The IT company Mullvad’s founder Daniel Berntsson is behind a giant donation to the populist Örebro Party, which advocates “comprehensive re-immigration” from Sweden. “It’s sad that it’s needed,” he told Flamman.
~ https://www.flamman.se/techprofil-ger-miljoner-till-orebropartiet/
Shit. So proton vpn it is? Their ceo is also not amazing, I heard. But doesn’t sound as bad as this mullvad debacle
Proton has done some questionable things as well. The most recent is this.
AirVPN, IVPN, and/or cryptostorm
The first thing I found when searching for IVPN is that they’re based in Gibraltar.
That means British Law, meaning special information courts with court orders for mass trawling which they can’t divulge to the public if they receive one, worse than the US even because in the British version of those courts there are things like the defense lawyer not being able to be present for court hearings and never getting told if the court rules against them, only if the court ruled in their favor.
That’s almost as bad as choosing an Israeli-owned VPN.
I did use cryptostorm ages ago, but at least back then their speed was like 1Mb/s. Maybe they’re better now.
Somebody else pointed out that AirVPN is based in Italy, which is a member of the 14 eyes. No idea how nasty their surveillance laws are or not, though I doubt they’re as nasty as the UK.
dint proton also donated to the far right too.
He had some bad ideas, but hasn’t yet been caught financing fascism if i remember correctly
He talked up the Trump administration when he should have known better, but talking them up is not as extreme as funding them. I think. YMMV.
If you’re stupid enough to believe that tripe or cynical enough to spread it you’re on my shit list. He’s either complicit or an idiot, either way not someone I’m giving money
Besides financing fascist YouTube’s including a French fascist and the Brazilian son of a dictator who was one of the leaders of a fascist coup.
Besides those.
Oh for fucks sake is nothing sacred
So like you get a bunch of money and become evil.
I read iVPN is a good alternative to Mullvad
Man and i just renewed my subscription. Why do people always get their shit twisted in politics or whatever, its not like they need the money, donate it instead.
I HOPE this is fake. I find it hard to belive
I’m surprised that Sweden allows individuals to donate that much. Million dollar contributions from a single person should not be legal anywhere.
One thing they would, and have done, to avoid a single large donation is they spread it out among friends, family and organizations.
They’ve been putting up quite provocative ads in London past year. Comparing UK to third-world countries. Like literally putting up names. I mean they’re not wrong but you’re not gonna get any customers if you take a piss on their nationality you know. People don’t get to chose where they born.
Guess that logic won’t apply when you’re from world’s most privileged country.
Ps. Not gonna lie, even from an objective perspective this is an awful ad. Lazy and pretentious. Something would a 20yr angry kid would come up with this tbh.
Maybe it makes people realize they can push back against the decisions of politicians, it’s a democracy after all.
But this ad doesn’t shit on anyone it just compares what countries are doing not so good in regards to privacy and what UK is going to become
They didn’t “take a piss on” any nationality though. Their message is super clear.
They have a point, and I doubt they’d drive away their potential customer with this.
What’s up with every VPN company being facist right wing fucks?!
- Buying and selling security appeals to their mindset.
- There’s a lot of money in it, and the ultra rich favor the right.
*every executive
[Örebro Party leader] Allard has described himself as a Communist, and a Marxist
A self-described communist promoting right-wing ideas? Lemmy is quite familiar with that concept.
A lot of Hungarian far-right parties promoted workplace democracies being the future when they didn’t promote getting rid of democracy.
How can the national socialist party be right wing? They said they’re socialists!
/s fucking obviously I hope.
"Allard and his party have been described as a nationalist[6], left-wing populist and right-wing populist.[7] He has also been accused of being a communist.[6] Biography
From 2009 to 2013, Allard was chairman of the Young Left’s district organisation in Örebro. He worked for the election campaign of Oumar Mariko in Mali during the 2012 Malian coup d’état.[8][9] "
“In a post from 2012 Allard criticized the state of Israel and wrote that “Cuba is going to be placed under an embargo but the fascist apartheid state of Israel is defended until the last Palestinian child has been incinerated. Liberal politics.”[17] In 2025 he again referenced the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and wrote that he “does not give a shit” about Israel or Palestine and that he thinks it is wrong to kill children regardless of which side perpetuates it.[18]”
“The Örebro Party with Allard as its leader says it wants to cut the salary for politicians and use that money to make dental care free/subsidized by the money taken from the politicians salaries.[25] On the topic of lowering the work hours Allard, in 2026 in the municipal assembly, voted in favor of a proposal by the Left party to enable a 30 hour work week with retained salary for some welfare occupations such as preschool teachers and employees at care facilities as a trial project that would after two years be evaluated.[26]”
Huh what kind of adhd of an ideology is this lmao.
Def sounds like something would come up from up north. Disconnected and thinks they know what’s best for everyone (but themself first before anyone)
I’m sure they’ll find their great place within the eyes of whoever nutjub is going to be put in to the seat after trump.
Fuck this world man. Seriously. Idk what to say or think anymore.
Instead of a concrete ideology, it seems like a handful of unrelated policies strung together. Like he held no opinion on anything until he decided (via ADHD? Unclear) to. But only on very specific things. No broader ideology.
I’m basing that entirely on this comment thread so I don’t really know anything I guess.
Lemmy in shambles lol
Should a company owner’s politics affect reception of their product?
Customers choice. Within limits, product is more important than the owners politics.
