SEK 5M gift supplied 72 percent of Örebropartiet's annual income, but company insists it was strictly personal

Swedish VPN vendor Mullvad is facing a backlash from some customers after co-founder Daniel Berntsson personally donated SEK 5 million (£385,000, $519,000) to the controversial populist Örebropartiet, which is running in Sweden’s national elections for the first time.

Berntsson has this week published a blog post explaining the donation, alongside posts titled “Immigration,” “Political individualism,” and “Moral individualism.” Before that, he had not posted since 2019.

The flurry of posts follows weeks of customer criticism over the donation – for example, Finnish blog Moonwriting’s post “I’m done with Mullvad.” Another blog, Unutterable, is more direct: “Mullvad funding the far-right and the problem with tech company ownership.” The Hacker News discussion thread about the donations has reached a remarkable 1,784 comments so far.

Mullvad was co-founded and is still jointly owned and run by two CEOs, Berntsson and Fredrik Strömberg. Its name, as reflected in the company’s logo, is Swedish for “mole.” It also offers the Mullvad Browser, a privacy-enhanced fork of Firefox ESR co-developed with the Tor Project. Swedish socialist newspaper Flamman (“The Flame”) revealed the donation in its story “High-profile techie gives millions to the Örebro Party.”

In a post on X, the company said it was devoted to freedom of speech and tolerance, saying: “It should be obvious that Daniel’s private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad’s values or mission, in the same way that someone’s opinions on animal rights, taxes or public healthcare policy isn’t.”

  • thanksforallthefish@literature.cafeEnglish
    101·
    2 months ago

    AirVPN does port forwarding, and they’re less dodgy than PIA. Proton also does but there’s some questions raised by the CEOs support of Trump (still less dodgy than PIA though)

      • XLE@piefed.socialBanned from communityEnglish
        131·
        2 months ago

        The CEO made an official statement and then the official Proton account doubled down. Praising Donald Trump and JD Vance and insisting, at the time, that the Republican party would be the better party unless Democrats did something about it.

        I’m familiar with this link though. It’s the most suspicious, anonymous, intentionally incomplete, poorly written, AstroTurf-looking thing I’ve ever seen before. (How AstroTurfy? Proton officially uses it as a reference. So it gets extra scrutiny.)

          • XLE@piefed.socialBanned from communityEnglish
            2·
            2 months ago

            Hard to critique me if you can’t open the links to see what the official accounts say, and your anomymous Proton-backed blog post doesn’t mention it either. Here’s a relevant snippet they disappeared.

            Until corporate Dems are thrown out, the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.

            - Proton_Team on Reddit, January 2025

            Your link is to a 2016 blog post that says, in large font,

            It is not Trump’s fault

            So forgive me if I don’t think this is exonerating evidence, but rather something that resembles Proton moving from a more modest both-sides stance to attempting a very partisan one.

            The “it doesn’t matter” part of the blog post is also dangerously inaccurate, implying any privacy violation in Switzerland is illegal while, in reality, Swiss authorities have gotten Proton to disclose user data several times in high-profile incidents. Here’s the biggest one in my mind. And another and another.

              • XLE@piefed.socialBanned from communityEnglish
                11·
                2 months ago

                Oh no… It’s you. I actually thought you believed the blog post and didn’t know better. Because its assertion about Swiss law is the opposite of yours right now.

                You can’t say Proton is legally mandated to violate privacy while pushing a Proton-backed page that says

                Even if Andy supported MAGA and wished to cooperate with Trump’s DOJ, such actions would be illegal in Switzerland and blocked by Swiss courts.

                Because this is absolutely wrong, and you knew as much.

                But even if that nonsense wasn’t in there, the failure to mention the official Proton Team response in the blog post would be enough. Now I know you’re familiar with it, but here it is for anybody else who hasn’t seen it.

                Q39bZm4Dp8lb25m.png

                https://archive.is/LlbSj

                  • XLE@piefed.socialBanned from communityEnglish
                    21·
                    2 months ago

                    Oh, so Proton totally won’t work with Trump’s admin unless they get a lawful order and then they’ll bend over backwards.

                    Your Proton-backed blog post lies by omitting the second part. Having you say it post facto doesn’t absolve you of pushing deceptive material.

                    Speaking of lies by omission, any blog post that doesn’t address the official Proton Team response is unreliable. You can be snarky about it, but it’s clear the blog is being deceptive with what it intentionally ignores.