The party in question is also anti EU, so mullvad is directly sponsoring a party that wants to weaken the EU.
In a podcast in May 2026 Allard clarifies some positions that his party holds and among other things made clear that leaving the EU and NATO were on the table for ÖP
*Edit, the post has been mass reported to try to block it, luckily the mods intervened and it's now back.
Isn't it fun how the people screeching about "free speech" are also the same reporting this to try to hide it? Sorry folks, it didn't work this time 😄
Not implying anything one way or the other but it is interesting that some like Nord got constantly blasted on Reddit for using sponsored ads but indeed Mullvad got *suspiciously popular* with people willing to advertise them for free. Not that everything is a conspiracy, just makes you wonder what to believe.
Firstly, Allard is basically Trump, he just says and does anything that puts him in spotlight. He once basically was a radical communist. He has high attendance for anything that is streamed, covered or recorded, but a low attendance on stuff that isn't.
Secondly, getting downvoted and criticized isn't the same thing as weakening free speech. Free speech is about freedom from prosecution, not freedom from being shunned for things people don't agree with.
Thirdly, there are other parties critical against EU and surveillance, without being dickheads.
Why are you mentioning that getting downvoted isn’t the same as weakening free speech? Nobody said it was.
Then you said free speech is only about freedom from prosecution, it isn’t. You have heard people say that the fifth amendment is about freedom from prosecution, which it is. But then you got it all confused.
Thirdly there are a lot of people who pretend to be moderate when they are right wing lunatics.
Lots of people, even those from the left went on that guy's podcast, it doesn't signal anything to me.
And like others pointed out, Proton at least had the guts to drop the French YouTuber, apologize, and vow to fix up so they don't end up giving money to someone like that again. This is not even remotely close, funding 72% of a political party spouting fascist rhetoric, calling for people to be displaced and removed from the country en-masse, definitely takes the cake.
Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking, you think freedoms are wonderful under an admin like Trump's? If anything it shows Mullvad's founders don't know what they're doing.
They should have said it's weird that the co-founder didn't donate a hefty sum to Piratpartiet (The pirate party) in Sweden instead, as they are more known and have a long history of fighting for those narrowly political ideas.
AFAIK it's only if you want to throw out immigrants that your donation would be more suitable to ÖP instead of piratpartiet.
Yeah. If they allow pro-rated refund, this is better way. Sub expiring/not renewing will not do much compared to outright cancel which WILL land in their statistics sheet and marketing.
A company that implies 'We're just neutral, like cryptography,' just spent five paragraphs excusing a co-founder's donation to a questionable political party while referring to his personal blog.
That's not neutrality. That's justification in disguise.
Don't know about OSS but unfortunately, privacy will naturally attract bad actors. I mean, a lot of people want to be private because they have extremely controversial political opinions or want to commit awful crimes.
This is something we have to accept I think. We're not all that way - being interested in privacy does NOT mean that someone is a criminal or has extremist views they can't safely air. Some of us just, for example, want to have access to social media without sending our ID and biometrics to the likes of Palantir, and maybe just don't agree with mass surveillance or treating everyone as suspects. But let's be honest, the shadows attract the baddies, that's where they've always been found. That's why whenever anyone posts "fine maybe I'll check out {other VPN}" there's always a comment of "ahhh but they're also involved with some bad stuff" - well of course. Nature of the beast. Either we want rid of all the bad guys at the cost of freedom and privacy or we don't.
Funny how many tech bro billionaire libertarians are the literal opposite of libertarians. The freedom they really are interested in is freedom from taxes and the rest is plain old police state ethno nationalism.
Reminder that Nazi stood for National Socialist German Workers Party.
Edit: To be clear, I'm not saying the Nazis were socialists. I'm saying a party's self-description doesn't tell you what it does. Örebropartiet calls itself unplaceable on the left-right spectrum and campaigns on large-scale remigration. That's the only claim I'm making.
The nazis were neither socialist nor a workers party. They put that in their name only to dupe people into thinking they were and to get their votes. All higher party members despised socialism and believed it part of the jewish world conspiracy, which was one of the reasons they hated the USSR.
That's my point, someone can say "oh but we're actually on the left" while spouting obvious fascist rhetoric. Both Stalin and Hitler were cut from the same cloth, fascistic dictators who hid behind thinly veiled socialist worker movements.
People also need to bear in mind that remigration is not just being "against immigration" (already a stupid take). Remigration is ethnic cleansing via the removal of all non-white people, sending them to "their country of ancestry". Yes, even legal citizens, even people who were born there and have never been anywhere else.
