Mullvad founder gave millions to extremist far right party

(mastodon.social)

59 points | by vrganj 3 hours ago ago

107 comments

  • mortarion 2 hours ago

    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

    • gpm 2 hours ago

      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".

      • irthomasthomas an hour ago

        Sounds like a branch of the Technocracy movement which Musks grandfather helped found.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_N._Haldeman

        "The technocracy movement proposed replacing partisan politicians and business people with scientists and engineers who had the technical expertise to manage the economy"

      • mortarion 2 hours ago

        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.

        • gpm an hour ago

          > 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).

          • ShinyLeftPad an hour ago

            > cutting social services

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

        • creaturemachine an hour ago

          National Socialism in a nutshell.

        • rationalist an hour ago

          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.

      • ShinyLeftPad 2 hours ago

        By your logic USSR was far right.

        • gpm 2 hours ago

          No, I'm fairly sure you could not find a quote like that about the USSR.

          • ShinyLeftPad an hour ago

            You would be wrong. 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.

          • pigpop an hour ago

            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.

            • jalapenoj 43 minutes ago

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

              Not really, Marx and company were nobles, lawyers, etc. The ideology concerns provoking a civil war and taking over, workers rights is just the rhetoric to cause the revolution. The worker’s paradise never materializes because it’s not actually about that.

              • pigpop 22 minutes ago

                This is true but the ideology was packaged and sold as a movement for the working class. My observation had more to do with the modern interpretation of it as somehow being a license to not work, which appears comical when compared with how it was instituted.

                Not all of the component parts of the ideology are necessarily false due to their introduction and popularization by Marx. Personally, I find his writings obtuse and his beliefs abhorrent. There is, however, merit in the idea that the state should benefit its people, a large percentage of which are the productive working class, but it shouldn't be ruled by the working class. The state is its people and their culture, it shouldn't oppose their interests or subjugate and exploit them for the advancement of ideals alien to them.

          • an hour ago
            [deleted]
    • josefritzishere 32 minutes ago

      Seems more complicated than that, in reading the wiki.

    • vrganj 2 hours ago

      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.

      • fsmedberg 2 hours ago

        Try radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists

      • elzbardico 2 hours ago

        [flagged]

      • anonym29 2 hours ago

        >they're pro-ethnical cleansing of people already living there

        source?

        • gpm 2 hours ago

          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."

          • anonym29 an hour ago

            "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.

            • 10xDev an hour ago

              You are essentially calling for a civil war. Reason why Russia pushes these ideas under fake "patriot" accounts.

            • an hour ago
              [deleted]
            • 43 minutes ago
              [deleted]
            • gpm an hour ago

              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.

    • whalesalad 2 hours ago

      Wild. I spent about 3 months living in Örebro while on contract with a company based there.

  • lightbulbish an hour ago

    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.

  • hackinthebochs an hour ago

    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?

    • UtopiaPunk 12 minutes ago

      I don't want to speak for European countries. Never lived there, and I think people living there should be responsible for deciding how they navigate such issues.

      In the USA, where I live, there is not much of an ethical or cultural defense to prevent immigration. The dominant culture, white people, are themselves immigrants. To deny others the right to live and work here is selfish at best. If some people are allowed here and some people are not, the only logically coherent next step is to return all land and resources back to Native American hands. If we do not have the stomach for such a bold transition, then the next best thing is to welcome everyone. To do otherwise means allowing and denying people a life here on extremely arbitrary, hypocritical reasons (and usually racist reasons, frankly). So, at least in the USA (and I believe more broadly, North and South America), the political Left must necessarily be pro-immigration if they wish to be anti-racist.

      Speaking even more broadly, Leftists have generally be in favor of internationalist cooperation (a la the famous song The Internationale). But how exactly that relates to immigration policies is debatable.

    • tastyface an hour ago

      I live in a "white" country and I like my nonwhite neighbors, some immigrant, some nth-generation, even ones who mostly socialize within their ethnic/cultural enclaves. I believe they belong here as much as I do. I don't want to give any money to racists who want to expunge them for some perceived ethnic transgressions. These parties are one step removed from extolling the virtues of the glorious Aryan race, and we all know where that leads.

      • hackinthebochs an hour ago

        >I believe they belong here as much as I do.

        This sentiment is just so utterly foreign to me that I can't comprehend how someone could rationally think this way. I mean, I'm a black man whose ancestors have lived in America since the slave ships, and I easily recognize that some people are more American than others. And Americans only have like 1% of the cultural and ethnic identity that most European nations have. Why are you blind to the importance of the deep historical roots that bind a nation together? Why do you think the very force (namely kinship ties) that has driven humanity forward for the last hundred thousand years has, in the blink of an eye, become irrelevant?

    • rationalist an hour ago

      > 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.

      • UtopiaPunk 5 minutes ago

        The USA has never had a leftist president. No president of the USA has ever sought to end capitalism.

        I think you know that, and that you are alluding to that with quotation marks. But I'm not sure how the person you are replying to is using the term "left." I feel it is important to clarify when discussing how the Left views immigration.

        Clarification aside, I agree with what you said.

      • hackinthebochs an hour ago

        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.

    • an hour ago
      [deleted]
  • jaykru 2 hours ago

    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.

    • rchaud 35 minutes ago

      Upstart political parties with near-zero seats in national Parliament have a nasty habit of radically changing their platform once they do get power.

  • mrtksn 2 hours ago

    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.

    • greggoB 2 hours ago

      > 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.

      • mrtksn 2 hours ago

        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.

