Mullvad founder gave millions to extremist far right party
54 points
1 hour ago
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mortarion
38 minutes ago
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Örebropartiet is not a extremist far-right party. All their policies is extreme far-left except immigration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party

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gpm
35 minutes ago
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This sounds very much far right and not left at all to me

> Markus Allard takes inspiration from marxist ideology[32] 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 of transfers that are a net negative for society such as those who, despite having an ability to work, live off of social welfare benefits, as well as those who work "made-up services"[33] that the party deems serve no societal function, such as bureaucrats, consultants, public sector communications specialists, strategists and HR-specialists.

It's practically a copy and paste of the ideology behind "doge".

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ShinyLeftPad
32 minutes ago
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By your logic USSR was far right.
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gpm
29 minutes ago
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No, I'm fairly sure you could not find a quote like that about the USSR.
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ShinyLeftPad
18 minutes ago
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The people you described were called "тунеядцы" in USSR. With a possible exception of bureaucrats who existed as a result of centralized government but were also called "a barrier for the working class" by Lenin etc.

I also highly doubt USSR would accommodate people who move in and don't bother to integrate into the culture and speak Russian. Ask people from entire countries where Moscow did Russification, and those people didn't even move in from outside they already lived there.

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pigpop
6 minutes ago
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The trial of Joseph Brodsky is a fascinating insight into the workings of the USSR https://www.nytimes.com/1972/10/01/archives/the-trial-of-jos...

They had strong opinions of what was deemed "socially useful" work and were not above abolishing those pursuits they deemed to be useless.

All able-bodied people were expected to work (in approved roles) and you would be provided a job if you couldn't find one but if you refused to work they would deem you a "social parasite" and prosecute you if you didn't reform your behavior.

Somehow, people seem to forget that Marxism is an ideology of workers.

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mortarion
29 minutes ago
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Marxism, communism and socialism are all extreme far-left ideologies.

Being anti-immigration doesn't automatically swing the party to the right. As written on Wikipedia, "left-conservative" is probably the best label.

The Swedish far-left loves to, for instance, brand the governing party in Denmark as far-right, but they are actually also left-conservative.

It is possible (shocker) to be liberal and progressive, whilst also being pro-assimilation, pro-deportation, anti-immigration.

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gpm
28 minutes ago
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> Marxism, communism and socialism are all extreme far-left ideologies.

Yes, but the behavior in that quote, cutting social services, is none of the above. Using language associated with far left movements while promoting far right policies leaves you as a far right party.

> Being anti-immigration doesn't automatically swing the party to the right

Literally nothing in the quote I quoted is about immigration (though they hit that checkbox as well and it absolutely does swing you to the right).

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ShinyLeftPad
15 minutes ago
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> cutting social services

By providing free healthcare and dental care or at least reducing out of pocket costs?

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rationalist
18 minutes ago
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In the U.S., before Trump was elected, immigration control and deportating illegal immigrants were things that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama ("left" politicians) campaigned on.
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creaturemachine
18 minutes ago
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National Socialism in a nutshell.
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vrganj
37 minutes ago
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Would you say they are... national socialists then?

And they're not just anti-immigration, they're pro-ethnical cleansing of people already living there.

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fsmedberg
36 minutes ago
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Try radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists
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anonym29
33 minutes ago
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>they're pro-ethnical cleansing of people already living there

source?

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gpm
32 minutes ago
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From the wikipedia article linked above...

> In 2026 ÖP party leader Markus Allard sparked controversy on several occasions. In a debate hosted by Studio3 with Liberal member of parliament Martin Melin, Allard asked: "why won't the Liberals push for deporting 100 000 social welfare-Somalis?" and in the same debate said that "Sweden belongs to the Swedes. We have to make sure that we take care of our own damn people and we must deport these damn parasites who sit and live at our expense."

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anonym29
26 minutes ago
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"ethnic cleansing" is an emotionally charged term that conjures genocide in the popular imagination. It is not a good descriptive term for what can rightly be described as regressive or ultra-nationalistic migration policy.
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gpm
19 minutes ago
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Ethnic cleansing is an emotionally charged term, yes, because the crime against of humanity of deporting an entire population is absolutely horrific and a very close neighbour to genocide.

The proposed policy here is squarely what Rome Statute, Article 7 (1)(d) is intended to prevent. Sweden is a party to the treaty.

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whalesalad
35 minutes ago
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Wild. I spent about 3 months living in Örebro while on contract with a company based there.
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lightbulbish
26 minutes ago
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I'm Swedish, but never heard of Örebropartiet before. I tried looking into their website and it doesn't say a lot.

