Could someone fully explain the mullvad controversy. From my knowledge so far it seems like the cofounder donated to an alt right party and it's probably a bad sign for the company. Anything I'm missing?

That's basically it although I don't think it's technically alt-right. More specifically, he donated half a million USD to the Örebro Party

Nationally the party has set out large-scale remigration, closing the Swedish borders to immigration, a stricter assimilation policy and ending taxes on energy and fuel as some of its key issues.

Not alt-right, just fascist?

Daniel is one of the founders of Mullvad and part owner. He took a big chunk of change from his private wealth and donated it to a horseshoe loonie party. Horseshoe because they try to marry ideas from the extreme left to immigrant hateful ideas from the extreme right. Loonie is self explanatory. His donation made it possible for that party to run a nationwide campaign.

Mullvad users who got mad simplified this to Mullvad fees finance a Nazi party directly. Which isn't true. How much of this donation truly came from VPN fees is also a matter of debate. They aren't strictly Nazis, more xenophobic communists. But assholes are still assholes and people choose labels differently. There is a lot of kneejerk reacting going on.

The company seems to want to ride it out. They correctly point to this being a decision by a private citizen who may exercise his free speech by donating to the loonie party. But they either don't recognize the PR hell of being guilty by association as a company or they know the subscription drain isn't as bad as the online outrage makes it look like. They publicly say this is all about free speech, which is their DNA, yada yada yada.

The party isn’t properly alt right in any way that an anglosphere dweller would recognize.

It’s not a bad sign for the company in any way. Remember that mullvad was the vpn of choice for pedophiles distributing csam until it wasn’t.

Mullvads recent statement is also extremely carefully worded to avoid taking what the state would call a political stance. While we may recognize that not condemning the donor is political, what the state considers political is support or detraction from some party or of some speech. If mullvad were to make such a political statement it could be subject to a whole different kind of law.

From what I've seen, it's a weird mishmash of ideologies and the party seems to be run by crazy people.

Mullvad users who got mad simplified this to Mullvad fees finance a Nazi party directly.

You are making this up.

Those of us mad understand how the money changes hands.

It is mathematically correct to say that a portion of the energy I may contribute to Mullvad will end up financing fascism.

This isn't only about the political donations. That's a coowner/cofounder we are talking about. That's significant. If some rank and file schmuck donated to nazis in his spare time and not a cofounder, it would be less bad. Still bad, but less damaging.

This cofounder has outsized infuence on how the culture of Mullvad is shaping up.

Do I want to support that when there are better, more private, VPN companies without the nazi cofounders? For example NymVPN mixnet.

There is no good reason to prefer Mullvad.

It'd be a different story is we only had two VPN companies and both had nazi founders. Then we'd have to weigh privacy vs nazism. But that's not our situation right now.

They are nationalist racists trying to cloak themselves with populist leftist ideas. This is the leader of that party:

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

Remember; the Nazi's did the same thing by strategically calling their party the National Socialist German Workers' Party, despite them not being socialist nor a working class party. This was chosen because Socialism was gaining popularity, and thus the Nazi's thought it would help their chances of getting votes and public support.

more private

I thought Mullvad was famous for being the gold standard VPN provider. Can you elaborate on who is more private?

nice cop out there, perhaps you should join the mullvad marketing team

One of the co-founders/co-ceo's almost single handedly funded a racist political party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Örebro_Party that wants Sweden to manufacture weapons.

The other co-founder/co-ceo stated he did not agree with it, but also doesn't really care because 'free speech'

Mullvad stated that users who were not happy could apply for refunds. some have, some haven't.

Lemmy, and other social media platforms have multiple threads about this, including very obviously biased threads designed to mislead people into believing it was the company who made the donation, or that there is only one ceo.

Paying mullvad does equal funding that political party.

I think you did a good job characterizing the party’s immigration platform, but I don’t think that qualifies as alt right in the way it’s generally understood in the English speaking world.

That’s not to say it’s not fascist or right wing, just that I think unqualified the phrase alt right doesn’t tend to mean what that party bills itself as in addition to its immigration policy and where it seems to fit inside Swedish politics (which I don’t pretend to understand, only to recognize that it doesn’t seem to be called alt right in Swedish sources).

A couple of major differences are the English speaking alt rights strong religious current as compared to orebros explicit secularism, the alt right anti-liberal arts stance (it’s the bastion of cultural Marxism, you see) compared with orebros educational policy stance of encouraging music and arts education, the alt right urge to tear down social programs in general as opposed to orebros general position of building them up.

I wasn’t trying to suggest that orebro isn’t right wing but instead that it’s not alt right by any definition. I don’t think it even has a similar origin to the English speaking alt right having split from an existing party.

Again, that’s not to say it isn’t right, just that it’s not alt right.

You are making this up.

I don't think I am. I was in at least two threads where people just referred to them as Nazis and in a stage of outrage weren't open to other interpretations. However, my post can be taken as all users who got mad called them Nazis. Some got mad and didn't call them Nazis. That's why I said assholes are still assholes.

