Friendship ended with Mullvad. Fediverse: Now IVPN is my best friend.

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[โ€“] [S] 220 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (42 children)

Mullvad co-founder Daniel Berntason donated 452k euros to the fascist ร–rebro Party in Sweden which made up 72% of the party's total funding in 2025. This political party wants to deport non-white citizens and immigrants guised under the white nationalist euphemism "remigration"

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  • [+] -24 points 4 months ago (41 children)

    How did you find out they were fascist?

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  • [โ€“] [S] 24 points 4 months ago (40 children)

    Check the link under the post.

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  • [+] -20 points 4 months ago (39 children)

    You know that's the least credible source and literally, as biased as you can get. A self proclaimed "Socialist newspaper".

    How did we go from "don't believe everything you see on the Internet" to "i'm gonna believe this is true because it says so on this website!"?

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  • [โ€“] 25 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    Eh, a cursory glance at their proposed policies is more than enough to convince me they're fascist. Ethnic purity, ending welfare, rejecting non-classical art, rejecting international alliances, and for some reason making all kids eat red meat daily.

    All of those things are either directly fascist or closely associated with modern fascist culture wars.

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  • [+] -7 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    That's entirely possible. I don't agree with everything he says, and I've since learned from reliable sources of various disgusting comments made by him in person. But I'm still not going to use "Flamman" as a reliable source. They are not a reliable publication. And they are not taken seriously in Sweden.

    It would be a bit like taking what "FOX News" says about US Democrats as a reliable source of unbiased information.

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  • [โ€“] 3 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Fox News May be known for their opinion segments, but their journalism team is actually competent, and their polling teams are some of the best around.

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  • [โ€“] -4 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    I'm sure they are. But you would look for other sources to confirm or deny. Because you know they are known to be biased.

    "Flamman" however is closer to Alex Jones Info Wars than FOX News. Minus the peddeling of protein shakes or whatever it was

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  • [โ€“] 15 points 4 months ago (20 children)

    Mullvad themselves confirmed it.

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  • [+] -12 points 4 months ago (19 children)

    He confirmed it. Mullvad has literally nothing to do with it. It's a private donation.

    The point is. You're listening to hardline socialists pointing at a party they disagree with screaming "facism!" And go like "oh... well, if they say so it must be the case"

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  • [โ€“] 10 points 4 months ago (13 children)

    You are wrong. Mullvad themselves confirmed it. Quit being a joker.

    https://xcancel.com/mullvadnet/status/2070861905036509575

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  • [+] -10 points 4 months ago (12 children)

    How about you read what you link...

    in the very link you send me, they confirm, that it's Daniel, as a private individual that have donated. NOT them as a company.

    So please, clarify to me what I'm wrong about

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  • [โ€“] 7 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    Bro are you fucking illiterate? You said the source is weak and I said Mullvad literally confirmed it happened. I didnโ€™t say Mullvad donated anything you fucking dumb fuck. Jesus Christ.

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  • [โ€“] -1 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    No but you are. I said it was a private donation. You go "wrong! Mullvad themselves confirmed it!"

    I just adore how everyone here are experts about this one irrelevant local Swedish party that 97% of swedes had never even heard of until recently.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago (3 children)

    Show me exactly where you said it was a private donation in our reply chain. Quote it.

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  • [โ€“] 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)
  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    Exactly you dumb fuck. Mullvad confirmed it was a private donation but for some reason you are acting like Iโ€™m saying Mullvad made the donation. Read the thread in the image ten more times maybe it will finally pierce that thick fucking skull. You are wrong calling it a bogus story when ITโ€™S BEEN LITERALLY CONFIRMED.

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  • [โ€“] 0 points 4 months ago

    You're just too funny. I say it's a private donation, you respond

    "Wrong! Mullvad confirmed it"

    So if I say it's a private donation, Mullvad confirmed it was a private donation... then I'm not wrong am I.

    I've never denied that the donation took place. Keep up

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    I like how you have this one specific point about rejecting a logical fallacy but everyone is like no they suck and you're like yeah they suck but these specific facts and then people are down voting you like you're supporting fascists.

    It's such the human condition of like if you're not with us you're against us

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Everyone are just experts on this one irrelevant local swedish party that 97% of swedes have never even heard of.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, but tbf half a million is a pretty significant war chest, I bet people do start hearing about them soon

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    I migrated here from Reddit expecting a bit better open debate or opinion. nope same tribal fueled outrage bullshit with zero critical thinking.

    when did the internet become you either agree with me or you're fascist/nazi or on "on the fence enabler" its really pathetic

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago

    People are people everywhere and politics is the tribal game. So.... But Lemmy is still loads better than reddit if nothing else there's no ads and you're not constantly bombarded with dumb bullshit that just doesn't matter. So much of reddit is just smart people trying to put out stupid fires, mostly set by the ownership class.

