Luminous5481 "Enemy of the State"
Privacyhttps://github.com/mullvad/mullvadvpn-app/issues/10682
I don’t have an opinion on whether Örebropartiet is fascist or not, honestly that might be giving them too much credit.
The party is really only known nationally for its front figure, Markus Allard – your typical anti establishment loudmouth that mostly attracts people that elsewhere would have been drawn to libertarian parties.
Allard is not politically stringent – he’s previously belonged to Vänsterpartiet (the Left) and his grandfather was a well known parliamentarian of Socialdemokraterna (social democrats). Allard, a self described Marxist, is best known for quasi intellectual rants about a ”transferiat”. Essentially it’s about how working people are leached on, not only by capitalists, but by unemployed, immigrants, civil servants and people in ”bullshit jobs” type of roles.
I don’t have an opinion on whether Örebropartiet is fascist or not
if you're espousing racist right-wing policies like remigration, and saying things like "Sweden is for Swedes", and blaming all your troubles on immigrants, then that makes you a fascist. ethnic cleaning is fascist shit. that's what he wants, to ethnically cleanse Sweden. if you "don't have an opinion on that", then you do have an opinion on it, one that supports fascism by sitting back and doing nothing in the face of it.
5 minutes ago I read about the Proton guy donating to fascists. Now I read about the Mullvad guy donating to fascists. There's nobody who makes VPNs who isn't a fascist?!
Maybe njalla
Why would they tell you?
Because "we aren't fascists" sounds like good advertising
Good advertising isn't announced by the kind of links posted to Lemmy.
A constant reminder that a person can be right about one thing and wrong about another.
And that who ultimately gets your money is important.
Or your vote; really shows the importance of options that reflects the nuance of opinions.
what is it with vpn ceos n being fascists
I think it comes with the being a ceo. Become a legal parasite, get a free fascism.
Lots of cluster b folks among CEOs
Yeah and they all have criminal skull shapes and malicious stellar houses
Yeah, it’s basically a requirement to be a CEO.
Is it, tho?
Also there is some large overlap in folks on the right and left that want/need to hide from some level of legal stuff (or at least adding some level of anonymity). Very unfortunate since the adblocking/malware blocking DNS they have is something I have on all my devices/browsers. Seems to work better for me than AdGuard's, but might give them another try (open to any recommendations for DNS providers with ad/malware blocks that people like). Real answer is that I need to finally setup a Pi Hole I guess.
Does anyone have recommendations for VPNs that are similar to Mullvad with no logging and servers that are RAM disk (and CEOs that are slightly less problematic atm if the article is true)? Mostly use VPN for torrents, with some uses for random times where I want to not have my real IP (normally when tor is just a brick wall of captchas or similar), or get around something being region locked.
While not a recommendation as I can't be sure of every CEOs takes and how they align to your values, I'd recommend giving VPS's a look.
There's plenty of guides out there to help you set one up, and you can be more confident with what's running on your system.
Could be worth a shot if you're having trouble locating a VPN you like.
They're not fascists. They are liberals - and like liberal elites throughout history, they are utterly incapable of defending their precious private property by themselves. That is what they need the hencherproletariat for - fascists.
Fascism does not beget fascism - liberalism begets fascism. The liberal economic order is popping rivets all over the place... so some of these elites are building bunkers in New Zealand, while others do what liberal elites have always done when their power and privilege is facing a threat from below - feeding growth hormone to the vilest and most violent elements of the working class - the hencherproletariat. That is why you see liberals like Trump, Musk and literally a "whose who" laundry list of liberal elites enabling fascists and inviting them into power structures - they are essentially holding auditions for Hitlers and Pinochets.
The word for someone that supports fascism is fascist
Not true at all. The liberal elite that funds fascist violence does not do so to become fascist themselves, but to remain a liberal elite when their power and privilege is threatened. By classifying all these liberal elites as "fascist," you are painting over the fundamental class divisions that separate the true working-class fascist from the true bourgeoisie liberal capitalist.
