Swedish VPN vendor Mullvad is facing a backlash from some customers after co-founder Daniel Berntsson personally donated SEK 5 million (£385,000, $519,000) to the controversial populist Örebropartiet, which is running in Sweden’s national elections for the first time.
Berntsson has this week published a blog post explaining the donation, alongside posts titled “Immigration,” “Political individualism,” and “Moral individualism.” Before that, he had not posted since 2019.
The flurry of posts follows weeks of customer criticism over the donation – for example, Finnish blog Moonwriting’s post “I’m done with Mullvad.” Another blog, Unutterable, is more direct: “Mullvad funding the far-right and the problem with tech company ownership.” The Hacker News discussion thread about the donations has reached a remarkable 1,784 comments so far.
Mullvad was co-founded and is still jointly owned and run by two CEOs, Berntsson and Fredrik Strömberg. Its name, as reflected in the company’s logo, is Swedish for “mole.” It also offers the Mullvad Browser, a privacy-enhanced fork of Firefox ESR co-developed with the Tor Project. Swedish socialist newspaper Flamman (“The Flame”) revealed the donation in its story “High-profile techie gives millions to the Örebro Party.”
In a post on X, the company said it was devoted to freedom of speech and tolerance, saying: “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.”
If they are rich they are almost always a right wing asshole. Why would anyone be surprised by this?
Wealth needs limits
I always say there should be a hard cutoff at a million a year and you should be taxed 100% at anything over that.
Yeah, literally 99.999% of products you buy in 2026 fund right wing fascism, and most of it you can’t escape because they own the entire supply chain.
Ain’t capitalism fun?
It really is a matter of degree, though. Even fancy perfume has horse piss in it. It doesn’t mean you might as well wallow in the pigpen.
Per his blog he’s a “libertarian anarchist”.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Örebro party advocates for “remigration” which is an alt right term for mass deportation or ethnic cleansing. The article is a bit obtuse on this. Basically this means crimes against humanity because it would mean detention centers or concentration camps and insane cruelty. Unfortunately this needs to become the end of Mullvad.
None of this is really surprising though, backlash is to be expected. Most people in most countries are against mass immigration, which does not make one a fascist. Sweden is now 8.1% Muslim which is a lot to ask of people. Since 1990 it rose from <1% and still seems to be rising. Most are not actually practicing Islam though, only like 25% or so according to the numbers on wikipedia. Which also has been my anecdotal experience in my country.
The issue is that the large parties do not budge on the neoliberal idea of immigration, to fuel economic growth and depressing wages. So only extremists or fringe parties remain to be voted on. Some people simply feel very strongly about “this is our land”. And in most countries this is completely different than the mostly empty / very low population density USA which is traditionally an immigration country. It is not just a question of ideology. People have a right to feel less than holy thoughts about preserving their homeland. My point is that ignoring these feelings is irresponsible politics. Especially in times of looming economic decline and coming mass refugees from climate change.
Of course, Örebro is not acceptable because it advocates fascist policies and should be outlawed and all supporters shunned.
I agree that the feeling should be addressed but I don’t think immigration should be treated at all like the watering down of the political identity. Immigrants come to other countries, in part, to seek a better life. They become just as nationalist as anyone if given a country who cares for them and is worthy of being prideful about.
In Germany, the CDU and Merz work to strip Germans of their culture when they attack public healthcare or enforce working on Sundays. They would and will reduce vacation time, make trains worse, and deregulate the things that make Germany Germany the longer they’re in power. Culture is something that is generated when the common person is wealthy and influential to their community, not just the millionaires. Especially not the millionaires like Merz who are selling our home and our quality of life nickle by nickel.
What VPN do lemmy users recommend? Mullvad founder is funding right wing politics. Proton ceo is praising Trump. PIA has deep ties to Israeli intelligence.
I like Proton, but that seems to be controversial these days.
IVPN
Im still happy with my proton vpn. I mainly use the CLI on Linux and it works well and is fast. Might be an inpopular advice on Lemmy / Fediverse, but im still happy with Proton
Try tunnel bear perhaps?
Switched to IVPN, but might make another switch to NymVPN: https://f-droid.org/packages/net.nymtech.nymvpn
I switched to NymVPN from Mullvad, and I honestly don’t notice a difference in speeds or connectivity
I’m quite happy
“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.”
The part being unsaid here is “that Daniel’s private donation to a political party is NOT INCOMPATIBLE WITH Mullvad’s values or mission” (pardon the double negative)
That’s what I have issue with. They’re saying Daniel’s own personal purpose/mission (the donation being an expression of that) is compatible with their mission, or at minimum does not conflict.
What does “freedom of speech” have to do with expression of Mullvad employees? Mullvad isn’t a government. Free speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences. If Daniel’s own personal mission/purpose is incompatible with Mullvad’s, severing their relationship with him would be appropriate and not a violation of his freedom of speech. Of course, this goes back to, it’s not incompatible.
The “tolerance” bit, Daniel’s own personal mission/purpose as expressed by his donation is inherently inhumanely intolerant. Again, Mullvad is indirectly stating that intolerance is not incompatible with their mission/purpose, which makes the “tolerance” bit a contradiction. They might as well have people working for them that believe you have zero right to privacy.
Also his donation is presumably either somewhat or entirely enabled by mullvad so voting with your dollar is about the only way to express dissatisfaction.
I have already quit my subscription. Haven’t taken the time to find an alternative yet. I’m stocked up on media for the time being.
fwiw - Windscribe (based in Canada) has been working well for me, and they are fully open source - https://windscribe.com/
There’s no equally good VPN company, by a wide margin.
This guy’s a rich “libertarian anarchist” who donated to the new party of a marxist he followed because he wants lower taxes and less immigration.
I don’t really even know what to make of that. Unlike the Proton guy who slobbered on the demented rapist’s bunghole, which I knew exactly what to make of it.
He’s a fascist painted with a faded red star, but even the Nazi flag used a bit of red. For the well informed, it’s actually a classic.
Rage bait title. Really feel like this is over reaching. If you stop using goods and services entirely funding things you disagree with the world would stop turning. I’m in full agreement of not funding bad things and companies who do bad stuff. Mull seems to be one of the only main fighting bastions left for good service and privacy. Not losing a customer here. Perhaps there is closed door reasons we don’t understand. Who knows. I paid for the service to function as intended, and it does.
Edit: They took the word Millions and put it first to induce a reaction. Like many titles on the internet this is poor practice. But it drives clicks and traffic.
Just to be clear, you’re saying you’re OK with potentially helping to establish a far right government in Sweden?
Sorry if I’m being blunt but this is essentially the case, no?
No. I am saying I’m paying for a service that hits above all other services in value and properties which I think are important for privacy, free speech, internet access, cost, and quality of service rendered. Mullvad offers and proves that their service functions as intended. They stay or try to stay ahead of the curve of laws, privacy eroding tactics, AI, etc. I do not support the private funding of negativity in any kind or oppression. But the service itself is better than many others I’ve tried. Court and agency tested no logs. Long standing track record of being truthful and reliable to their customers in regards to their needs. I still believe their service is quality outside of what a single person does involved in the business, like there aren’t many people surely working hard to make a good product at Mull. Their CEO or whoever donated. Is not the sole owner and operator. I paid for the service, and don’t plan on stopping. If things get worse or they start becoming full blown Nazis then things will change. For now I see benefit of the doubt.
He isn’t just the CEO. He’s the owner of the company. Your money is directly funding far right populism.
Using mullvad through Tailscale…
