Mullvad co-founder Daniel Berntason donated 452k euros to the fascist Örebro Party in Sweden which made up 72% of the party’s total funding in 2025. This political party wants to deport non-white citizens and immigrants guised under the white nationalist euphemism “remigration”
How did you find out they were fascist?
Check the link under the post.
You know that’s the least credible source and literally, as biased as you can get. A self proclaimed “Socialist newspaper”.
How did we go from “don’t believe everything you see on the Internet” to “i’m gonna believe this is true because it says so on this website!”?
Eh, a cursory glance at their proposed policies is more than enough to convince me they’re fascist. Ethnic purity, ending welfare, rejecting non-classical art, rejecting international alliances, and for some reason making all kids eat red meat daily.
All of those things are either directly fascist or closely associated with modern fascist culture wars.
That’s entirely possible. I don’t agree with everything he says, and I’ve since learned from reliable sources of various disgusting comments made by him in person. But I’m still not going to use “Flamman” as a reliable source. They are not a reliable publication. And they are not taken seriously in Sweden.
It would be a bit like taking what “FOX News” says about US Democrats as a reliable source of unbiased information.
Fox News May be known for their opinion segments, but their journalism team is actually competent, and their polling teams are some of the best around.
You’re arguing with a troll, he’s not out after facts, just to push his fascist views by trying to muddy the waters.
I’m sure they are. But you would look for other sources to confirm or deny. Because you know they are known to be biased.
“Flamman” however is closer to Alex Jones Info Wars than FOX News. Minus the peddeling of protein shakes or whatever it was
Remigration is ethnic cleansing, basically going further than what Trump and ICE is doing in the USA right now. You don’t need to know more about them.
The other side of this is that Sweden is now 8.1% Muslim. It’s inevitable that people get fed up with this. No matter if it’s right or wrong, people hate it. Especially when the economic outlook is grim.
That is a very strong statement. What’s your source of them wanting to achieve an ethnic cleansing with forced deportation of Swedish citizens? Taking steps that go beyond Trumps ICE.
That is what remigration means. See the sources on the wikipedia page. I doubt they’d put out such a blatant lie.
Yikes. I followed the sources listed and yeah, the dude is legit unhinged. Not only for what he wants, but that he also thinks it’ll be possible.
Things he suggest and wants require changes to the constitution. And changes to the constitution takes more than 4 years as it has to span over the next election cycle and be voted on (again) by the following elected government.
Mullvad themselves confirmed it.
He confirmed it. Mullvad has literally nothing to do with it. It’s a private donation.
The point is. You’re listening to hardline socialists pointing at a party they disagree with screaming “facism!” And go like “oh… well, if they say so it must be the case”
private
He confirmed it. Mullvad has literally nothing to do with it. It’s a private donation.
Lol, even the Mullvad coowner Daniel Berntsson’s here himself displayed his displeasure with this fact
And you are out here trying to, for whatever reason, claim that it is ok and Mullvad’s stance on the issue is in no way related to any of this. Among a myriad of reasons why this is not ok, Daniel Berntsson is not a departed or “retired” co-founder he plays an active role in the company’s policies and own %50 of it. So yes he has power to affect company policies in a major way.
Directly from Mullvad
Here is another resource with detailed comparisons:
Mullvad Owner Controversy: Daniel Berntsson’s 5 Million SEK Donation Explained
You are free to do what you wish. He is free to do what he wishes with his money. The other co-founder is free to think whatever he wants about it.
The only thing I’ve done is bringing up that “flamman” is not a reliable publication. And should not be used as the main source of any claim. Since then a smörgårdsbord of other more reliable sources have been dug up that corroborate the reporting of the party’s views on certain topics.
You are wrong. Mullvad themselves confirmed it. Quit being a joker.
How about you read what you link…
in the very link you send me, they confirm, that it’s Daniel, as a private individual that have donated. NOT them as a company.