Remember, a good way to destroy a superior product (that you don’t control) is to denigrate something not relevant so that users will change to a compromised product.
GB promoted Enigma in 3rd world countries after WW2 since it’s compromise was only commonly known in the 70s.
While the NSA is believed to have improved the security of DES, they are believed to have compromised Clipper.
Microsoft was just caught putting in a back door into their disk encryption.
The USA spreads FUD over Chinese routers, CPU when it is already known to be selling compromised Intel&AMD CPUs and compromised Cisco routers. The more important question is whether leaking your data to the USA or to the PRC has greater personal risk.
Yes? Because the money invested into the product is being reinvested into this hogwash.
What the fuck did I just see?? Mullvad after Proton… So sad… :(
Proton didn’t actually do anything like this, they agreed to an affiliate partnership with a youtuber without knowing the political context of his French-language videos, and then ended the partnership when they got complaints. I don’t think that’s the same.
That’s the second time proton messed up, the first time was unclear position from the CEO about trump and far right
Proton’s founder has praised Trump’s administration.
I’m happy to be corrected, but I thought they praised a specific decision by the Trump admin to appoint someone they think is the right person for the job (or at least someone who aligned with their interest of net privacy)? I know the current US admin sucks, but if the broken clock is right for a minute, then acknowledging it is ok, right?
Wait… WAS that Tim Cook?
Checking…
Correct. People just parrot this with no desire to dig just a little deeper.
No, it was not just that—also the Republican Party as a whole:
Proton CEO Andy Yen praised the Republican Party in a post on X, declaring that “10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned.” When the tweet went viral, Proton’s official Reddit account posted a now-deleted comment stating that “Until corporate Dems are thrown out, the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.”
Not only is it flat out wrong but it is also laughably so.
Oh shit that’s wild. It’s like they didn’t see all the tech folks lining up to kiss the ring. And all the Republicans passing ID laws (tho in this issue Dems aren’t really fighting back)
The wiki for the Örebro Party actually describes it as not identifiable as left or right and the founder was actually far left. It also advocates for things like free dental care and anti-corruption. So things aren’t as simple as purely anti-immigration which is very populist in Sweden.
The initiative to found the Örebro Party was taken in early 2014 by Markus Allard, who is also the first party leader. Allard had previously held positions as substitute member of the Örebro municipal council and district chairman of the Young Left in Örebro; in December 2013 he was expelled from the Left Party and its youth wing Young Left for “liking” the Revolutionary Front, a militant revolutionary socialist and anti-fascist organization, on Facebook and refusing to disavow it when questioned.
It’s basically orthodox leftism. Leftist governments were historically against immigration because of domestic labor laws. Liberals like to paint anything other than utter globalization “fascist”.
And no, nazis didn’t choose the “national socialism” because they believed in “socialism but national version”, they were anti-communist:
Socialism’, he retorted, putting down his cup of tea, ‘is the science of dealing with the common weal [health or well-being]. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists.
‘Socialism is an ancient Aryan, Germanic institution. Our German ancestors held certain lands in common. They cultivated the idea of the common weal. Marxism has no right to disguise itself as socialism. Socialism, unlike Marxism, does not repudiate private property. Unlike Marxism, it involves no negation of personality and, unlike Marxism, it is patriotic.
‘We might have called ourselves the Liberal Party. We chose to call ourselves the National Socialists. We are not internationalists. Our Socialism is national. We demand the fulfilment of the just claims of the productive classes by the State on the basis of race solidarity. To us, State and race are one…
So basically they grifted on the name “socialism” to appease to workers, and redefined it as “national capitalism based on race”.
Oh cmon! I trusted 'em to not shit in their pants, what next? We discover that Torvalds and Stallman are transphobic?
My original comment was ironic but having a confirm that his political ideas are not bullshit is nice
TIL kernel.org has a Mastodon instance.
deleted by creator
Speaking as someone who does some work for Stallman, although he is right 99% of the time, that last 1% is a doozy
The five million from Berntsson make up the majority – as much as 72 percent – of the Örebro Party’s income last year. It is also the largest single private donation to a party in 2025.
The money also seems to have been the triggering factor for the party’s decision to stand in the parliamentary elections.
(machine translation)
Fuck them. Not sure who to go with now. Paying monthly and not needing to remember to cancel were the main reason I used them.
Also, it seems safer to assume that all tech companies are rotten until proven otherwise.
https://www.vpnscorecard.com/ seems like a good place to check for alternatives although it doesn’t go into the politics of the company mostly. Still, their top scorer https://www.ivpn.net/ seems like a good bet.
That’s a decent link, thanks. Unfortunately Mullvad get a good score there too. As you say, the shady extracurricular stuff is missing.
AirVPN
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
This is fucking disgusting and extremely fucking dangerous. Nazi parties spread like a virus. One day they are completely underground, next time you look they are a major force in the parliament.
Mullvad literally grabbing them from the rock bottom where they belong and bringing them into light is unforgivable.
I’m from Poland and we have a huge problem with these parasite parties. They managed to shift the Overton Window so far into the right that the libertarians are literally on the left and the socdems are the extremely far left.
FUCK, THAT MEANS I GOTTA GET RID OF MULLVAD VPN!
Any FOSS VPNs on F-Droid I should consider?
You shouldn’t use a VPN provider that doesn’t let you use Wireguard. If they require you to use their own client, they’re either up to no good or just dumb and shouldn’t be in this business to begin with.