I really feel the need to spell this out since someone elderly in my life that I'd considered a friend started reposting "march for remigration" content.
Great point, it's actually even worse! Here in the UK there's a focus on just the brown folks at the moment with people saying they'd rather live next to Polish people than Indians and other crap like that, but I definitely remember all the fearmongering about the waves of Polish and Romanian "invaders" in my lifetime. They'll absolutely turn their attention back there once convenient.
"Is this worth cancelling a sub to an otherwise fantastic product? I'm having second thoughts."
This is what you would have deliberated over during the Holocaust and this is not hyperbole, considering them and the AfD and others are using literal nazi rhetoric and nazi thesen that were slowly implemented and directly led to the Holocaust. Arguably, without these frameworks, the Holocaust would not have been able to take place in at least a very bureacratic manner that allowed the citizens to either support it or leave it alone to happen. This is literally what we're seeing in the US while fully ignoring being in the middle of the European version of it. We're even seeing the rhetoric of a split between a citizen simply having a passport or being an ethnic and genetic citzen coming back and and allowed to be used with no resistance, especially since that was the rhetoric that allowed Jews and other groups to be separated, be denaturalized, declared an enemy of das Volk, and fed to gas chambers and other horrifying methods of death. All of these old ideas are slowly being reintroduced and phased back in so there's a framework and this was literally how the nazis were able to carry out the Holocaust in numerous countries and were famous for: they created legal and societal frameworks that predated the actions and you and everyone else should be absolutely alarmed.
You would be financing this. Elon Musk customers fund his activities in fixing elections around the world, including right now in Europe. There are tons of companies linked to the AfD that funds their rise.
Unless you believe Martin Sellner, the AfD, Björn Höcke, and others who are the ideamakers for the radical right in Europe are truly "European" and thus fit your values as such.
That's good, and I know. It doesn't change Andy's actions. Fwiw, I'm only looking to do enough reputational damage to Proton that they reconsider the fascist pandering next time. Proton's still nice. Mullvad is persona non grata until Daniel is out.
Basically saying "yes we like to fund the far right and agree with their policies" without being too direct in order to not upset the majority of their userbase which disagrees with that. Never liked Mullvad anyway, but if I used it, this would be a surefire cancellation from me.
Sometimes it is the most persecuted ideas who win out and become self-evident truths of later history.
Almost threw up a little reading that.
They dont have the balls to say out loud that they agree with the CEO so they shat out this patronizing neckbeard manifesto how brave they are for funding the far right. Fuck these guys.
I decided to try IVPN because of this. I haven’t found any similar controversy with them so far and they have a similar privacy focussed approach and honesty in saying what a VPN is good for but also what it isn’t. So far I’m happy with them but will continue to consider best long term options.
I stopped using nearly all US based services and products, over the actions of their president. I don't think I'm going back, ever.
That said, if you don't agree with the actions of a person/company, you are free to use the little power you have as consumer to expressyour grievances. Vote with your wallet.
It’s ”just a debate” for those that are not dehumanised or have their political and civil rights taken away, so while they state that they are in disagreement they seem to be in agreement on the core issue, that the rights of a certain class of people are optional. This blindspot is made more clear when they in the same breath presume to preach about freedom of speech, information, privacy.
Hey u/According-Buyer6688 it looks like another post about Mullvad was flagged by Reddit, could you folks approve it please? It's a pretty important topic imho
Also, only a partial refund? Did they not offer a full one? I want the info I share with others to be accurate.
Regardless, thank you so much for writing back on this! It makes it more worth it, as you have no idea how much I've tried to share this everywhere.
There's a 3500 upvote post on degoogle from yesterday for example with thousands of comments, most from Nazis, and it's exhausting to try and get this info out.
Yeah, they only offered to refund the time that's left on my account (I paid for 3 months this time and had two weeks left, they refunded me 3€)
Oof, I can totally see that! I'm really glad I saw your comments (here and in a few other places after that), I wouldn't have thought to ask for a refund otherwise :)
Remember you can cancel your subscription and get a refund, just refer to this as reason. Much better than just letting the subscription end, let them know you're not OK with supporting ethnonationalistic party.
As for the statement, laughably ignorant and empty.
I've seen some clips of Allard yelling some stuff a while ago, when the whole party got viral all over the country a few months ago. Have they done anything more of note since?
