this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2026
371 points (97.4% liked)

Technology

86503 readers
4163 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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."

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] WesternInfidels@feddit.online 15 points 1 hour ago

It should be obvious that [founder's] private donation to a political party is not part of [his company's] values or mission

Riiiiiiiiiight, because it always shakes out like that

[–] godsammitdam@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Since there are always people who, purposely or not, misrepresent what's going on here and I've hashed it out in other threads I'll paste it here as well as some links to share alternatives. Like, how do I see upvotes on a comment saying it's a marxist far left party? The National Socialists also promised homes and dental and everything good for the Aryan race once they ethnically cleansed the rest. They certainly weren't any kind of left wing.

Sorry for the wall of text, copying and pasting from some of my other comments, I'll bold the main points to create the throughline:

What, by definition, constitutes fascism?

Merriam Webster

often Fascism : a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition

At the core of fascism is loyalty to tribe, ethnic identity, religion, tradition, or, in a word, nation. —Jason Stanley

Just to make sure we're not looking at a singular definition, let's look at Wikipedia too

Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/ FASH-iz-əm) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement that rose to prominence in early-20th-century Europe.[1][2][3] Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.[3][4] Opposed to communism, democracy, liberalism, pluralism, and socialism,[5][6] fascism is at the far-right of the traditional left–right spectrum.[1][6][7]

And now, let's look at what the Örebro party's own stated platform, which received 72% of its funding from the Mullvad founder, which also amounted to 27 times their total funding in 2024, and has directly led to them stating that with this funding they can field candidates whereby they couldn't previously:

Some of its key issues include strong secularism, a 30-hour workweek with retained pay, lowered wages for politicians, ending taxes on energy and fuel, ending taxpayer funding of what it sees as wasteful sculptures, monuments and art, large-scale remigration, expanded social housing, a stricter assimilation policy, and free dental care.[3][4]

https://www.friatider.se/markus-allard-om-andra-generationens-invandrare-de-ska-ocksa-ut

Örebro Party leader Markus Allard goes to the election on expulsions. He opens to withdraw citizenship and also expel second generation of immigrants – even if they were born in Sweden. "I'm prepared to cross corpses," he said.

One suggestion that he has is that citizenship and permanent residence permits can be torn up – with reference to "Sweden is the country of Swedes".

In a section of Yoshi's Podcast, Allard develops his view on expulsions and explains that he prepared to "go over corpses" to bring home unwanted immigrants. The host notes that there will be no beautiful sight when, for example, immigrant mothers who have been on maternity leave for 15 years are to be deported together with their children. "It's not going to be pretty to send these people home," he said. Markus Allard agrees, but says: I think you can handle that optics. Even the children will need to be deported, he explains.

He further explains that many of the problems relate to second-generation immigrants. They are going out too. Even if they were born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedes. They have not become Swedes. It says Sweden in the passport, but they have not been interested in becoming part of Sweden. There's a difference. It's a qualitative difference," Allard said

And what's remigration?

Remigration is a far-right concept referring to the ethnic cleansing[1] via mass deportation of non-white minority populations, especially immigrants and sometimes including native-born citizens, to their place of racial ancestry.[2][3]

So fascism is about racial and national purity and hierarchy, as we defined, and the Orebro party supports remigration, which is a concept of forcing immigrants out of countries to preserve the purity of "culture" and the race of the nation.

"Sweden is for the Swedes"

"Israel is for Israelis"

"America is for Americans"

"Germany is for the Germans"

For those looking for other vpn options:

https://vpn.techlore.tech/

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1ijfqfLrJWLUVBfJZ_YalVpstWsjw-JGzkvMd6u2jqEk/htmlview#gid=231869418

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 8 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Tryenjer@lemmy.world 1 points 37 minutes ago* (last edited 31 minutes ago)

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.

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 15 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] CorrectAlias@piefed.blahaj.zone 13 points 4 hours ago

I am currently testing out AirVPN. Seems pretty good so far.

[–] ToiletFlushShowerScream@piefed.world 137 points 6 hours ago (14 children)

So if I use Mullvad, some of that is funding far-right politics?

[–] HorseFD@lemmy.world 15 points 2 hours ago

At this point it’s safer to just assume every purchase you make is funding far right politics.

[–] iamthetot@piefed.ca 40 points 4 hours ago

Yes, although frankly it's really fucking hard to name anything that isn't these days. Like, you probably can't even go grocery shopping without some of that money finding us way to alt right politics.

[–] RoddyStiggs@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 hour ago

Not as much as the food you eat or the utilities you use, but yes.

[–] marius@feddit.org 105 points 6 hours ago (18 children)
load more comments (18 replies)
load more comments (10 replies)
[–] mildseason@sopuli.xyz 25 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (4 children)

I made the switch to IPVN and it's felt exactly the same. Maybe even better. Same price. Servers in multiple locations. Allows routing through 2 VPN servers. No logs. No money going to racist ideology.

Mullvad can claim whatever they like about their values, but they are a for-profit company. The profits of the company are being used to fund racial segregation. If they believe in their values they'll switch to a non-profit foundation. Until that time they can get fucked!

[–] guy@piefed.social 4 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Is IPVN owned by a non-profit foundation?

[–] mildseason@sopuli.xyz 5 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Nope they're owned by a single person. I hope he'll be more responsible. If you know of any non-profit vpn providers let me know! Happy to switch again

[–] guy@piefed.social 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I had hoped you had any examples since you pointed out that it's a for-profit company :/ Can't do IPVN either than since who knows what the owner uses their money for.

[–] mildseason@sopuli.xyz 1 points 31 minutes ago

All I know is the profits of Mullvad go to bad causes. Yes IVPN aren't perfect but the services are so similar the choice should be obvious. Until a better alternative comes along i'm going to use the one that does less harm.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›