Are you sure you want to do that? Because if so, you will have to classify every liberal regime who funds instrumentalised fascist violence through the institution of police as "fascist..." and you might find yourself in very confusing territory because of that rather quickly.
You aren't going to win anyone over by being a cunt.
Which part of what I said triggered you, liberal?
I just wish we could have clear political terms that don't get co-opted in bad faith.
Feel free to explain what I "co-opted in bad faith..." as my text was specifically designed to be immune to co-optation either by liberals or fascists.
I wasn't casting aspersions, just lamenting the communication rift caused by how American politics uses the word liberal.
If it makes you feel any better it's not even close to being a US-only thing... that which is fundamentally oligarchic is fundamentally anti-democratic by design - yet you will find people who believe that they live in a (so-called) "liberal democracy" all over the world.
It doesn't 😄
Motherfucker... What is it with VPN providers and fascism? Are there any VPN providers that don't have fascist CEOs (or that don't sing praises about fascists) and have opensource clients?
Proton already has a CEO who likes Trump, so I don't trust it. I know of IVPN and Windscribe which have opensource VPNs. No idea about their bosses political leanings or donations.
Edit: I can't read Swedish, but I ran it through DeepL and it's not naming a source. Donations seem to be public but anonymised.
it’s not naming a source.
The Flame emailed Daniel Berntsson and he admitted that the donation was from him. The Flame is a newspaper that's over a hundred years old, I think that makes them somewhat reputable. and if it's not true, then we'll see a statement from Mullvad and probably a lawsuit, don't you agree?
I see. Alright, if he admitted it to them, then that's good enough for me. He might even make a public comment about it.
Means I have to move on from Mullvad.
well, I think speaking to a newspaper is a public comment. and judging from the Mullvad subreddit, there's a whole lot of people from Europe who don't think it's a controversial opinion at all. which doesn't really surprise me, considering the recent news from places like the UK with the race riots by white supremacists, fire bombings, and things like the growing popularity of the AfD in Germany.
they're doing the nazi thing again, just this time they're all doing it together. yet they'll still claim they're better than the US somehow, despite having popular political parties that very publicly support ethnic cleansing.
That's not a public comment. It's on the record, but it's not public. Public would be putting it up on his public blog, writing it on Xitter or other social media, and so on.
Anyway, for now, this is good enough for me to switch. I'm not going to knowingly fund fascist supporters.
Reminder that a lot of VPN providers resell mullvad. I think Mozilla is one.
Also if you're looking for commercial privacy software then you're going to rub some shoulders with.
First, Bitwarden. And now Mullvad. Those were like the only two “good” things left that I use. Great products that are led by not great people. Sigh.
for Bitwarden, a much better replacement is Vaultwarden. it's very easy to run yourself, or you can find other servers elsewhere run by people. best part about it is that since every client acts as a full backup, if a server shuts down then you can just transfer your data elsewhere with no issues.
I know someone who runs their own server, which is what I use.
Vaultwarden needs its own client, and soon. BW is absolutely going to stop allowing non-official servers at some point.
I'm out of the loop on Bitwarden. What happened there?
New CEO comes from private equity and it looks like he wants to run it as such.
Do you know if anything they're doing is going to affect Vaultwarden at all?
Vaultwarden is a fork, so BW can decide to cut them off anytime if they want to start charging everyone. There’s no indication of that happening yet, but that’s a possibility.
Vaultwarden isn't a fork. It is a completely independent implementation of the bitwarden api.
I stand corrected then. But the point still stands that BW can cut them off anytime.
Ah. Shit. So they'll drive me away all on their own then. Wonderful.
Got vibes from bitwarden that it would go down that road eventually so stayed on keepass , then use syncthing to sync it between devices
Wireguard is still solid tech so its just a matter of finding a different provider.