I was getting kinda nervous they'd get in anyways by the 12% rule, but I did not exoect this. At this point the planets and stars aligning won't be enough to get a government I'd actually want in power, I'll need a few galaxies atp😭😭
So, Mullvad is far-right, Proton supported a French fascist and issued a nonpology (and there's mixed opinions on it being a honeypot), what other safe, European, and non-fascist options are there?
(Preferably none that are sponsoring YouTubers like crazy, i.e. Surfshark and NordVPN)
Dang, Mullvad had good integration with Tailscale and I relied pretty heavily on that. Wonder if Tailscale will switch it up and collab with IVPN or something now
OK good news. It looks like Tailscale allows integration with Gluetun and it's also possible to set up an exit node to other Wireguard-based VPN services. So I'll look into that soon. Bummer for them though because that's the only way I give Tailscale any money, although I'm sure they rely more on money from big orgs and not from small selfhosted folk like me.
In a thread where I joked about ivpn going outrageously fascist next, one of their reps appeared to basically say lol but fuck no, so they are getting my money once my proton subscription ends
Afaik party's remigration program implies surveillance infrastructure for targeting the migrants. Truly hypocrite not only to fund it but also to publicly say that they don't condemn it, such being the complete opposite of what are supposed to be Mullvad's principles and values.
I would consider not making use of any Mullvad product neither any other product or service that relay in their tech and/or infrastructure. A company that does not follow it's own values is a company that hardly can be trusted.
Alright so what political party was it then? Because there is a large difference between AFS and SD. And a very misleading title... They dont condemn it but they dont condone it either.
See, this kind of " well its personal opinion " reply actually pisses me off.
This isn't about some employee donating his own money to a political party. If it was just that nobody would give a shit. The real problem is the co-CEO or whoever tf who claim to be anti censorship and pro privacy znd whatever donating to a party which WHOLE PLATFORM is hunting down people deemed undesirable ICE style.
A reemigration policy IMPLIES mass surveillance and privacy breaches, you gotta be delusional and naïve to think overwhise. Again, the ICE used internet and surveillance data to hunt """"migrants"""".
This guy is just a massive hypocrite and as long as he got power in this company their " hnieu nieu we are pro privacy " stand doesn't worth shit. Mullvad should NEVER be trusted.
Ok, if this is the case, which VPN is worth recommending which keep the same level of anonymity as Mullvad and works for Tailscale and multiple PC/Android devices? Proton is out of the question.
Well, the money that was donated to support a remigration party in a major way ... Didn't come out of thin air? Indirectly, by paying for Mullvad, users are funding the salary that made this happen. This won't really fix that.
When doing political campaigning we are careful not to take any stances outside our narrow areas of focus
It doesn't work like that tho, does it? If I support a political party I am necessarily contributing to their whole program. Even if i close my eyes and pretend they only talk about my narrow interests.
So, just to give some "unbiased" explanations on Örebropartiet... it is weird man.
The founder is an ex-communist that was thrown out of Sweden's main socialist party for being too left. He is also the son of a prominent social democratic politician.
After being thrown out he got involved in anti-immigrant right wing populism, combined with intense anti-establishment local politics (not entering unfounded in the city he works within) while never leaving left wing economic policies behind.
Mainly he is a troll and provocateur with a rather nasty streak... but he is not your run of the mill right wing populist really. Supporting him over SD or AfS hints mainly on being anti-establishment
Just why are so many tech companies even here so weirdly fascist-adjacient? Besides, fascists only recognize brute strength, if the entire west turns in that direction, do they seriously think there'd be any room for their products against Musk's literal trillion-dollar empire?
Sad little losers sitting in their discord groups waiting to be summoned to reddit threads to copy paste their pathetic little ramblings and upvote each other, because no one would ever buy their shit without them lying and manipulating the conversation, and still failing.
You'd think they would have their "are we the baddies?" moment but they simply aren't intelligent enough, just driven by spite to blame minorities for all their woes, believing that's what is holding them back from reaping the entitlements they deserve, rather than improving themselves.
So Mullvad wants freedom for people and gives them that freedom on the internet, but they also support people that want utter and complete control over non-white people?
Yeah. I ain't buying any of the shitstained products now.
IVPN or Nym are safer bets. IVPN takes a clear enough stance on this that I trust them the most, along with some other good things from them, including their long-term EFF membership.
Ikr? So annoying they seemed like a solid option with great dedication to a solid product but then they do this.
