@mullvadnet@mastodon.online I've been grateful for Mullvad, since its been one of the only vocal groups for privacy in this country for a long time now. Ever since FRA was established I've had the feeling that most people don't give a single shit about this anymore. As long as they can complain about the weather, take their annual plane vacation to Tenerife and post their incessant shit on Instagram in order to get a few more likes from their relatives and friends so they can stroke their own egos for a bit. Therefore I've been silent about this whole ordeal, in anticipation of what kind of statement and actions Mullvad would take after reflecting on this for a while. Remember, this amount of money in this small country makes this a different beast than something you can just boil down to "Hey, we don't give a shit what Mr. Doe spends his weekly private allowance on, give us some slack." This is not chump change over here.
I would've guessed that their co-founders and employees would be smarter than this. I would've guessed that they would realise that this issue is really important and demands proper focus. That it's too important to let even the prospect of a misstep ruin it (I think we all know the thin ice VPN providers in particular live on when it comes to trust). I've been a paying subscriber for quite a few years by now, and I was not happy about having to look up this particular party in Örebro. I would've hoped that I wouldn't have to spend my time on something like that because of this. Now, I live in Sweden (unfortunately) but I don't live near Närke and because of that I don't really see any news about local issues there. Local news are very solidly guarded behind paywalls in this country, so we're not really encouraged to find any news about our neighbours, leaving most of us to read about other peoples' feelings and guesses on Facebook. I still haven't managed to find a lot of news or facts about this party due to this, but in my mind it's not actually really the most important aspect of this either.
The co-founder has in all likelihood gotten enough wealth from this company to be able to spend nearly 500 000€ on this party contribution, and judging from his own admission he doesn't particularly agree with their views or want them to have more power. If the blog post is to be believed (once you've gotten through the initial parts that are mostly factoids followed by his own unsubstantiated deductions and conclusions) it seems he basically spent it because of... a general feeling of "meh, fuck it". Or...? That's even more befuddling if that's the case. I don't know about the rest of you, but I never signed up for contributing to that. (And if he has such a private wealth that he can leisurely spend that amount of money with or without the help of his company on something he allegedly doesn't even really believe in I'd say it's even worse, and that it's obvious that he's part of the problem he himself is lamenting that this country is suffering from).
I won't call Mullvad co-founders or employees fascists. I won't call them any other names either. I won't even ask for a refund for the subscription I currently have. But I cannot justify renewing my subscription when it expires in a few months either. I genuinely thought Mullvad were smarter and more serious than this. I thought they would be able to handle this more responsibly than this.
Their latest statement has in my ears basically amounted to "Don't sweat it dude, we might occasionally splurge on some stupid shit from time to time. Who knows what consequences it might bring lol. But we still got you fam." To that I say: good luck, but I'm not comfortable with that "vibe", so I'm going to try to find a more serious and focused alternative to spend my money on from here on. As Mullvad themselves have basically stated the last few years, this issue is too important. Imagine what Mullvad could have done if the co-founders were serious enough about their own organisation to put this amount of money towards this actual issue instead?
Also Mullvad, seriously: "But societies need a great diversity of ideas, initiatives and organizations who can be tested and sifted until the best ones remain. Ideally through rational debate."
Since when was a private financial contribution of 500 000€ to a singular regional party an attempt to "sift initiatives and ideas and have a rational debate"? That's exactly the kind of behaviour you yourself have been criticising other private companies of doing in order to try to influence political decisions. Shame on you for not owning up to your own actions.
