drcongo »

rvz wrote: post #313

Still waiting to cancel Big Tech for donating to Trump [0] and they donated more than a million+. So why haven't we cancelled Big Tech yet? [0] https://www.commoncause.org/articles/big-tech-is-donating-mi...

I wonder if it's because "we" are not an amorphous hive mind thinking face emoji

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

#989

Post by tored »

iamnothere wrote: post #801
mjburgess wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the relationship between race and immigration status? It's not entirely clear what the argument which unites them is supposed to be. This unification is always in the mind of the white matry not the person opposing immigration. In the UK polish immigration was opposed, en mass, poles are white. SUPPOSE there are large numbers of poorly assimilated people in a country, whose culture of origin is very different…

It is strange, because this party’s platform seems to mirror the positions of the blackest Swede I know (Malcolm Kyeyune, a Marxist writer who is also often accused of being a right-winger). I suspect that the divisions in Sweden are much deeper than race.

Not that strange, Malcolm Kyeyune is a member of the Örebro Party, and he’s had a podcast together with the party leader, Markus Allard, since 2015.

https://poddtoppen.se/podcast/985799618/markus-och-malcom

Kyeyune was one of the members - along with Allard - who were kicked out of the Left Party’s youth organization in 2014 for supporting the Revolutionary Front.

One thing to remember in Swedish politics is that the old idea of the Folkhemmet ("the Home of the People") is always lurking in the background: a political mix of conservatism and socialism - Sweden as a home for Swedes, but also an egalitarian home. Some view, both on the left and the right, Folkhemmet as peak Sweden.

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

#990

Post by FlyingCapybara »

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…

Whatever what you say and so, it doesn't change the fact a part of my money is going to end up in an absolutely disgusting political party and other potentially terrible stuff. After so many years, I'm done with Mullvad.
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