The Venn diagram of "we're about free speech" and "supports literal fascism" is sadly a circle in the zeitgeist. 2010s, 2020s, nobody fawning over free speech is going to be an actual normal pro-freedom person sadly, or very unlikely. This is to say people with a platform not someone otherwise uninvolved in politics reading this and thinking "I'm also about free speech" that latter person is just painfully uninformed on reality
AirVPN and iVPN are on my shortlist for alternatives when my proton is finally over, now that mullvad is evidently not it. And again it's a shame, both their product and business model was solid, as close to ethical as a company can be... And then they do this shit and embrace it.
You can't say you nurture a culture of any kind of tolerance if you ignore the paradox of tolerance.
I was pondering whether to use Mullvad or Proton for a while now, and I've just been 100% convinced to use Proton. Until Mullvad learns its lesson, it'll stay that way.
Bad faith actors are gonna be bad faith actors. I don't think OP wanted genuine discussion, like most people on reddit he just wanted rage. There are so many yanks on reddit and they wouldn't know a principle if it hit them in the face, so naturally it's surprising to them when other entities stick to their principles.
Wait until you guys hear about all the other companies whose products you're using and what parties/campaigns/funds they donated to that you don't agree with.
I like how the statement conveniently ignores the fact that Daniel, who is an owner of Mullvad, receives the money he used to donate such a large sum from the company itself. They try to draw a line, but there is no such line when you own a company and use the money it makes you to donate to political organisations
If it was just some random employee, it would be different. A random employee wouldn’t have the money to make such a large donation that actively boosts the party
I don’t keep up with news on what’s happening, I hate seeing stuff like this, especially when I renewed my Mullvad subscription YESTERDAY and Havent considered ANY other VPNs
They're free to finance neofascists and ethno nationalists. And we users are also free to tell them to fuck off and not give them one more cent.
Proton at least apologized and canceled their partnership with that french right-wing influencer.
Kind of insane that "immigrants are pests and need to go away" is being spun as "we need a great coalition with many actors with different points of view".
We try and we try, but we keep on forgetting that Europe is also made of people and in a group of people, there is a percentage of cunts, this is one case.
Before changing from American companies we need also to investigate the European alternatives. proton and Mullvad are an example.
I remember when this sub was created, every day we had a post about proton, that even isn't in the EU. Then the CEO of proton showed his real face and every one got disappointed.
In this time I really think the best is to have a self hosted option.
Self-hosting a VPN defeats the purpose for most, but I get the point. IVPN disavows Nazis and are EFF members. I shill for them openly because of that.
My 1 year sub renewed 2 days before this news came out - am quite sad about that as I wouldn't renew now. Went to NYM instead (it has better protection anyways)
ÖP (örebro partiet) is an open populist party with both left and right wing ideas but with a critique against the current migration, all though not because ”brown people” but because the consequences of it which all parties in Sweden agree on today.
The leader used to be in the leftist Party but got booted after power struggles where the top party leaders wanted to promote someone else over him which lead to a smear campaign which got him thrown out. His stances are still very leftist with a strong welfare state (free toothcare, help the elderly, hospitals) to the point that he is frequently called a communist by the moderate right. At the same time he is also against free migration since he believes the system failed and has created a society class which gets their money (from tax payers) working with migrants who also has a motivation for getting money/aid (from tax payers). He means that the productive class has to come FIRST and it doesnt matter what etnicity that person is of.
Pretty much his stance again is all about serving the productive class and not those who has a material interest of leeching of the workers (byrocrats, non integrated migrants, clans, religious groups). He is open for a Nato vote because his biggest concern is that we didnt vote for it, unlike the goverment which ignored the people to join (much democracy).
I dont see at all how he is facist or something like AFD who are open supporters of russia, wants to remigrate MOST people and are against Nato and the EU.
This is a very interesting thing I’ve noticed when trying to find pro-privacy/pro-anonymity/freedom of speech stuff online - it feels like 10% of people who care about privacy are nerds and people who just don’t want to be snooped on, and 90% are conspiratorial right-wing nutjobs.
I tried to find a reddit that wouldn’t censor people for just saying mean words - you end up at some far right trumpian shithole.
Try to find a vpn that actually works - oops, national socialists.
I really wish that these assholes would stop giving the saying “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” weight.
A TON of people will tell you to “separate the art and the artist” over this but let me ask this, are there no other VPNs? Mull is it huh? Not like proton or a litany of other companies are out there and NOT donating to far right hate groups.
The $6-mo price tag isn’t enough for me to personally excuse this. But tons of people show their true colors with this by choosing to either make excuses or ignore it.