It’s not so much the tech, rather the provider. Mullvad has proven to be one of the best in the VPN space. There are only a few others who are transparent with their policies and provide evidence of it. I might try IVPN.
Wikipedia article on the party he donated to. Started off as a quasi-Marxist, became red fash seems to be the summation.
A ""Marxist"" party with fascist policies is a fascist party. Pure Nazbol shit!
::: spoiler Immigration and remigration policy quote
Markus Allard initiated heavy debate in 2025 by claiming that Sweden is "the land for/belongs to the Swedes" and that the Örebro party favors a large scale remigration policy. He also criticized the Sweden Democrats for, according to him, allowing too many immigrants into the country under their watch as confidence and supply to the Kristersson cabinet.
In 2026 ÖP party leader Markus Allard sparked controversy on several occasions. In a debate hosted by Studio3 with Liberal member of parliament Martin Melin, Allard asked: "why won't the Liberals push for deporting 100 000 social welfare-Somalis?" and in the same debate said that "Sweden belongs to the Swedes. We have to make sure that we take care of our own damn people and we must deport these damn parasites who sit and live at our expense." [45]
In a podcast segment about immigration and deportations Allard stated his opinion and said that "They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish." [46] :::
Mass deportation of 100,000's of thousands or millions of people seem pretty clear cut fascism. It looks like technically the donations were made right before those quotes, but I doubt that came out of nowhere suddenly starting in 2025 and if it was, then that's on the CEO to make a point to distance themself from the party and correct their mistake through meaningful actions.
Anyone has any decent anglophone sources on this yet?
Oh well. Get some money, start kicking down. Is that the model? Rather disappointing, I have to say.
keeping the poors at each others throats is the universal feature of the rich and elite. it's how they stay in power. if the people ever united together, then we would be unstoppable and they know it.
Wtf , so commercial vpns are dead to me now. What's the best option? a small cloudserver plus a proxy of some sort? Glad I got a way to pay anon with card already set up
I'm checking ivpn and so far, so good.
Same ole' Europe.
Is this the same company that makes the browser? Mull
no, but they do make a browser. mull was discontinued a couple years ago.
Ah fuck, are there any decent alternatives? I know no VPN CEO is going to be the most amazing person but can they at least be a meek liberal or something?
IVPN is the other cream of the crop alternative.
Idk man. Is there more concrete source than this? People talk shit all the time.
more concrete than a direct admission in an interview with the person in question by an established newspaper that's over a hundred years old?
Lol... surely you can do better than that
I get it. you really like Mullvad. it can be hard to overcome our biases. but your parasocial relationship with a corporation that doesn't know or care you exist isn't my problem to deal with. that's something you need to work through on your own.
I was being sarcastic hoemie.
ah, my bad. to be fair, that one was a little subtle.
"Five million kroner. That's how much money the populist Örebro Party received in 2025 – from a single person. This is shown by the party's income statement, which Flamman has read."
Without a link I guess I'll just trust that the reporter is telling the truth /s
I imagine the sarcasm is because you're one of the people who believe that Mullvad can do no wrong, but in case you're serious, here you go.
https://donation.watch/en/sweden/party/1152/donors
https://www.kammarkollegiet.se/vara-tjanster/insyn-i-partiers-finansiering/hitta-statistik-pa-redovisade-intakter/intaktsredovisningar-politiska-aktorer-2018-och-framat
Creditable articles present evidence.
Thanks for the links.
the article probably did not present evidence because political donations are public record in Sweden.
I don't see his name there. It just says "private donor" (but I don't speak Swedish).
he's the private donor. The Flame asked him over email and he admitted it. since The Flame is a reputable newspaper that's over a hundred years old, I'll take their word for it.
if it's a lie and he didn't admit that, then I'll gladly admit I was wrong when he files a defamation suit against them.
From the article OP linked to:
Behind the giant donation is Daniel Berntsson, founder and co-owner of the internationally successful IT company Mullvad.
“This is a donation from me personally,” he wrote in an email to Flamman.