So please, clarify to me what I’m wrong about
I trust socialists way more than I trust capitalists. Socialists want to liberate the world, capitalists want to enslave it.
You do you. But I wouldn’t trust anyone on the sole basis that they claim they subscribe to a specific ideology. That has to be the dumbest shit I’ve heard today.
But I wouldn’t trust anyone on the sole basis that they claim they subscribe to a specific ideology.
Almost as dumb as rejecting someone based on their ideology alone? Or do you have any resources to prove their journalism is biased apart from that “they are socialists”. You have been out here for days shitting on this news paper “Flamman” that you yourself have admitted to hearing for the first time
Nor have I ever heard of this publication “Flamman”, that also claims to be some old socialist newspaper.
You have not presented a single source as to why they are biased apart from them being “socialists”. You have also been going around trying to shit on other resources as much as you can, blaming people of not providing enough resources and saying things like “misinformation is how propaganda spreads”. These are all applications of the “accusation in the mirror”.
Sure. Have i rejected something on the sole basis of someones ideology? No.
The fact they are a political publication means by definition that they’re biased.
If they weren’t, they’d be politically neutral.
It’s sad, that this has to be explained to you.
I did indeed hear about them for the first time recently, and the more i learned about them. The worse it got. They’re not considered reliable
If you want to read way more stupid things you can read your own posts.
Party: We want to ethnically cleanse non-white people.
You: gee, idk. They don’t sound fascist to me.
Feels like you can’t turn over any rocks these days without seeing fascists scuttle off back into the darkness.
Just installed grapheneos last week and saw IVPN in the Accrescent store. Seemed interesting as I am running low on mullvad time. What a fun synchronicity
My mullvad subscription was up for renewal yesterday. Guess who gave 80$ to ivpn instead.
People on that Little Rock are gonna be stoked!
Use AirVPN. It’s activist led from the start.
Sadly it does not have independent audits.
They explained why they dont pay for audits in a forum post and I agreed with their reasoning, which if I remember correctly was something like:
If we paid for an audit, there’s no way you’d know we didn’t enable logging, etc, right after the auditors left.
It really is just a game of trust when it comes down to it and they feel the most trustworthy to me, but if lack of an audit changes your mind that’s okay.
That’s just so bad, “we won’t show what we’re doing because it’s tiresome to cover it up” is what I read here.
If you want to look at the thread I was referring to (looked it up): https://airvpn.org/forums/topic/56799-audits/
I think what they say makes sense. I read it the opposite way: How do I know any service with an audit really is as described the day after the audit concludes?
Most audits (as far as I’m aware) will tell the company maybe a week in advance that they are coming in to do the audit, so it’a not like surprise visits I don’t think.
I 100% think it comes down to trust (and some accountability being that their code is open source). Audits feel like a gamed system.
And being open source is a way of showing what they are doing.
You underestimate how costly it is to run services like that, your network is what it is, and it would be even costlier to change, who’s going to change it all, hired contractors? I mean hired people already have fulltime jobs in the company. Then scrape all the traces that there were logging (amongst other things)?
It’s not a Hollywood movie where you just “unplug the log machine” and hide it in a drawer.
Maybe you are overestimating it.
I wouldn’t truly know because I’m not a wireguard expert or anything.
That said, a “log machine” that you describe could just simply be a portable executable with root access on the vpn server machine. With this root access it could probably easily see what network connections are being made and potentially sniff them.
Maybe I’m wrong though. I don’t think it’d be easy to develop such an executable, but once made it could be portable, probably.
Unless you are a skilled network engineer/software dev in the field telling me it’s not possible, then sure I shall believe you.
And written in C instead of Rust, which makes the lack of audits even more terrifying.
What of theirs is written in C?
Eg: You buy a sub and just connect through wireguard. You aren’t touching any AirVPN code (unless you want to use their client, which is not written in C, but you can just use the official wireguard client or any other tool to connect).
