Daniel Berntsson, founder of Mullvad, gave a personal donation of 5 million SEK (roughly 450,000€) in 2025 to Örebropartiet. This enormous donation accounted for 72% of the party’s revenue in 2025.
How does this affect Mullvad’s legitimacy as a company advocating for a free and open internet, while also funding a political party whose agenda seem to contradict these values? The official party website (in Swedish) can be found via the link below.
Av vänstern anklagas vi för att vara fascister och av högern anklagas vi för kommunism
Accused of being fascists from the political left and communist from the political right…not exactly a reassuring description IMO.
Well, the political right calls anyone to the left of Mussolini a communist, so we can safely assume they’re wrong here.
So nobody can agree if they’re far-left or far-right, but everyone agrees they’re far-authoritarian?
Seems like it yeah
So, they’re socialists, only national?
Accused of being Nationalist from the left and being Socialist from the right. What a novel idea. A nEw PoLiTiCaL tHiRd WaY!
Dang, Mullvad instantly loses its credibility of the go to lemmy shill VPN overnight.
Apparently they’ve now posted a response:
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.
In context, this seems…tone-deaf. “It’s okay! Immigrants are welcome to work for Mullvad even if the founders “dislike” them.” Yikes.
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.
I would argue that those three things aren’t even all on the same level, and that’s without even addressing the fucking fascism of ‘re-migration’ policies.
That said, if you no longer want to be a Mullvad customer for philosophical reasons, we think it’s important to honor that, and will gladly refund you.
Unless you were smart enough to pay anonymously, in which case you’re welcome to doxx yourself, I guess.
I use Kaspersky VPN, from Russia, part of BRICS. The Global South lives on its own work, unlike the Global North, who kills and robs the Global South.
I remember all the FUD about their anti-virus back in the day, even though it consistently tested the best. I didn’t know they had a VPN. I’ll have to look into it.
Edit: website says “purchase is unavailable for US customers”. I’m sure that’s the US government’s doing and not their own choice, if I had to guess.
Here in Brazil I could buy it, although I could not download it not from the Play Store. I downloaded an APK from the website. It is also available on Galaxy Store, Huawei App Gallery, Xiaomi GetApps, and even the Apple App Store! It seems Google interprets the sanctions more harshly than necessary.
Google doing the CIA’s bidding as per usual. I’m glad it’s an option for people outside the US.
So instead of American or European spyware, you instead use Russian spyware :)
Living in America, I’d rather give my data to Russia or China, if I lived in one of those countries, it would be the other way around. The US and Europe have more leverage over my life, so I’d rather give them less about myself.
One downside is that if a western country ends up capturing someone or something important (like France arresting the Telegram CEO), then they might use them as leverage to attain the data on the service. So best case is nobody collects the data.
100% agree. I’m trying to keep everything self-hosted, and j think I’ve made very good progress, but reaching total sovereignty is very hard. I’m guessing it’ll be way easier once I retire and dont6really need to rely on some of the imposed shit anymore.
I’ll give you that, what you’re saying makes sense, but in an ideal world, we don’t have to give our data to any government… only in our dreams though…
Yeah, it’s unhinged across the board, for sure. I’m doing what I can to own my data and control as much of it as possible, but it is a full time chore if I also want to have a life in this time and age.
On the brighter side, that has led to me spending more time with family and friends in person, outside (hoping not to be recorded 🤣).
Why do you day “any government”? Your phrasing exempts corporations.
I mean, moderates are invariably SuperHitler, especially in Scandinavia where their social welfare is synonymous with creating apartheid, but I don’t see why that would bother most Lemmy users :0
Im sorry, but people here in the comments seem to be complaining to complain. If both Mullvad and Proton are known to fund/support fascist parties, then what do you suggest we leftists use? And dont just blindly recommend eastern spyware VPNs either. Maybe we just go back to distributing newspapers and using radio, just like our comrades back then did
Anyone have experience with iVPN? I’ve generally heard it’s good, but I’m not sure how it compares. Looks like it’s the same price as Mullvad at least, and also accepts cash and monero as payment options. I’m just wondering about how many servers they have comparable and how often they got blocked by major websites. I’m thinking that’ll probably be what I switch to, unless it has some major problems I’m not aware of.
I is… okay if you’re doing piracy or trying to watch foreign media. It will keep the eyes of your isp off you but hasn’t been under the extensive scrutiny that mullvad has (which is why it can be used for such a broad set of goals imo).
When I used it I ended up having to switch servers frequently, that was about three years ago though.
Seems like they have far fewer servers than Mullvad does, but at least they state who they’re hosted with and it looks like they do have a multi-hop setup like Mullvad does. They undergo annual audits so I’m not seeing any major security red flags. I frankly would have stuck with Mullvad had they not pulled this shit, but I won’t be made a hypocrite over this.
If you get spooked, don’t worry about being made a hypocrite. Your security is worth more than your moral purity.
And dont just blindly recommend eastern spyware VPNs either
Do these even exist? Who gives a shit if the PRC spies on me? I’d happily use a North Korean VPN if they had IPs that weren’t geoblocked.
Bruh Proton never gave money to fascist parties. In fact, if you look at their donations, they’re all left wing.
They may be talking about the CEO being on Trump’s dick, though that’s just a guess.
Yeah Andy Yen was specifically talking about Gail Slater’s antitrust support while the democrats had ties to corporate lobbies and voted on the wrong side of things. He apologized for appearing to be republican.
If you look at proton’s finances they all donate towards left organizations, promoting freedom and privacy, even donating to a liberal news organization.