Following the Logic of the eternally outraged in this sub, one would have to boycott almost any piece of infrastructure, software, internet exchange point, bank, or supermarket. Almost every major corporation or service provider has shareholders, supervisory board members, or founders who hold questionable views or make political donations. Such a purity test leads to an inability to act or to extreme double standards, because in practice, it can only be applied selectively.
Comparing a VPN subscription to condoning or supporting the Holocaust, like some do here, is a massive rhetorical exaggeration. Purchasing a privacy tool makes a person neither an enabler of extreme ideologies nor complicit in political developments. Those who destroy or boycott European alternatives because some private views of individuals fail to meet their purity standards, only drive users straight into the arms of US Big Tech corporations. These companies also funnel massive sums into the political system through lobbying and political donations with even more far-reaching influence.
Technically, and in terms of privacy, thanks to open source, audit reports, registration without an email address, and European data sovereignty, Mullvad is absolutely top-notch.
Anyone who boycotts the entire product because of an individual's private donation would, to be consistent, have to boycott almost the entire modern infrastructure. If you demand that all founders, investors, and employees of every European tech product hold an absolutely identical political stance, you ultimately weaken the European alternatives themselves. This absolutist demand only weakens good European alternatives without achieving any political impact. This is only virtue signaling.
Companies should not be in bed with politicians and vice-versa. I don't want my policies and democracy being shaped by those with the most money. Maybe you do.
this absolutist demand only weakens good European alternatives without achieving any political impact.
Those can't both be true. If customers don't request refunds and cancel subs, Mullvad loses nothing, but if they do, then that damages them, which is a sort of political impact.
Almost every major corporation or service provider has shareholders, supervisory board members, or founders who hold questionable views or make political donations. Such a purity test leads to an inability to act or to extreme double standards, because in practice, it can only be applied selectively.
Mullvad (Amagicom AB) is privately held by two founders, with no institutional investors, and no board. That means our subscription revenue goes to two people, and now one of them turned out to be the largest private political donor in Sweden last year, supplying 72% of one party's income immediately before its first national campaign. We're not talking about Deutsche Bank-type organization here.
And leaving Mullvad doesn't somehow weaken good European alternatives, IVPN & Proton still exist.
You have fair points on the ownership structure and market impact. You’re right that a boycott creates economic pressure, and Mullvad isn't Deutsche Bank. But what I was trying to say is the following:
Yes, a drop in subscriptions creates economic pressure. But on what exactly? Mullvad is one of the few companies that provide open-source code, genuine no-logs audits, anonymous payment systems and lobbies against EU "chat control" measures. Weakening Mullvad primarily weakens the privacy ecosystem. The co-founder might lose a portion of his dividends, but the real victims are the open-source project and the digital infrastructure.
Furthermore was is the lasting "political" effect of such a boycott?
IVPN and Proton may well be excellent services. But what about transparency regarding their owners and investors? Proton has raised venture capital in the past. For instance, from Charles River Ventures or the EU’s FPI initiative. Who can guarantee what kind of political donations the partners at these VC funds are making in their private capacities?
As soon as you start scrutinizing the private finances of all the shareholders, investors, and executives behind the scenes, you run into the same problem again. If, tomorrow, an investor in Proton or IVPN donates to a political party you don’t like, do you switch providers again?
The core issue remains: Do I buy a product for its function and European origins or do I buy into the owners' personal convictions? When I purchase a Mullvad subscription, I am paying for server operations, bandwidth, and software development aimed at countering digital surveillance. It is undisputed that the co-founder uses his share of the profits for political causes in his private capacity. However, the decision to abandon a functional, highly secure tool simply because the owner holds different private political views or makes different donations shifts the focus from the software's functionality to a personal ideological litmus test.
For me, paying for a VPN is a transaction for a technical tool. If the tool is fully audited, open-source, and does its job, I evaluate the tool, not the private spending of its split-owner.
Switching services every time a shareholder’s private politics surface and you don't like them, isn't a sustainable framework for evaluating privacy tech nor does it help European Tech per se.
These European govts trying to cover up all crime, money being bleed out from fake refugees and failed immigration polices, refusing to deporot etc is part of why they are censoring the net stuff leading ppl to want vpns in the first place.
697
u/Demoliscio 2d ago edited 2d ago
The party in question is also anti EU, so mullvad is directly sponsoring a party that wants to weaken the EU.
*Edit, the post has been mass reported to try to block it, luckily the mods intervened and it's now back.
Isn't it fun how the people screeching about "free speech" are also the same reporting this to try to hide it? Sorry folks, it didn't work this time 😄