It is mathematically correct to say that a portion of the energy I may contribute to Mullvad will end up financing fascism.

It's mathematically correct to say a portion of your fees in the past may have ended up in the coffers of the Örebro Party. It seems likely that continuing payments to the company may filter through Daniel to them as well. Facism is traditionally associated with right-wing extremism. This party is a Frankenstein monster of traditional associations and they lean further to the left than to the right, except on immigration. With "remigration" as the de rigeur pipe dream corner stone. Xenophobia alone doesn't fascism make. The Soviet Union wasn't exactly a hit destination for immigrants. So we either enlarge the definition of fascism to include these horseshoe loonies. Or we need a new word. Or we just agree to call them assholes and any continuing payments to Mullvad carry a mathematical risk of further financing assholes, more than one.

They suggested nym which uses a technology called a mixnet that’s almost self explanatory: you have a network that mixes up the path communication takes so that it’s harder to determine the sender.

Unfortunately that’s got a bunch of problems that basically boil down to it’s more complicated and therefore easier to screw up and the more compromised nodes an attacker has in the mixnet the easier it becomes for someone to screw up.

It’s cool tech but not trustworthy yet compared to the simple alternatives.

Also nym will let you log in with google credentials. Theres some very careful scrutiny a user would want to apply to that.

I do not think nym is a bad vpn like service thing, just that its not comparable to mullvad.

A cofounder donated to the Örebro Party, which has an eclectic platform. Mostly, progressive liberals of the imperial core are (justifiably) upset about its immigration/“remigration” policies and upset about its anti-NATO policies.

Companies are owned by the bourgeoisie, who are right wing[^1]. So “voting with your dollar” over this is largely performative, because the VPN you switch to will also be bourgeois-owned.

[^1]: With the rare exception of bourgeois class traitors.

These pop up controversies are interesting (and usually fleeting?).

If we were to examine every place we put our money, we would probably find that some of it ends up contributing to nasty shit.

Buy cheap clothes in a Penneys or US equivalent: sweatshops.

Buy food in large food retailers: exploitation of small farmers and food producers.

Buy painkillers: "Oxy is good for you, we promise..." ---> lots of dead people.

Pay for Mullvad: funding dodgy parties...and so on.

The only way to truly avoid this is to live in a cave and never use money again! Or self host, all the things.

What a defeatist perspective. It's not all or nothing, and a VPN is something I can very easily change, especially when the co-owner of the VPN is one of the only major donors of a giant alt right party

I accept your point but as someone else pointed out, put your money elsewhere and its as likely to end up in a dodgy place is it not? It seems like every day theres a controversy like this about where the money goes.

I dont necessarily hold the view that I was posting, more so putting it up for perspective. If we were to take that approach we would all be driven demented.

But this one we can actually do something about.

Sooo what's your point? Did you not just read me say a VPN is easy to change? It's not like it's exactly hard to find a good one - just use airvpn

I know its easy to change, my point is, no matter who we change to, the same could well be happening. Peoples' frustration at finding it hard to know what company to trust, is palpable. One company let's them down, they move to another. That company either doesn't, or does.

I know nothing about airvpn, but you obviously trust them, and others do too I'm sure, until they are splashed across Lemmy for funding X, Y or Z, and then people move again etc.

Defeatist maybe. Is it too controversial to say that maybe we shouldn't get so wound up about this stuff? Pick the company with the lesser of the evils?

People are selective about what they get hyped up about. They will change their VPN from Mullvad, but still buy clothes that are made in sweatshops. Its just interesting to see how people react to certain things.

I would personally say that's unnecessary hairsplitting, since regardless of the specific flavor of evil, it's still monumentally bad their CEO funded it.

But the profits of the company are being used to fund that political party. If people cancel their subscription the Mullvad CEO will earn less money and won't be able to spend as much funding racial segregation. You should vote with your wallet as much as possible.

1. You pay for Mullvad.
2. Mullvad makes a little bit of profit
3. Profit goes in large part to one of the two co-owners
4. Co-owner donates huge sums to a very right wing, incredibly racist party. This is not "just" a party that has some racism. It is a true nationalistic racist party with despicable politics.

So paying for Mullvad indirectly funds this party.

The Örebro Party (Swedish: Örebropartiet, ÖP or ÖrP) is a political party in Sweden. The party was initially only a local party in Örebro, Sweden. Markus Allard is the party leader. According to Allard the party cannot be placed anywhere on the traditional left-right spectrum. The party has been variously characterised as left-wing and right-wing, as well as populist, nationalist and conservative.

Some key issues for the Örebro Party locally include strong secularism, a 30-hour workweek with retained pay, lowered wages for politicians, expanded social housing, abolishing preschool-fees, making public transport free of charge,[3] ending taxpayer funding of what it sees as wasteful sculptures, monuments and art and introducing free dental care.[4][5] Nationally the party has set out large-scale remigration, closing the Swedish borders to immigration, a stricter assimilation policy and ending taxes on energy and fuel as some of its key issues.[6][7]

Don't see anything particularly racist. And since when domestic weapons manufacture is the problem?