Same goes for any provider as far as I’m aware. Am I wrong?
Maybe I misread your comment, I thought you were talking about AirVPN vs Mullvad.
Anyways the C code in that repo looks like it’s just libraries they have vendored in, not specifically stuff they are writing (which a lot of apps do, but usually dont include directly in their repos), but I could be wrong didn’t look that hard.
And you can still always use a different client (I know you can with AirVPN, I assume ivpn is the same).
Found the weak developer 😎.
Ah yes, because Rust is Holy and everything must be written in it or it’s inherently untrustworthy
No thank you.
– Frost
shouldn’t you be helping unfuck Rust core utils at ubuntu or something?
and it does not allow italian users because of Piracy Shield
Can you elaborate on that?
Oh this is so disappointing! Now I have to find a new provider 😒
I have read so much into Mullvad thinking that I did my due research however companies can hide their skeletons pretty well before they surface.
ProtonVPN is really good, just FYI (no they are not supporting MAGA, common let that lie die).
I’m an AirVPN shill cuz I like their service, but if you take a look and like it too, you will save a bit of money compared to mullvad :)
Someone in a privacy sub mentioned to me, that a refund may be possible, if you are uncomfortable with this situation. Did not try it by myself, but I probably will in the next days.
https://mastodon.online/@mullvadnet/116822246786533774
Edit: Got my refund.
it worked for me, they refunded me the remaining days in my subscription without problems.
Which payment method had you used? They don’t offer refunds for all of them according to this support page
I used credit card, sorry didn’t mention that.
No need to apologise. Thanks for answering :)
They make an exception for amazon vouchers fyi. Will get prorated refund via PayPal
Nice to hear that!
Never heard of ivpn, is it comparable to Mullvad?
iVPN and Mullvad are usually the two go-to mentions when somebody asks “what is the best VPN?”.
There are many comparison reviews and sometimes there are one or two others thrown into the mix, most common one I’ve seen is protonvpn, but others may have seen different
Here’s another resource!
Never heard of this site but this is perfect for what I’ve been looking for to switch providers, thanks!!
This is really helpful too:
I’d say so, yes. The main differences are that the pricing is a little different ($6 per month, rather than €5), the service is based in Gibraltar (a non-UK British Overseas Territory), and it doesn’t offer as many anti-censorship features (just V2Ray over TCP or over QUIC).
Personally, I like it.
So worse in every measure but more expensive?
Well the money doesn’t go to support fascists (to the best of my knowledge), so there’s that…
Yet another deficiency!
/s
Depending on where you live and the current exchange rate, $6 might be cheaper than €5.
True, but only two devices instead of five is a dealbreaker
Their standard plan let’s you connect 5 devices.
It doesn’t matter where you live. 5 EUR is about 5.75 USD, so I’d say they’re roughly the same price.
IVPN offers a warrant canary and is situated in Gibraltar and the territory has their own variant of GDPR.
Most likely not
The flag carrier of, uh, port forwarding lol
But aren’t they headquartered in the US?
Friendship ended with… wait,were did VPN Area go?
Aw fuck. He died while I wasn’t looking.
Proton VPN also exists. Swiss, though.
Seem to remember Proton CEO is a Trump supporter…
You would be wrong.
He agreed with his appointment, not that he was some maga faithful. Good damn people on the fediverse jump to make everyone a villan with no rational thought put into it at all.
They have financed far-right French youtuber
It was a sponsored video. They apologized and cut ties with the YouTuber.
I swear that some people here would burn anyone who isn’t a pure being of light.
I’m a pure being of light and even I get shit
It was the typical “oh no, you caught us, we totally made a mistake”. The cherry on top was that their response was 100% LLM written corposhit.
Proton’s CEO is a Trump bootlicker; you think that’s a better taste than the co-CEO of Mullvad giving his own personal funds to an irrelevant extreme-left political party?
