cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8915892

(original article in Swedish that reported this)

Posting this because I hadn’t heard about it before and I’m probably not the only Mullvad user here, so might as well.

I’m not Swedish, but going off NATOpedia, it seems like the party is basically reinventing fascism from first principles:

The party claims to stand for a “class-conscious populism” which according to party leader Markus Allard takes inspiration from marxist ideology and unites the “productive” classes of society against the “Transferiat”, with the “Transferiat” being a term coined by Allard to describe the classes of society that lives off transfers that are a net negative for society such as those who, despite having an ability to work, live off social welfare benefits, as well as those who work “made-up services”[…]

The party differs from modern day left-wing parties by seeing the working class as co-dependent with people working in enterprise and business and instead sees the classes that “live off transfers”, as specified, as a large economic net-negative and an obstacle for a functional society.

visible-disgust Their ideology is nonsense fake-marxist revisionism to redirect anger at capitalism and turn it against immigrants and people who need social welfare (though they do back some generally left oriented social policies, their main thing appears to be racism)

Even if you’re comfortable with funding this, it still begs the question of just how trustworthy Mullvad actually is.

I guess this still beats any of the dozens of Israeli VPNs that definitely spy on you, but it’s not great emilie-shrug

  • catonion@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    42·
    3 days ago

    corporations we buy from every day do the same shit and worse. Proton fundraised for the (US) Congress outfit Freedom House.

    Irrelevant.

    5 million SEK sounds like a lot until you realize it’s 500k USD, not 5 million USD. I would still love half a million to do communist stuff with lol, but it’s not 5 million dollars.

    Irrelevant. You’re minimizing this action. 500k usd makes up 70% of that party’s funding.

    mullvad has no idea who I am and which customer of theirs I am. If you pay for your VPN with a credit card you’re a chump.

    Where’s the evidence for that? Now YOU’RE moralizing, what are you doing to help ppl understand that they can keep themselves safe by not paying with a credit card? "personaly-responsibility"ing is uuuuuh, yeah, not the best framework.

    they are also the only vpn with a proven track record of not leaking customer info, because they don’t have it.

    Give me the evidence of this, not just words. Was there ever an instance of them being under judicial pressure? (which is what most corps break down under. i think i remember reading something about the telegram or signal ceo refusing to hand in its users private data.)

    this is a tiny no-name party that he’s supporting. At least for now - in 10 years it could be an AfD situation. Current perspective is euro govs are going to ban VPNs faster than this party will win an election.

    Irrelevant and (potentially?) dangerous. Just look at milei’s trajectory, openly known as a joke on TV around 2014 (exposure, normalization of his “”““antics””“”), made his political party in 2016 while using anarcho-capitalism as his stance, won presidential election in 2023. i agree w ur last sentence bc yes, this is true lmfao. And now with the current attacks on open source sites as a whole, the alternatives to the alternatives to the alternatives are even at risk lmfao.

    the other co-founder distanced himself from that donation, at least publicly. Who knows if something will be dug up on him too later.

    yeah I read about this. i wanna see what mullvard does now, if it’s a publicity stunt or competing companies playing dirty.

    europe is fash central, and there’s also a LOT of fascists in software, including open software! (and just terrible politics in general)

    What’s your intention in bringing this up? It doesn’t change the fact that one of mullvard’s co-founder is funding a xenophobic party. but i agree w everything else u said, being 100% private is not feasible, or at least not for now. where r the marxist hackers??? 🥺

    • CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.ml
      12·
      2 days ago

      Where’s the evidence for that? Now YOU’RE moralizing, what are you doing to help ppl understand that they can keep themselves safe by not paying with a credit card? "personaly-responsibility"ing is uuuuuh, yeah, not the best framework.

      I’m not moralizing. You can pay for mullvad with a cash envelope with no return address, they explain this procedure on their website and it’s in fact one of the main reasons you would want mullvad.

      Give me the evidence of this, not just words. Was there ever an instance of them being under judicial pressure? (which is what most corps break down under. i think i remember reading something about the telegram or signal ceo refusing to hand in its users private data.)

      In 2023 swedish police raided the mullvad HQ, they wanted to seize a server for some customer’s data. The employees explained how their servers operate (no-logs and ram-only servers), and police left empty-handed. Even if they had seized the server there would have been nothing on it to tie the customer to the mass of traffic, unless the customer used something such as an email address or a credit card payment to mullvad. Only weak link is if police monitors your devices and finds your mullvad account ID, but that wouldn’t be the fault of the VPN.

      What other VPN provider do you propose we use? Which one gets your seal of recommendation? Everyone in this business in the imperial core is a chud, because marxists are a tiny minority. The only other option if you want to remain morally pure is to not use the internet at all, which is valid, but if you have a bank account, go grocery shopping, buy stuff online, or work for literally any company, you participate in the system that perpetuates these chuds. Your boss also bankrolls far-right shitheads, he just doesn’t say it.

      As long as mullvad’s service remains the same, which is definitely a question but not one that has been brought up, because all that has been brought up has been “cancel mullvad immediately”, then what exactly is “my” responsibility in this? that circus party works on 5M SEK, meanwhile the Moderate Party, the biggest right-wing party in Sweden - and also in government - made 140M SEK in 2024, with 100M coming from the State itself as it pays elected parties/officials. That’s not even talking about my actual national parties that have way worse politics than these Moderates do. We’re not gonna defeat fascism with the power of our wallets and individual actions.

      • catonion@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
        12·
        2 days ago

        you are most definitely moralizing, comrade. not everyone knows how to opt out of using a credit card & not everyone CAN. Ok see, that lands better than calling ppl chuds and placing the blame directly on THEM.

        What other VPN provider do you propose we use? Which one gets your seal of recommendation? Everyone in this business in the imperial core is a chud, because marxists are a tiny minority. The only other option if you want to remain morally pure is to not use the internet at all, which is valid, but if you have a bank account, go grocery shopping, buy stuff online, or work for literally any company, you participate in the system that perpetuates these chuds. Your boss also bankrolls far-right shitheads, he just doesn’t say it.

        i’m not tech-privvy, also that is not the point. I’m calling out the actions of this dude, they are valid. i’m also explaining that 10-years from now as a defense is potentially dangerous. i was actually gonna ask you which one gets your seal of recommendation (not in bad faith). maybe & some business chuds can be observant in the trend that ppl want privacy, but if it can be acquired by the authorities, they will lose revenue.

        idgaf about morally pure. i do have an issue with how that term is being USED in alot of cases that require nuance. u can use mullvad and criticize their chud founder at the same time. i also take a huge issue in the moralization of how ppl are FORCED to survive under capitalism but that’s another topic.

        As long as mullvad’s service remains the same, which is definitely a question but not one that has been brought up, because all that has been brought up has been “cancel mullvad immediately”, then what exactly is “my” responsibility in this? that circus party works on 5M SEK, meanwhile the Moderate Party, the biggest right-wing party in Sweden - and also in government - made 140M SEK in 2024, with 100M coming from the State itself as it pays elected parties/officials. That’s not even talking about my actual national parties that have way worse politics than these Moderates do. We’re not gonna defeat fascism with the power of our wallets and individual actions.

        I DID SAY I WAS CURIOUS AS TO WHAT THEY DO NEXT. Yeah, that’s why I mentioned the possible motives behind this post, and the motives of the article and why the dude was exposed NOW, WHILE also asking why the hell is this dude giving that much money to this particular party?

        idk i’m a marxist that uses a marxist-leninist lense to broach these sorts of topics and i refuse to tell YOU what your responsibilities are. you’re your own person, you have ppl closer to u that know you and might provide a different perspective.