    It's like we should all be working towards creating coalitions that can reverse the wealth extraction.

    Everything you like in life is a market inefficiency. The markets sole purpose is to deliver wealth to the ownership class. And I don't know about you but I'm tired of living this way

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

    private

    He confirmed it. Mullvad has literally nothing to do with it. Itโ€™s a private donation.

    Lol, even the Mullvad coowner Daniel Berntsson's here himself displayed his displeasure with this fact

    'I donโ€™t like that he made this donation' โ€” Mullvad CEO reacts to co-founderโ€™s donation to controversial Swedish populist party

    And you are out here trying to, for whatever reason, claim that it is ok and Mullvad's stance on the issue is in no way related to any of this. Among a myriad of reasons why this is not ok, Daniel Berntsson is not a departed or "retired" co-founder he plays an active role in the company's policies and own %50 of it. So yes he has power to affect company policies in a major way.

    Directly from Mullvad

    Mullvad VPN AB and its parent company Amagicom AB are 100% owned by founders Fredrik Strรถmberg and Daniel Berntsson who are actively involved in the company.

    Here is another resource with detailed comparisons:

    Mullvad Owner Controversy: Daniel Berntsson's 5 Million SEK Donation Explained

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago (3 children)

    You are free to do what you wish. He is free to do what he wishes with his money. The other co-founder is free to think whatever he wants about it.

    The only thing I've done is bringing up that "flamman" is not a reliable publication. And should not be used as the main source of any claim. Since then a smรถrgรฅrdsbord of other more reliable sources have been dug up that corroborate the reporting of the party's views on certain topics.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago* (2 children)

    The only thing Iโ€™ve done is bringing up that โ€œflammanโ€ is not a reliable publication.

    Direct quote from you and factual error:

    Mullvad has literally nothing to do with it.

    Also flamman is completely unrelated to this particular topic though you do really like bringing that up.

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  • [โ€“] 7 points 4 months ago* (3 children)

    Remigration is ethnic cleansing, basically going further than what Trump and ICE is doing in the USA right now. You don't need to know more about them.

    The other side of this is that Sweden is now 8.1% Muslim. It's inevitable that people get fed up with this. No matter if it's right or wrong, people hate it. Especially when the economic outlook is grim.

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  • [โ€“] -1 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    That is a very strong statement. What's your source of them wanting to achieve an ethnic cleansing with forced deportation of Swedish citizens? Taking steps that go beyond Trumps ICE.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    That is what remigration means. See the sources on the wikipedia page. I doubt they'd put out such a blatant lie.

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  • [โ€“] 3 points 4 months ago

    Yikes. I followed the sources listed and yeah, the dude is legit unhinged. Not only for what he wants, but that he also thinks it'll be possible.

    Things he suggest and wants require changes to the constitution. And changes to the constitution takes more than 4 years as it has to span over the next election cycle and be voted on (again) by the following elected government.

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  • [โ€“] 9 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    I trust socialists way more than I trust capitalists. Socialists want to liberate the world, capitalists want to enslave it.

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  • [+] -7 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    You do you. But I wouldn't trust anyone on the sole basis that they claim they subscribe to a specific ideology. That has to be the dumbest shit I've heard today.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

    But I wouldnโ€™t trust anyone on the sole basis that they claim they subscribe to a specific ideology.

    Almost as dumb as rejecting someone based on their ideology alone? Or do you have any resources to prove their journalism is biased apart from that "they are socialists". You have been out here for days shitting on this news paper "Flamman" that you yourself have admitted to hearing for the first time

    Nor have I ever heard of this publication โ€œFlammanโ€, that also claims to be some old socialist newspaper.

    You have not presented a single source as to why they are biased apart from them being "socialists". You have also been going around trying to shit on other resources as much as you can, blaming people of not providing enough resources and saying things like "misinformation is how propaganda spreads". These are all applications of the "accusation in the mirror".

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago (3 children)

    Sure. Have i rejected something on the sole basis of someones ideology? No.

    The fact they are a political publication means by definition that they're biased.

    If they weren't, they'd be politically neutral.

    It's sad, that this has to be explained to you.

    I did indeed hear about them for the first time recently, and the more i learned about them. The worse it got. They're not considered reliable

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

    Sure. Have i rejected something on the sole basis of someones ideology? No.

    Yes you have rejected the credibility of a publisher you have encountered for the first time solely based on their ideology.

    the more i learned about them

    Provide resources about what you have learned about them.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)
  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

    I did thanks (and agree with ethical media violations presented here). The very fact that they are audited by a media ombudsmen however goes on to prove that your statement

    โ€œFlammanโ€ however is closer to Alex Jones Info Wars

    does not hold up. And the fact that nothing they have said in the previous article (i.e "parasites" or the donations) was fabricated remains.

