"'I don’t like that he made this donation' — Mullvad CEO reacts to co-founder’s donation to controversial Swedish populist party"
2026-06-30 10:07 UTC
Replies (9)
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@Iusedtobeanalien@lemmy.world 2026-07-01 03:29
All private financing of political parties and politicians everywhere must stop. Just as religion and state must be separated so must politics and money. If you hold more than $10 million in assets you don’t get to influence politics. It’s one or the other, not both.
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@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 2026-06-30 10:40
I’m not at the point where this outweighs the reasons I picked mullvad yet. And the other cofounder’s statement does at least give me hope that it might work itself out in a way I can accept before my current term is finished. That being said, I’m not sure I can give money to the company when someone is profiting from that money and spending part of it on a political organization that expressly espouses a stance I believe to be harmful and dangerous. And it isn’t like you can pirate a VPN, so it differs significantly from when actors or musicians do stupid shit. That being said, I also don’t think that using mullvad would be something other people would be obligated to avoid just because the CEO donated to a small and shitty political party. By itself, it isn’t something so bad that it’s possible to point to a customer and do more than inform them of the donation and maybe give them links to see for themselves that it’s a shitty party. Or, at least that it’s a party with some really shitty platforms. But the guy needs to show a major shift in how he donates before I’ll renew.
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@artyom@piefed.social 2026-06-30 10:22
Mullvad co-CEO Fredrik Strömberg confirmed that neither Mullvad VPN AB, its parent company Amagicom AB, nor its sister company Tillitis AB played any role in supporting the political party. It doesn’t matter if the company itself was directly involved or not, the money came from the company, and from its’ customers.
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@digital_alchemist@discuss.tchncs.de 2026-07-01 01:59
ffs - first Proton, now this. I’ve never liked the idea that I have to trust my VPN, and this news raises a pretty significant trust issue. Makes me think I’ve been approaching this from the wrong angle. Anyone have experience with the TOR daemon?
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@TheKaul@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-06-30 20:46
Highly recommend everyone read the direct response this article is quoting. Direct from the other owner of the company on Hacker News. Makes the whole “scandal” seem very understandable in my opinion. Additionally,
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@godsammitdam@lemmy.zip 2026-06-30 22:18
“I like this burger made by fascists. I’m going to keep eating this burger, I don’t care where it came from or where my money buying the burger goes to.” So many comments here sound like this, geez. Same people saying “we can be friends, can’t we, even if our politics differ?” Morality and respecting humans isn’t politics. And no. We can’t. Also, yes, enforcing racial and national purity (remigration) is, in fact, fascist ideology. Get over it. It’s not extreme, it’s calling a spade a spade. lemmy.zip/comment/27359847
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@gointhefridge@lemmy.zip 2026-06-30 14:02
I’m tired boss…… Just when you think you find good companies to support they end up being run by shitbags. Ok, where to next for my VPN needs?
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@HighlyRegardedArtist@lemmy.world 2026-07-01 05:06
Would be fun to know who’s sponsoring this smear campaign. After all, Mullvad has been stepping on many toes with their pro-privacy advocacy and enablement. I’d put my money on some combination of Thorn, Palantir, and whatever other surveillance capitalism corpos there are who’d benefit from less protected populace, both in policy and technology…
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@motruck@lemmy.zip 2026-06-30 21:59
You can not like it and you can run away from mullvad that’s a fine thing to be motivated to do hut what the other cofounder said is true. We don’t win by being tribal and team based. We when by tolerating and coexisting. I don’t know how this “Nazi” had harmed people but giving money to a political party is only a part of the story. If no one cares to hear the other side you are just perpetuating the same hate.