"Remigration" is ethnic displacement. There is most definitely something racist about that. It's up there with some of the most heinous crimes against humanity you can commit.

No OC, but personally its the shlog of doing it every day. I moved to mulvad during the proton problem, I moved to proton during the VPN hacks. I moved to VPNs during the ISP leaks. Yeah, changing a VPN is easy but if you compare my life now to 6 months ago the only things that I haven't had to abandon or replace are aldi, Weird Al, and a love for googie architecture. Every musician, every actor, every food product, every author, every hobby, has been tainted by the new horrible news to the point that I can no longer separate art and artist. I'm burnt out. I know I can't support these people but I know I can't keep constantly breaking my routine either. I don't have time to vet every single VPN for their likelihood of supporting fascism in the next 4 years, I'm still in the middle of sorting all the pedophiles and rapists out of my 8tb of media.

At some point, we're too beaten down to keep up with the purity of culture and those who aren't choose to beat us with a stick instead of helping us past the next hurdle. Instead of bemoaning our failure to rise, you've got to approach it with understanding and appreciation for the goopy human core and advocate for realistic solutions. Punishing people for their flaws is why Maga is where it is.

I think there’s a real problem with that line of thinking.

Without understanding a persons politics are just vibes.

Also condensing the bloodthirsty futurists who imagine totalizing war of all against all and honestly quaint ethnonationalists who want to have the third reich but without all those pesky wars is pretty clearly a stumble even if you were to recognize that they’re both the enemy of global communism. It’s worth it to recognize that praline ice cream and pickles are wildly different things even if you don’t like either and they both start with the letter “p”.

And that’s what the op asked about. “It seems like it’s this thing, is that correct?” “No, it’s not that thing”. Which would, to your point, make it neither unnecessary nor hair splitting.

Yup. As in, referring to immigrants as 'parasites' level racism.

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.

• Markus Allard

And not a small donation either. He contributed 72% of their entire funding in 2025.

I'm sure you can hand select passages about hitler that also suit your stance while making him seem like kermit the frog.

Since when are weapons not a problem?

As mentioned in the last line of my comment that you replied to.

These are literally the first passages from Wikipedia.

What country doesn't have domestic weapons manufacturing? Is it a problem when US or France do it?

Yes, if you believe they tell the truth (rather than them just co-opting popular ideas like funding education), they're social fascist instead of straight fascist. I'm not sure they deserve the benefit of the doubt, and Hitler did the same thing, as that other commenter said, so there's that. Because of all of this, I don't think it's necessarily wrong to characterize them as fascist, far-right, etc.

Yes of course it is a problem when the usa, france, russia etc do it, it obviously makes them evil countries. Weapons exist to kill.

The usa is responsible for approximately 42% of the global arms market. 1 country, 42%, clearly not the good guys.

" The party has been variously characterised as left-wing and right-wing, as well as populist, nationalist and conservative."

"Leaving the EU and NATO were on the table for ÖP. Regarding NATO Allard claimed that Sweden cannot trust or rely on NATO and that the country should instead seek to massively increase its weapons production and also become a major arms exporter, arguing it would benefit the Swedish economy"

"The party advocates for remigration policies, strong secularism, and assimilationist policies such as immediate closure of the Islamic charter schools.[70][71][72]
Markus Allard initiated heavy debate in 2025 by claiming that Sweden is "the land for/belongs to the Swedes"

They also want to remove fuel taxation, they are pro nuclear, and are anti wind turbine.

I don’t think I’m giving orebro the benefit of the doubt. I wouldn’t say it’s incorrect to call them fascist or far right either. I just think they’re pretty clearly not alt right.

Dude I put in the work over a decade ago and haven't had to change since....

I also don't know what to say to the take that "punishing people for their flaws is why maga is where it is" I think it's quite the opposite

Idk about everyone else, but this reads like AI... maybe it was the phase

"Instead of bemoaning our failure to rise, you've got to approach it with understanding and appreciation for the goopy human core and advocate for realistic solutions" lmao

I'm missing even more. What does "paying for Mullvad" mean? What is the product?

their primary product is a VPN. for ages they've been the best in class for privacy vpn. however, it turns out their CEO is basically singlehandedly bankrolling a far right political party in Sweden so people are looking for alternatives

Thanks.

Alt-fascist

What law?

I’m not gonna pretend to be a lawyer or expert in Swedish law. My understanding is that the framework for what amounts to free speech for corporations in Sweden is much more restrictive than in the us.

So what amounts to an easy win by simply saying “we’re against it” in the us may have consequences elsewhere.

That's quite vague and speculative. Unless you know a law, it's like saying, in Honduras it could be legally challenging to eat an orange on a Tuesday. I don't know for sure as I'm not a lawyer. As you can see, I just made that up, but unless you know a law, you're just excusing the donation on speculation. I'm in Europe and the speculation sounds like absolute poppycock.