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  • [+] 51 points 4 months ago (1 child)
  • [โ€“] 41 points 4 months ago

    Feels like you canโ€™t turn over any rocks these days without seeing fascists scuttle off back into the darkness.

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  • [โ€“] 54 points 4 months ago (17 children)

    Use AirVPN. It's activist led from the start.

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  • [โ€“] [S] 40 points 4 months ago (13 children)

    Sadly it does not have independent audits.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago* (5 children)

    They explained why they dont pay for audits in a forum post and I agreed with their reasoning, which if I remember correctly was something like:

    If we paid for an audit, there's no way you'd know we didn't enable logging, etc, right after the auditors left.


    It really is just a game of trust when it comes down to it and they feel the most trustworthy to me, but if lack of an audit changes your mind that's okay.

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  • [โ€“] 3 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    That's just so bad, "we won't show what we're doing because it's tiresome to cover it up" is what I read here.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago* (3 children)

    If you want to look at the thread I was referring to (looked it up): https://airvpn.org/forums/topic/56799-audits/

    I think what they say makes sense. I read it the opposite way: How do I know any service with an audit really is as described the day after the audit concludes?

    Most audits (as far as I'm aware) will tell the company maybe a week in advance that they are coming in to do the audit, so it'a not like surprise visits I don't think.

    I 100% think it comes down to trust (and some accountability being that their code is open source). Audits feel like a gamed system.

    And being open source is a way of showing what they are doing.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

    You underestimate how costly it is to run services like that, your network is what it is, and it would be even costlier to change, who's going to change it all, hired contractors? I mean hired people already have fulltime jobs in the company. Then scrape all the traces that there were logging (amongst other things)?

    It's not a Hollywood movie where you just "unplug the log machine" and hide it in a drawer.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    Maybe you are overestimating it.

    I wouldn't truly know because I'm not a wireguard expert or anything.

    That said, a "log machine" that you describe could just simply be a portable executable with root access on the vpn server machine. With this root access it could probably easily see what network connections are being made and potentially sniff them.

    Maybe I'm wrong though. I don't think it'd be easy to develop such an executable, but once made it could be portable, probably.

    Unless you are a skilled network engineer/software dev in the field telling me it's not possible, then sure I shall believe you.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago

    I have developed things for over 20 years, nothing is simple in software development and you either go all in no-log, or you don't. There just aren't simple ways to do things when they scale way beyond a dinky little home computer. Or so I feel.

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  • [โ€“] -3 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    And written in C instead of Rust, which makes the lack of audits even more terrifying.

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  • [โ€“] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    What of theirs is written in C?

    Eg: You buy a sub and just connect through wireguard. You aren't touching any AirVPN code (unless you want to use their client, which is not written in C, but you can just use the official wireguard client or any other tool to connect).

    Same goes for any provider as far as I'm aware. Am I wrong?

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 4 months ago (1 child)
  • [โ€“] 2 points 4 months ago

    Maybe I misread your comment, I thought you were talking about AirVPN vs Mullvad.

    Anyways the C code in that repo looks like it's just libraries they have vendored in, not specifically stuff they are writing (which a lot of apps do, but usually dont include directly in their repos), but I could be wrong didn't look that hard.

    And you can still always use a different client (I know you can with AirVPN, I assume ivpn is the same).

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  • [โ€“] 16 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    and it does not allow italian users because of Piracy Shield

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  • [โ€“] 44 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Oh this is so disappointing! Now I have to find a new provider ๐Ÿ˜’

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  • [โ€“] 7 points 4 months ago

    Just installed grapheneos last week and saw IVPN in the Accrescent store. Seemed interesting as I am running low on mullvad time. What a fun synchronicity

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  • [โ€“] 4 points 4 months ago

    Friendship ended with.. wait,were did VPN Area go?

    Aw fuck. He died while I wasn't looking.

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 4 months ago* (2 children)

    The flag carrier of, uh, port forwarding lol

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  • [โ€“] -2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    I can't wait for everybody to agree on a new service only for that one to also be bad. I enjoy watching people fail to learn that it's not possible for a commercial service to be uncorruptible. You can't sell privacy in this world

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  • [+] -24 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    So let me get this straight. One of this companies CEOs donated a huge sum to a bunch of fascists, so now people are switching away from the service. Won't that only hurt the staff and make people lose a excellent service, as if the CEO is wealthy they'll be virtually untouched?

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  • [โ€“] 28 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    The core issue is that this guy's money comes from mullvad customers, and he's donating that money to a far right political party.

    If mullvad didn't have any customers that political party wouldn't have any money.

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  • [+] -18 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Stop, think! Who really is to gain by getting people to not use a long time trusted VPN....

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