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I'm sorry to hear that. I'm not defending his choice, but consider reading Daniel's rationale in the Flamman article. There's also his blog [1], which explains

• actionfromafar 3mo ago
  [flagged]
  • subarctic 3mo ago
    Oh no how dare they /s
• McDyver 3mo ago
  > As I said in another comment, speaking for myself, I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues. Maybe there's a case to distance Mullvad from him, then. Not taking a stand is also a political choice.
  • kfreds 3mo ago
    Consider GWB's "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." For and against are not always the only options. Sometimes there are nuances, or other concerns. Daniel made this decision as a private individual. Some of his colleagues (including me) dislike it as private individuals. I recognize that the amount as well as his position of power within the company (co-founder, co-owner, co-CEO) make people who disapprove more uncomfortable than if it had been a much lower amount from a regular employee. However, as others have argued, what would happen if Mullvad started weighing in on politics unrelated to its mission? Better to see Mullvad almost like a force of nature: Mullvad believes privacy is a universal right. You might disagree but at least it's consistent, and I'd argue that's one path to trustworthiness - you know how we're likely to treat you as a customer. (equally, regardless of your political affiliation) Obviously everyone is free to make their own choice on whether they like this stance or not.
    • 8ytecoder 3mo ago
      I know what you’re saying sounds perfectly rational to you and I do applaud you for holding the moral position separating someone’s private life from their contribution to the company. But, think about the number of people who were let go for far less controversial actions. At some point an officer of the company doing things in their personal life becomes a distraction to the company’s goals. My question is, would you act differently if this person were not a co-founder?
      • JuniperMesos 3mo ago
        If Mullvad fired an ordinary employee for donating to an anti-immigration party or pressured them into not donating, I would absolutely find a new VPN provider that doesn't do this over it.
        • kfreds 3mo ago
          As would I. That doesn't seem like a nice workplace. I'm pretty sure it's illegal too, at least in Sweden.
        • Gerharddc 3mo ago
          For sure, and I think most people would agree with this. However, I also think most people treat it differently when it is someone so high up because they have a lot of control and, more importantly, accumulate a large part of the profit. I don't think you should not be allowed to have strong political opinions in such a position. I just think that in this case, it is very dangerous to express so much support for them in such a public way. I say this because (from my perspective at least) a large part of Mullvad's "competitive advantage" is their brand image, and it just feels that a link to controversial politics probably does more harm than good to this brand image.
          • Akronymus 3mo ago
            If the donations were to the opposite end of the political spectrum, do you think there would be a similar amount of backlash?
  • honeycrispy 3mo ago
    > Maybe there's a case to distance Mullvad from him, then. Not taking a stand is also a political choice. They are making a stand. This stance that they've taken has made me decide that I'm switching from another VPN provider TO Mullvad. Not many people have the backbone to actually stand behind freedom of speech when it may cost them something. It's very admirable.
    • applfanboysbgon 3mo ago
      Purchasing political power has zero relation to freedom of speech.
    • JuniperMesos 3mo ago
      Depending on what your current VPN provider is, this might be a good idea anyway.
• deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
• gpm 3mo ago
  > I'm not defending his choice, but consider reading Daniel's rationale This is literally defending his choice. More than that it is providing direct support to the views you are apparently trying to distance yourself from by suggesting people read literature in favour of them - not in a context where they even see opposing arguments. But as a fun aside to the people debating that his views aren't right wing... consider this quote from the aforementioned blog (translation made via firefox's swedish to english model) > A building permit officer at a municipal city building office is primarily dedicated to preventing, making it difficult, costly, delayed and uneasy construction. He causes great damage and thus produces negative value, but still also receives his salary from the tax of others and is thus supported by others. Can we get more right wing than claiming that imposing standards on industry so they don't go around building death traps that kill people to save a few bucks "causes great damage and thus produces negative value". Not even as an argument that this particular office is overly restrictive, but just as a statement about building permit officers in general.
  • scottyah 3mo ago
    Back in my day, the right wing was "conservative" and used to be the ones making the permitting processes to slow down "progress".
    • gpm 3mo ago
      Using regulations and permitting to improve safety, living conditions, and similar things to support people has always been left wing. Using regulations and permitting to discriminate against people who you don't like is a long standing right wing tactic, but isn't the nature of the complaint I quoted above.
      • xhkkffbf 3mo ago
        Really? If someone passes a law that criminalizes the activity of migrants, they say they're doing it to improve safety and living conditions. But it seems like the current people in the left-wing tent hate restrictions on migrants and view such regulations as racist.
• throwaway85825 3mo ago
  >I don’t like that he made this donation and I know this view is shared by many of my colleagues. Its a strange world now where everyone is expected to have a public opinion on everyone else's opinions to keep them in line. Very anti privacy, anti freedom, and against plurality of opinion.
  • Eupolemos 3mo ago
    I'm sorry - you're saying that having a public opinion on another person's opinion is against the plurality of opinion?
    • davidee 3mo ago
      I didn't read it that way (but I can see multiple possible readings). Here's my interpretation: When someone has a shitty public opionion, we force others to MAKE PUBLIC their opinions. And because our society is so polarized, we don't talk about opinions or their nuances; we reduce them to binary views (it's possible they are but not always), we pick a side and we light our torches.
      • ranger_danger 3mo ago
        > we pick a side and we light our torches Some people do that, yes, but I'd argue most simply don't care enough.
        • pc86 3mo ago
          Then why does this thread have 1800 comments when most HN threads have a small fraction of that? Half of them are just people virtue signaling that they're no longer paying for this VPN service.
          • ranger_danger 3mo ago
            Since davidee mentioned society, I assumed we were speaking in general and not relative to HN.
• gruelsandwich 3mo ago
  Really fighting windmills with the hot takes about things that aren't true. "Sweden actually has a hidden wealth tax" and "The money supply is the real inflation!!" Really in line with typical views of right-leaning people you see on X etc.
  • SZJX 3mo ago
    Curious, what’s exactly not true about these? The Nordic (and Central European) countries are surely not friendly to people accumulating wealth, and it’s a widely known fact that monetary supply got out of control especially since Covid. Data about it are all available in public.
• animuchan 3mo ago
  I wonder if by this thread's logic, it is now my turn to virtue signal as if I'm leaving Mullvad as a customer, because now you said that don't like someone else's freedom of conscience, and I value freedom of conscience. Such a bad place we're in: people say they value "freedom", but then you can't choose you own political representation without being witch-hunted to death by the same "freedom" group. (I honestly think that the perfect response in this case would be to support the cofounder, if anything, to make their own choices, and refuse to hate on the person's political leaning. But alas, the chains of freedom are super heavy.)
  • asdewqqwer 3mo ago
    At 21 century, especially on a topic regarding Europe, I thought we should have long learnt the lesson from how problematic Legal Positivism and naive "freedom" is from Weimarer Republik‘s constitution. In short, freedom should at least maintain the capability of preserving basic poltical freedom. From my understanding of that party, they are clearly against other people's existing political freedom.
    • animuchan 3mo ago
      That group is against our political freedoms, so we're naturally against their political freedoms. Are we just doing tribalism and then intellectualizing? (I don't know what the answer is, but I fear it's a resounding "yup".)
      • asdewqqwer 3mo ago
        [flagged]
        • animuchan 3mo ago
          You will not. Have a nice day though! Now with more time to spend on positive things. :)
      • sierisimo 3mo ago