I’m sick and tired of all these people bashing on proton because of one tweet that was taken out of context.
Bash on Proton for not being open source enough but don’t bash on them for this same tweet over and over again.
Proton voiced support for Trump
A VPN does not protect the user from the type of sophisticated mass-surveillance that exists now and will only become increasingly more sophisticated without political critique. Users who are confused about the criticism of a capitalist-company when its benefactors are known to further entrench a beneficial political-ideology are simpletons who do not grasp the relationship between the Western-democracies and its political mass-surveillance organs that go on to spawn the private-surveillance companies that do get public critique (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Palantir, et al.).
No, a VPN is not better than nothing. Do more. Do better. Adopt real solutions like GNUnet. Liberate your computers with free software.
inb4 simpletons just want to use a VPN to watch mah netflix. Ok boomer.
Mentions GNU
Condescending asshole about it
You wouldn’t believe it
Yes. I am just tired, comrade. Once can argue about the tone, but the reality is there needs to be a rectification on computer-education on a scale that only a government can enact. I can not do it. I can just rebuke.
Juvenile views do need to be rebuked. If you believe you can regain a portion of control back via payment to an entity, whilst still living in ignorance of the substrate you wish to increase control over you are a moron. You are merely paying for a belief.
I can not understand the user’s insistence on ignorance. All the users here are aware, to differing degrees, of the abuses that are inflicted on them due to this ignorance, yet there is a crowd who adamantly refuse to use their eyes; they wish merely to do the same things they were doing before, with no change in their own behaviors. They will continue to be abused.
I think the reality is they have no interest in the topic.
Wao, you apparently know what ‘substrate’ means. You must be a genius. Such a condescending prick.
A VPN has its place in the security stack that should be everyone’s goal. I would genuinely be impressed if you could tell me how a VPN or any other layer in that stack works.
So, anyone that doesn’t have the technical expertise to start moving to a more private online experience is a simpleton. Thanks for clearing that up for all of us simpletons. GNUnet is nowhere near ready to even begin to be a part of anyone’s digital life, ansd the developers say so themselves:
Please be aware that this project is still in an early alpha stage when it comes to running software – its not an easy task to rewrite the whole Internet!
While it’s great to put the word out hoping that more people gets involved, vexing others has the opposite outcome.
All this to say, fuck you, get off of your high horse.
gnunet
you misspelled yggdrasil
disgusting? yes
surprising? no
libertarians and borderline-criminals have always shared the privacy space with anti-capitalist lefties, since before the Bolsheviks bulk-ordered their red shirts.
I’ve been too lazy to renew my Mullvad subscription, and now I have another reason not to
Never had these issues with Njalla (run by Pirate Party affiliated people)
This is a recurring issue with Proton and Mullvad
Regardless of what this dumb party is, it’s first and foremost a donation by a private person. Who happens to run Mullvad. So in the medium term this should have no bearing on the company and how it operates from their point of view. The article hints at disagreement on the board about many things. So if this news story turns into subscribers leaving by the thousands, I would sooner think the “generous” donor might be pushed or bought out.
The tech sector is run by people too. Some of them are mad. Our modern outrage economy demands drastic and public knee jerk reactions to be on the good side. If you’re considering leaving Mullvad, voice your concerns to them first. Put pressure on and wait and see for a bit. If they all turn out to be Nazis in trenchcoats, by all means leave. But they could correct this internally (push out/buyout) and then there is no need to destroy an otherwise okay VPN provider just because one of the founders turned into meatball Melon Usk.
I don’t use Mullvad but I have used Proton VPN and am now using AirVPN. It’s my experience that if you’re using VPN to stream Netflix content or the iPlayer from the UK, you’ll be equally sol on other providers because the streamers have gotten better at spotting and defending against VPNs. So switching in a huff may still leave you disappointed as well.
Stop streaming. Put your VPN to work the right way.
Well I’m not going to stop using it until i’ve seen another VPN get raided and verified to not hand out my data.
Shit sucks but I’m not aware of any other VPN that doesn’t have accounts, and let’s you pay without a credit card.
Private Alpes is a bulletproof hosting provider in Switzerland, where Mullvad has also rented its Swiss infrastructure.
So, now everyone’s going to hate Mullvad like they do Proton bc of personal decisions by the CEO??
I think you should all be less trusting of western tech companies that strictly use infrastructure in countries that the CIA would feel comfortable hanging out & torturing people to death in
Is this not itself a geopolitical statement? Do we judge everything by indidual choices, or acknowledge the place of individuals in a wider structure they may not be entirely aware of?
You add up all we know about 5/14 eyes, comprador states, you couldn’t get a better list of CIA-compatible nations than the Mullvad server picker
Let’s just stop for a second. Cyprus? Israel? Ukraine? I know the justification. But cmon
“Voting with your wallet” in this circumstance, to the extent it has any effect at all, will only hurt you and other privacy conscious people.
No ethical consumption under capitalism, etc.
Okay.
Let me know when it affects the service.
A company that you trust with your privacy (one aspect) has been caught in league with mass surveillance loving fascists? Yeah I am sure that those are a perfect mix and it won’t lead to mass surveillance of its users like the dozens of VPNs now under Israeli mass - surveillance - fascist control.
It is just a complete coincidence that the people pushing more and more mass surveillance are buying up (and in this case winning over the controlling part of) the ways for normal people to avoid mass surveillance.
Neat.
Who made the device you’re posting on?
Must be kewl to not care like you
