I'm Done with Mullvad

ayhanfuat

Previous discussion: The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party 695 points | 1784 comments ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48717469 ) It also has a comment from the other founder: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48696800

charcircuit

>Mullvad discusses its ideals of “a free and open society,” A free and open society does not mean that law and order cannot exist. Nor does it mean that immigration laws cannot be created or enforced.

muldvarp

> Some key issues for the Örebro Party locally include strong secularism, a 30-hour workweek with retained pay, lowered wages for politicians, expanded social housing, abolishing preschool-fees, making public transport free of charge, ending taxpayer funding of what it sees as wasteful sculptures, monuments and art and introducing free dental care. Nationally the party has set out large-scale remigration, closing the Swedish borders to immigration, a stricter assimilation policy and ending taxes on energy and fuel as some of its key issues. Seems very sensible.

m00dy

I don’t use VPNs anymore. They feel pointless now since almost every website has antibot systems, and VPN IP ranges are much easier to flag than residential proxies.

dijit

You have the right to do what you want with your money. In general though, I’m more likely to trust people who have strong opinions, especially if they’re dissenting opinions. We often immolate people for not being perfect enough while letting people like Trump capture huge parts of their respective market. Your ire isn’t useful. I believe that this is handwringing from people who want to take Mullvad down.

cinntaile

> As if it isn’t a problem that their CEO is supporting policies that go against everything that Mullvad stands for as a company. Mullvads mission is about privacy and against mass surveillance. That mission has nothing to do with their co-CEOs personal stance on immigration. I don't necessarily see the conflict of interest that the blog talks about?

kaxu-64

I love Mullvad even more. This will now be my 1st vpn.

fragmede

On the topic of privacy, the reason to use an LLM to write is stylometry. If I use my own voice to write anything of significant length, enough personal mannerisms will come through, so that I can be identified by my writing. If someone were to do something subversive, and wanted to be anonymous, that's one more thing to do to hide your tracks.

u1hcw9nx

I wrong long text, never again.

Caius-Cosades

So what does a political blogpost have to do with HN or tech?

nopromisessir

This post seems like an overreaction to me. Being this sensitive to company leadership political activity is going to exhaust a person and time would be better spent being careful to buy products with minimal value added from authoritarian nations with a history of gross human rights issues. Lots of counties don't want immigration, especially after they let a large group in and deal with integration challenges. The CCP forcefully places ethnic Han into minority homes to function as de facto informants. The Russians broke up Finnish/Ukrainian families en masse, moving them to the other end of Russia to minimize the likelihood of dissent in occupied areas. There are a lot worse ideas at play in the world than some of the more extreme suggestions that this very infant-sized Swedish party flirt with. On a scale of 1-10 heinousness, barely registers on the global stage. My thinking goes more like this: This product I bought from this nation... Does that Nation tend to value human rights, freedom of expression and liberal values? Sweden... Check. I can buy Swedish products all day. They make nice jets and mobile artillery that push back on the really bad ideas. One CEO's affiliation with an anti immigration populist party which honestly doesn't seem that serious... They've got some Marxist ideas in there. I really doubt these guys go much of anywhere in their current form. It's a capitalist society. Some of their ideas will stick but the party is immature. I wouldn't worry so much.

g-b-r

Most of the current comments here are in favor of Örebro, when did tech become so disgusting?

Gud

Personally I welcome more parties in the Swedish Riksdag. It is also interesting how they may get their seat. Örebropartiet is a local party to Örebro, but because they are getting a lot of votes in the local district election they may end up in a seat in the Riksdag, which is highly unusual.

nopromisessir

Lots of discussion surrounding what ethnonationism is... Ethnonationalism: Defined by shared ancestry, lineage, and cultural heritage. Membership is exclusive and inherited by birth, focusing on preserving a specific ethnic identity. Civic Nationalism: Defined by shared political principles, values, and laws. Membership is inclusive and open to anyone who adheres to the state's legal framework, regardless of background. Does the party call for remigration or a lower status for immigrants who have committed no crimes, found jobs and are not a disproportionate drain on the welfare state? To be ethnonationist, I believe they must call for that on the basis of us vs them. Perhaps someone can provide evidence of this. I haven't seen any. Seems like they are very upset about crime and welfare drain. Also they have a bunch other non immigration related positions that some might label as extreme.

belorn

People who look at this from a US political perspective is going to get a lot of misunderstanding unless one look into the specifics that are the Swedish political system and laws. The party in question is a small local government party looking to primary get seats in their local government, but with aspiration to get into national politics under a special rule that provide a single seat (1 out of 349) in parliament if the party get enough votes in a local election. The politician in question has made some comments about national immigration policy during debates, which local government has no power over, and which is what the label ethnonationalist is exclusively based on. Last election they got 7 700 votes, and they would need around 20 000 votes to get that one parliament seat. The specific quote in question has a bunch of context. The background was a parliamentary proposition that suggest that immigrants that are on subsidy programs should be required to do some social work as part of the integration process. The opposition disagreed, arguing that this would enable the government to exploit immigrants as free labor, and that is when this politician commented that if they want subsidy but refuse to work then they should return back to their home country (often translated as deported, which is not completely wrong translation but lacks context). The discussion around deportation from Sweden is also very different from the political discussion in US. Sweden has been deporting people for about 100 years if a person lacks permission to stay in the country, and there is no party that is advocating to stop this. What is debated is the definition used in the exception for unsafe home country, and a bit about what specific circumstances a permission to stay in the country can be withdrawn. Except for the above mentioned parliamentary proposition, I do not know of any political statements that Örebro party or their leader has said on those issues.

kmfrk

Swedish politics aside(!), I'd love to have other VPN services as exit points for Tailscale. More choice is good, and hopefully that becomes an option one day.

lylo

I've been recommended https://airvpn.org . Any opinions?