Translated from Swedish wikipedia: --- Örebropartiet was founded by Markus Allard in the spring of 2014, when he was recently expelled from the Left Party and the Young Left. [...] Among the party's main issues are reduced politicians' salaries, reduced bureaucracy, civil servant responsibility, assimilation policy and the repatriation of people who do not adapt. ---

I think it is very reasonable to demand that people try to integrate when coming to a new country - learn the language, get into the culture. As a Swedish person I think this is missing from our integration politics, which is an often talked about topic in the last years.

In the end this is a political question and sadly instead of engaging in dialogue the reaction to these questions feels like it most often leads to polarization and division. Inclusion means also including people with different beliefs and respecting their opinions, even if we don't share them. Through understanding comes empathy.

Can recommend "The Righteous Mind" by moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt who discusses this in a book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Righteous_Mind

Fun fact: we get a dopamine release when taking an opposing stance and then seeing (subjective) proof of our stance. It requires self-discipline and fighting your impulses to avoid polarization.

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hackinthebochs
19 minutes ago
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I'm not sure why I should care that an ethnic X is supporting a party that defends a homeland mainly for ethnic X's. It's always taken as an axiom by leftists that immigration is an unconditional good, but never actually defended. Why should stable homogenous countries take on unbounded immigration from countries with dissimilar cultures and suffer all the ills that come along with it? Why are white countries moving to preserve their culture, ethnicities, identities supposed to be unconscionable? Can anyone offer a full-throated defense of these claims?
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rationalist
13 minutes ago
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> It's always taken as an axiom by leftists that immigration is an unconditional good, but never actually defended.

I'm not sure that is correct. Before Trump, "left" politicians (in the U.S.) campaigned on controlling immigration and deporting illegal immigrants.

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hackinthebochs
23 seconds ago
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Not in my experience, at least not at the national level. It's been said that Obama deported more illegals than anyone that came before. But Democrats couldn't run on that record because it was toxic to the progressives.
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jaykru
35 minutes ago
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The party in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party. Doesn't sound extremist far-right to me. Many of its positions would be considered center-left or even far left in much of the world.
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mrtksn
42 minutes ago
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I am surprised that people are surprised, all these services are by people for people who are marginalized. Therefore, they are either far-right or far-left. When its business, its more likely to be a far-right since they are more business-oriented. The far left folks usually make a repo and give it away or try to organize some collective effort.
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greggoB
40 minutes ago
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> for people who are marginalized. Therefore, they are either far-right or far-left.

There are many types of marginalised groups, and many other reasons to want to use VPNs. Putting everything on a left-right political axis seems more than a tad reductive.

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mrtksn
39 minutes ago
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Sure but far left and far right is a crude default way to generalize, the left folks will be especially annoyed by this but its still useful when the specifics don't matter.
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freediddy
31 minutes ago
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Did anyone actually look into the "far-right" party that this purports to be?

The Örebro Party (Swedish: Örebropartiet, ÖP) is a local populist political party in Örebro, Sweden, led by Markus Allard. It holds seats in the Örebro municipal and regional assemblies, focusing on local populist policies such as reducing politicians' salaries, stricter migration, and free dental care.

Sweden has undergone a horrible transformation in the last several years where gang warfare and especially bombings have skyrocketed. Most of the new gang violence in the last several years is from migrants from North Africa and the Middle East, after Sweden implemented a generous immigration policy.

https://nct-cbnw.com/an-explosion-a-day-in-sweden-what-is-go...

There's nothing to indicate that this party is "far right" at all. It's a populist-based party but the stance on immigration is definitely linearly correlated to the violence that was brought in by immigration. Lowering politicians' salaries and free dental care doesn't sound very far right to me.

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fsmedberg
37 minutes ago
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Swede here. That's not even close to accurate. Örebropartiet is not extremist, but I would absolutely label them radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists. Please do some research and make up your own mind. They're a tiny local party active in Örebro municipality where their founder and leader loudly points out clearly wasteful use of government funds, or more or less corrupt decisions made by leading party figures in other parties on local matters. The party leader is known for ridiculing competing parties party members on debates.

Where the Örebropartiet (Örebro Party) usually are called extremist is in questions regarding immigration. They are of the opinion that people that move to Sweden should not integrate but also assimilate, and quickly, find a job. For some people, this might sound extreme, but I would argue that more than half of the Swedish population (and its parties) nowadays share this view, similar to how Japanese people and society broadly want people that move their to assimilate.

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Capricorn2481
34 minutes ago
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> similar to how Japanese people and society broadly want people that move their to assimilate

And it's super racist there too, I can assure you. My father in law is Korean but lived in Japan his whole life. There's no way to describe what he experienced except racism. People just hated him for being Korean.

I have no respect for people that concern troll about some vague cultural purity to disguise their prejudices.

