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.
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.
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
The reply is fence sitting/pr, it is a fair assumption that the choices of one of the co-founders has put the company into a very difficult position. I'm not a fan of the wording, not sure I would have done a better job though. After reading it, I applied for my refund yesterday, and it was approved yesterday.
I hope Daniel Berntsson is somehow removed (or does the right thing and removes himself) from the company.
It is definitely shitty to hold Mullvad accountable for this, but money paid to Mullvad has been used to fund the political party via Daniel Berntsson.
Anyone with any vpn experience should already be well aware that it is a dodgy industry, with the majority of available 'information' being transparent marketing. I wouldn't trust 95% of companies in the industry, I would like to see Mullvad come out of this the right way up.
if the company put out a facesitting statement instead of bringing him consequences, at best they don't care
“shitty to hold Mullvad accountable for this “ No. It’s not. Hold them accountable. Co-founder must have known that Berntsson has fascist tendencies. That’s kinda hard to hide
By all accounts, he seems to have been a fairly standard TESCREAL-adjacent high-decoupling libertarian until now, like a lot of tech founders. While some of these end up steelmanning fascism and coming to the conclusion that it’s pretty neat, it by no means follows.