  • fsmedberg 2 hours ago

    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.

    • Capricorn2481 2 hours ago

      > 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.

      • ShinyLeftPad 2 hours ago

        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.

        • Capricorn2481 an hour ago

          > 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.

          • ShinyLeftPad an hour ago

            :shrug: same back to you?

            • Capricorn2481 an hour ago

              No, there's a fundamental difference between what we both wrote. There's a difference between saying "I know someone who has experienced racism" and "My friend says there's no racism in X country." One is a personal experience, the other invalidates the experiences of everyone else. They are not two sides of the same coin like you are implying. If you take the phrase "There is no racism in Japan" at face value, you are either pushing an agenda or falling for someone else's.

              "We just want assimilation" is the palatable marketing term for "We would be fine arresting people at their immigration hearings if they are brown enough." Just look at the U.S.

              • ShinyLeftPad an hour ago

                Rewrite my comment to say "my friend experienced no racism". Not more than in his home country at least.

                What you said is the same. One is according to what your relative said another is according to what my friend said.

                I don't think it's crazy to expect assimilation. We are fascinated with different countries and cultures and we generally consider it's a good idea they exist and are different. Diversity is strength. But they can only be different if they have their own culture and traditions. Would everyone be so fascinated with Japan or Korea if it was not for their culture? Would they be the same without high trust society that is made possible by it?

        • cindyllm an hour ago

          [dead]

    • tastyface 2 hours ago

      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.

  • ar_lan 2 hours ago

    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?

    • jlongr 30 minutes ago

      You're mischaracterizing what most people are taking issue with. Being dense, honestly.

  • freediddy 2 hours ago

    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.

  • ndegruchy 2 hours ago

    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...

    • XorNot 2 hours ago

      I have Mullvad to avoid age check gateways, not super anonymity. I'll absolutely be taking my business elsewhere.

    • fsmedberg 2 hours ago

      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.

  • znpy 2 hours ago

    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.

    • Capricorn2481 an hour ago

      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

      • tastyface an hour ago

        I hate how right wingers are constantly trying to normalize viscous, abhorrent rhetoric like this. Ironically, they often claim to be religious...

        If any of my peers spoke like this, I'd cut them out of my life in an instant.

        • yaris 6 minutes ago

          The quote is taken out of context. The sentence starts with "Youngsters that are criminals - they should get out". And before "walk over corpses" he says that "they got swedish passports but have not become swedish [culturally]. They are not interested in it".

        • eudamoniac 34 minutes ago

          If anyone would have the courage to speak like this in my country, I'd vote them into office in an instant

  • basisword 2 hours ago

    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.

  • mhitza 2 hours ago

    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.

    • ninjin an hour ago

      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/

    • fsmedberg 2 hours ago

      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.

      • mhitza an hour ago

        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?

        • yaris 17 minutes ago

          He says what is quoted when talking about criminals with immigrant roots. "Those [criminals] - they should get out, even if they were born in Sweden, because they do not have a connection to Sweden. They received a swedish passport but they have not become swedish [as belonging to swedish culture]. They are not interested [in becoming swedish] and here I'm ready to go on corpses...". Overall his stance on immigration (taken from this video) is not as extreme as one can imagine reading HN comments. It is extreme but not to the extent that he's ready to push out anyone whos granddad was not Andersson.

  • elzbardico 2 hours ago

    [flagged]

  • colesantiago 3 hours ago

    [flagged]

  • whatever4789 2 hours ago

    [flagged]

  • pixel_popping 2 hours ago

    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.

    • Cenk 2 hours ago

      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”?

    • drdexebtjl an hour ago

      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.

      • addedGone an hour ago

        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?

    • vrganj 2 hours ago

      There's "personal life" and then theres being 75% of the funding of a party calling for ethnic cleansing...

      • pixel_popping 2 hours ago

        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?

        • vrganj 2 hours ago

          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

          • pixel_popping an hour ago

            How can you "remigrate" Swedish citizens? They are citizens. Are you talking about immigrants (who are guests in the country)?

            • SideburnsOfDoom an hour ago

              > 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.

              • addedGone an hour ago

                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.

            • Capricorn2481 an hour ago

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

              The party advocates for deporting people who are born in the country.

              • ShinyLeftPad an hour ago

                Who speak the language of the country and work productive jobs?

  • SCdF 2 hours ago

    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.

    • 10xDev 2 hours ago

      As economies shrink and jobs become scarce, we may reach pre-ww2 order.

      • zymhan 2 hours ago

        [flagged]

        • 10xDev 2 hours ago

          Nothing to see here of course. Luckily some us have savings and can see the tide shift. Good luck.

    • nisegami 2 hours ago

      It's funny how remigration never involves sending white folk back to europe.

      • JuniperMesos an hour ago

        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.

        • 10xDev an hour ago

          You certainly see a lot of tourists and expats. And it is easy to see the worst behaving ones especially in parts of Asia.

        • eudamoniac 29 minutes ago

          This of course means that all of those latter countries need to import millions of people from the other countries because this is bound to increase the quality of the good country, somehow.

        • nisegami an hour ago

          I meant from the Americas

    • elzbardico 2 hours ago

      Do you live in Sweden, do you know the context of the mass migration it ocurred there? the social economic effects?

      • addedGone 2 hours ago

        Apparently it's not criminal to stay illegally in a country, they are delusional.

    • anonym29 2 hours ago

      >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.

    • focusgroup0 2 hours ago

      [dead]

    • Jysix 2 hours ago

      [flagged]

  • ktosobcy 2 hours ago

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