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ShinyLeftPad
30 minutes ago
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A friend of mine who is a non Japanese Asian lived in Japan and when asked said there's no racism. There's mild cases but if you are careful to follow the customs and speak the language, you are generally accepted as a Japanese in daily life.
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Capricorn2481
26 minutes ago
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> A friend of mine who is a non Japanese Asian lived in Japan and when asked said there's no racism

Well I'm convinced.

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ShinyLeftPad
21 minutes ago
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:shrug: same back to you?
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tastyface
31 minutes ago
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All white nationalist parties describe themselves in these neutral terms, of course. I've yet to find a hardline anti-immigration party that is not also virulently racist.
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whatever4789
37 minutes ago
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Thanks for letting me know. I'll be sure to add Mullvad to my whitelist and support them. Anyone else I should support?
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ar_lan
30 minutes ago
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This is a bizarre thread.

People are surprised that a privacy-oriented businessman is right-wing is very strange.

"Millions" in the title is also misleading in this context - it's millions in Swedish Kronor, which is roughly $500K USD. A lot, but the title seems intentionally misleading.

I've also never really understood the cycle of boycotting things because you don't like how an individual spends their own money. Almost every company will employ people who have values you severely disagree with, and put money toward those causes. And turning to Proton as the alternative is... a choice?

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znpy
31 minutes ago
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I love this post and the comments because it shows that on the left side of the political spectrum your actual opinions are essentially irrelevant: if you’re not 100% aligned you’re called far right.
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Capricorn2481
18 minutes ago
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Yes very far left.

"They should also be deported, even if they were born in Sweden, because they don't have a natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedes. I am prepared to walk over corpses here, and that is what separates me from these other damn politicians." [1]

[1] https://x.com/AllardKlipp/status/2060109271635771457

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mhitza
37 minutes ago
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Any of the Swedes in here can corroborate the claims in the article about this right wing group? Especially about the extreme anti-immigration statements and put that in full translation and context?

Also what this group leader has done in Örebro to contextualize this quote

> ”I hope they will do similar things on the national level as in Örebro”, writes Daniel Berntsson to Flamman.

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ninjin
26 minutes ago
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Tried to find something from the party itself, but found nothing on their homepage other than that they plan to publish a party programme "gradually, starting some time during the summer of 2026".

https://www.orebropartiet.se/var-politik/

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fsmedberg
33 minutes ago
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The claims in the social media post is pure bullshit. The party is a tiny (read: one person elected) radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists. They have gained popularity for pointing out wasteful use of Örebro's municipalities resources, and their leader's fondness of lengthy ridiculing other parties politicians in lengthy debates, that he often publish on Instagram and YouTube.
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mhitza
26 minutes ago
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Thank you for providing context.

Are his public stances on immigration precisely stated as remigration, or does he describe a thing such as remigration without explicitly naming it as such?

About his quote from wikipedia "They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish." which links to this video tweet https://x.com/AllardKlipp/status/2060109271635771457 can you give full context/translation?

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colesantiago
1 hour ago
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You should uninstall Mullvad, like right now and tell your friends and anyone that is using it to uninstall it too.

Mullvad is now a funnel into funding right wing extremist political parties.

Other services that use Mullvad:

Mozilla VPN

Netbird (questionably considering Mullvad support) (https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird/issues/1138)

Obscura VPN

Malwarebytes Privacy VPN

Tailscale

ProxyStore

Webhallen & Inet

Do not buy Mullvad VPN scratch cards in stores too.

I am probably going to switch to Proton VPN in light of this, but welcome more ethical and principled alternatives.

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techhut
46 minutes ago
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NetBird doesn't use Mullvad
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colesantiago
6 minutes ago
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They are considering which is enough for me to not use Netbird.

https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird/issues/1138

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pixel_popping
38 minutes ago
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You'd have the same mindset if they were funding left wing extremists right?
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SideburnsOfDoom
33 minutes ago
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Don't be silly, everyone knows that left wing extremists are broke, and have no funds.
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SideburnsOfDoom
51 minutes ago
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I am now open to suggestions for a good VPM that isn't Mulvad. Or Proton.

Why not Proton: https://pivot-to-ai.com/2024/07/25/proton-mail-adds-a-bitcoi...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48447103

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vrganj
1 hour ago
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colesantiago
1 hour ago
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:/

Perhaps the alternative is to self host, but my friends can't do that.

It is about time we compile a list of VPNs to avoid.

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basisword
49 minutes ago
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What's going on? Proton faced a similar scandal recently. I think in their case sponsored a video by a far right vlogger. After that I saw people recommending Mullvad as an alternative.
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pixel_popping
40 minutes ago
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Maybe people should stop mixing the personal life of founders with the businesses they are running? People are able to separate concerns, but apparently there is this relatively recent obsession with mixing the 2.