“extreme-left” is a weird way to refer to fascists
I’m not sure how substantiated and reliable this article is, but I found this: https://medium.com/@ovenplayer/does-proton-really-support-trump-a-deeper-analysis-and-surprising-findings-aed4fee4305e
What do you want them to do? Honest question. Because it seems like you expect everyone you don’t like to behave like saints 100% of the time.
Anyway, the CEO of Proton is hardly a “Trump bootlicker”, and the party the cofounder of Mullvad donated money to is very much not “extreme left”.
I can’t wait for everybody to agree on a new service only for that one to also be bad. I enjoy watching people fail to learn that it’s not possible for a commercial service to be uncorruptible. You can’t sell privacy in this world
You can’t sell privacy in this world.
but it can be bought.
Stop, think! Who really is to gain by getting people to not use a long time trusted VPN…
you mean the long trusted VPN that has now been found funding fascists?
So let me get this straight. One of this companies CEOs donated a huge sum to a bunch of fascists, so now people are switching away from the service. Won’t that only hurt the staff and make people lose a excellent service, as if the CEO is wealthy they’ll be virtually untouched?
Pay money to mullvad - > CEO gets part of that money - > CEO funds fascists - > fascists are being funded with your money.
so should I stop giving £20 to homeless people on the street here and there because a fair portion of them run immediately into the off-license for alcohol? by your logic I’m essentially funding their drinking habit not just giving a guy on the street money.
have you ever heard of the Orebro party before this or even know any of their policies? just jumping on the tribal bandwagon even though let’s face it a private donation to a local Swedish party barely actually affects any of us on here. A VPN is basically an internet bouncer do you ask the security staff at live shows their political ideology? nope it would be pretty asinine.
i was under the assumption the Fediverse was supposed to be better than Reddit whole lot of the same all or nothing tribal takes.
Pay money to <random-corp> - > <random-worker> gets part of that money, through their paycheck - > <random-worker> funds fascists - > fascists are being funded with “your” money
It came out that he was using his personal money from his pay, and not directly off the expense sheet of the company. To that end, when does it stop being “your” money. If you were replace that with “VP”, “Manager”, or even “random tech” is it still your money at that point?
The amount between worker and CEO is orders of magnitude different. And it doesn’t matter that it’s his private money. It comes (partially) from me. Therefore if I use the service I feel partially responsible. A couple percent of every euro I’ve ever given them, went to funding that party. So I will use a different company, where that doesn’t happen.
Your point is really valid however as there is no clear lines, so people will have to draw their own.
The core issue is that this guy’s money comes from mullvad customers, and he’s donating that money to a far right political party.
If mullvad didn’t have any customers that political party wouldn’t have any money.
The person who donated is rich from investments in multiple companies. Mullvad not existing would likely not have changed this set of events.
and they gained the liquidity for those investments how?
I couldn’t tell you with any certainty.
But if you’re thinking that he got rich off mullvad then made a bunch of more lucrative investments which formed the income basis for his donation to the totally normal Swedish centrist party and therefore discontinuing mullvad use would be a good choice that’s a pretty flawed route to go down.
why am I not surprised that a ml user would try to “center wash” a party that’s supported by national conservatives (aka white christofascists).
It’s a party that split from left party and that I see as quite fascist. The easiest way to describe that to a possibly not quite as informed reader is to use center as a pejorative. It’s also an opportunity to use center as a pejorative which we should always take.
Care to elaborate on where you were going trying to trace the fortunes of the donor though? Was I correct in my assumption that you were laying the groundwork to state that all mullvad payments led to this donation?
I highly doubt that would be the case.
The first part of your comment clearly appears to be true, but the 2nd can’t be insinuated in my opinion.
Its a tiny party who’s total donations are a fraction more than the amount contributed by mullvad guy.
Its irrelevant anyway. I don’t want my money to support that party.
Founder/probably partial owner. Pretty sure the CEO released a statement that he doesn’t agree with the donation.
Too bad he’s got 50% voting rights.