I could run a deceptive insurance company while running another ultra ethical non-profit open-source project, both are compatible and aren't mixed, personal life has nothing to do with business.

People are talking as if not everyone is good & bad at the same time, it's disappointing, if I were to leak individually the "deepest secrets" of every single person running a business, then all of them would deserve to be outed based on this mindset, many (maybe majority) people have stolen, committed crimes, deceptive things... in their life, you can be both good & bad, and I bet Mullvad founders are doing way more good than bad.

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Cenk
34 minutes ago
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Surely you can see the difference between “the personal life of founders” and “the founder of this company is by far the largest donor to a party in favour of ethnic cleansing and thus I don’t want to buy his products”?
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drdexebtjl
22 minutes ago
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What?

The reason he has those millions to give is because of the money he made from Mullvad, no?

If he separates that, I’ll happily separate my judgement as well.

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addedGone
15 minutes ago
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you are saying that if that founder earned from scam websites while running Mullvad, then it would have been fine to sponsor that association with the crime money, but not Mullvad money, yes?
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vrganj
38 minutes ago
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There's "personal life" and then theres being 75% of the funding of a party calling for ethnic cleansing...
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pixel_popping
34 minutes ago
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You have sources about Ethnic cleansing or you are just talking about immigration which has nothing to do with ethnicity? Of course criminal immigrants that just cross the border should be deported, that's common-sense. You would really cross Japanese border right now and genuinely think you aren't committing a serious crime?

Can you give some sources regarding the Ethnic cleansing?

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vrganj
30 minutes ago
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party

> Some of its key issues include [...] large scale remigration

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration

> Remigration is a far-right concept referring to the ethnic cleansing via mass deportation of non-white minority populations

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pixel_popping
27 minutes ago
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How can you "remigrate" Swedish citizens? They are citizens. Are you talking about immigrants (who are guests in the country)?
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SideburnsOfDoom
21 minutes ago
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> How can you "remigrate" Swedish citizens? They are citizens

This is answered in the first para of the linked Wikipedia article. "remigration" is not the parent poster's term, your misunderstanding of it is not on them at this point.

> Are you talking about immigrants (who are guests in the country)

No. and also, that statement about immigrants is false as a categorisation.

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addedGone
12 minutes ago
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how can you deport Swedish citizens? is there any mechanism in the law allowing to deport their own citizen? If not, then this whole talk is solely about immigration.
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ndegruchy
1 hour ago
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Disappointing if true. I can't read the original article[1], but the translation seems to agree. I've paid for Mullvad for _years_. Looks like I'll be taking my money elsewhere.

[1]: https://www.flamman.se/techprofil-ger-miljoner-till-orebropa...

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fsmedberg
29 minutes ago
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Article by a news media outlet that is considered very far left (communist). Try finding the same claim or description in any national Swedish media. You won't.
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XorNot
41 minutes ago
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I have Mullvad to avoid age check gateways, not super anonymity. I'll absolutely be taking my business elsewhere.
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SCdF
1 hour ago
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Additional context here is that they donated 75% of *all donations* to that party last year. 3x everyone else combined.

And that party is not just "kind of right wing", they believe in large scale "remigration" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration), which, to save you clicking the link, means "a far-right concept referring to the ethnic cleansing via mass deportation of non-white minority populations, especially immigrants and sometimes including native-born citizens, to their place of racial ancestry".

There is a wealth of difference between when random companies throw a few thousand at whatever the leading parties are, and this.

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Jysix
31 minutes ago
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Nice to know, I'm gifting right now a subscription for all the member of my family.
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10xDev
46 minutes ago
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As economies shrink and jobs become scarce, we may reach pre-ww2 order.
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elzbardico
34 minutes ago
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Do you live in Sweden, do you know the context of the mass migration it ocurred there? the social economic effects?
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addedGone
32 minutes ago
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Apparently it's not criminal to stay illegally in a country, they are delusional.
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nisegami
30 minutes ago
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It's funny how remigration never involves sending white folk back to europe.
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JuniperMesos
19 minutes ago
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That's because there are no nonwhite countries in the world that white people immigrate to en masse because living conditions there are better than in their own countries. There's a real racial asymmetry in the world between whites and nonwhites in terms of building countries people wish to live in.
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10xDev
5 minutes ago
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You certainly see a lot of tourists and expats. And it is easy to see the worst behaving ones especially in parts of Asia.
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anonym29
29 minutes ago
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>ethnic cleansing via mass deportation

"ethnic cleansing" is an emotionally charged term that conjures genocide in the popular imagination. It is not a good descriptive term for what can rightly be described as regressive or ultra-nationalistic migration policy.

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ktosobcy
38 minutes ago
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I'm still amused that so many people got brainwashed into thinking that VPNs give privacy :D
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