Swedish VPN vendor Mullvad is facing a backlash from some customers after co-founder Daniel Berntsson personally donated SEK 5 million (£385,000, $519,000) to the controversial populist Örebropartiet, which is running in Sweden's national elections for the first time.

Berntsson has this week published a blog post explaining the donation, alongside posts titled "Immigration," "Political individualism," and "Moral individualism." Before that, he had not posted since 2019.

The flurry of posts follows weeks of customer criticism over the donation – for example, Finnish blog Moonwriting's post "I'm done with Mullvad." Another blog, Unutterable, is more direct: "Mullvad funding the far-right and the problem with tech company ownership." The Hacker News discussion thread about the donations has reached a remarkable 1,784 comments so far.

Mullvad was co-founded and is still jointly owned and run by two CEOs, Berntsson and Fredrik Strömberg. Its name, as reflected in the company's logo, is Swedish for "mole." It also offers the Mullvad Browser, a privacy-enhanced fork of Firefox ESR co-developed with the Tor Project. Swedish socialist newspaper Flamman ("The Flame") revealed the donation in its story "High-profile techie gives millions to the Örebro Party."

In a post on X, the company said it was devoted to freedom of speech and tolerance, saying: "It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission, in the same way that someone's opinions on animal rights, taxes or public healthcare policy isn't."

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[–] 248 points 3 months ago (41 children)

So if I use Mullvad, some of that is funding far-right politics?

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  • [–] 73 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    Yes, although frankly it's really fucking hard to name anything that isn't these days. Like, you probably can't even go grocery shopping without some of that money finding us way to alt right politics.

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  • [–] 36 points 3 months ago* (3 children)

    People can look up how various grocery store brands fund the republicans here: https://shophowyouvote.com/

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  • [–] 46 points 3 months ago (23 children)

    This is a frustrating pposition to be in, particularly when few people are willing to offer viable alternatives in such threads.

    I don't want to let a purity test be the reason I impulse switch to a less effective VPN, but don't want to indirectly fund things I don't support. Yes, money I spend on Mullvad might go towards shit I don't want, but what else is on par with Mullvad that doesn't have some other downside?

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  • [–] 18 points 3 months ago (6 children)

    Afaik IVPN is really the only alternative. I'll be switching to them soon when my account expires.

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  • [–] 17 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    Before I switched from proton VPN to mullvad VPN, I thought I remembered when doing research there was only a few providers that said they did no logs, and had proof either through 3rd party audits or shown they couldn't provide anything when court ordered.

    Does IVPN have proof they do not log? Because im in the same boat, I dont want my money supporting fascists, but i also dont know of any alternative to switch to?

    Besides switching back to proton VPN (which id rather not get into any controversy around them)

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  • [–] 8 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    They don't keep logs but have also never been raided by police, only using a third-party auditor.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Thanks, thats helpful! I saw someone post a link in another comment to a comparison chart (i should have read the rest of the thread before replying), and it looks like they're at the top of my list now.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    I don't think the world has ever been black and white. Whatever you purchase is based on someone's suffering or funds it in some way or another. The best we can do is be less evil. If you think you can still do good by using mullvad's service, you should stay. If you think switching will be more beneficial for you—even at the cost of productivity and perhaps a difference in price—then you should ditch Mullvad.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    I've spent the last 2 years ditching services or products from companies that directly fund suffering. And I thought it was going to be overwhelming... But it wasn't! Ditching Amazon ended up saving my family more than 100 dollars a month if we get things directly from the manufacturer. Plus the quality of items we get is better than cheap Amazon crap. The grocery store takes an extra 5 minutes to look on the back of a package for good or bad parent companies. I know it's not perfect by far. But I'm not giving up being a better instead.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

    Oh for sure, I've been doing the same! My comment want meant to discourage people from trying. Sorry if came off that way.

    I've gotten rid of most of Google of my PC and phone. Microslop, Amazon, Meta, all gone. And unfortunately, Steam too :(

    I live in Japan so I have a lot of alternatives. Not only can I avoid US brands, I can avoid foods with US ingredients. I don't buy Japanese chip brands of the potatoes are sources from the US.

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  • [–] 15 points 3 months ago (6 children)

    but don’t want to indirectly fund things I don’t support.

    The only safe way to do that is to not spend at all. Unless you find a co-op, your money is going to some owner(s) who will use the money as they please. Commercial VPNs are mostly privacy snake oil and ways to get access to media, so abstaining for a while isn't unreasonable.

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  • [–] 21 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    Something something no ethical consumption under capitalism

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    The sentiment of this saying is true, but you should seek out the best options, anyway.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    Pretty happy for 8 years with Windscribe, a Canadian VPN. The fulfill their promises and no neo-nazis so far... 🤞

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  • [–] 49 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    At this point it’s safer to just assume every purchase you make is funding far right politics.

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  • [–] 15 points 3 months ago* (4 children)

    Damnit, this little girl selling me lemonade got me good.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago* (2 children)

    Little girl capitalist fascist Nazi with a merit badge in hating human rights

    FTFY

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  • [–] 121 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (23 children)

    "It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission, in the same way that someone's opinions on animal rights, taxes or public healthcare policy isn't."

    I'm not sure what they mean by this. Plenty of corporations do make animal rights, taxes, public healthcare, etc. an important part of their values and mission. Why would it be obvious that they're not?

    Besides, we do want Nazis and fascists to be pariahs. Putting pressure on Mullvad not to associate is a good thing.

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  • [–] 50 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 child)

    Specially in Nordics. Social corporate responsibility is a very long tradition in Nordics, specially with due to stuff like co-operative customer, producer or worker owned companies, state enterprises and so on.

    Including leadership teams behavior. Companies do get flack for what kind of persons they hire as leadership, since it is (pretty reasonably) assumed their mindset and worldview affects their conduct while leading the company.

    Plus not only is he leader, he is owner so again money to company's pocket is in the end money to his pocket.

    One can't claim "we are responsible company, while having opposite kind of CEO/leader". It is his private matter he has these opinions, what isn't private is him being company leader. Company doesn't want his private opinions affecting the company, get rid of him as leader.

    It would be one thing, if he was "lineworker" employee. Then person can have private opinions don't affect company. However he isn't mere salary employee in the depths of server hall lifting and plugging in servers to racks and cleaning cooling equipment clean. He is company leadership.

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  • [+] -58 points 3 months ago (19 children)

    The guy made a donation with his own money. His donation is no more Mullvads than a donation you make privately is representative of the company you work for.

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  • [–] 57 points 3 months ago (12 children)

    The guy made a donation with his own money

    Uhh where do you think that money comes from?

    If you've bought Mullvad's services you have unwittingly contributed to that donation.

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  • [+] -30 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    Yes I fully understand how he gets money from being part owner of the company, I never said that wasn't the casr. But how he chooses to spend his private cash is not the fault of Mullvad the company.

    I completely get wanting to boycott the company to avoid giving him money. But it makes no sense to blame the company for his private spending.

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  • [–] 32 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    It's absolutely people's business whether they support the public face of a public company giving money to a public political party

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  • [+] -16 points 3 months ago*

    Like, what part of Mullvad not being responsible for the donation in any way is it that people are not understanding? The company had no control or say over this dudes donation, so they can't be responsible for it. Sure, don't buy mullvad so you avoid indirectly giving the nutjob more money to support his fascist political views, that's a totally valid response. But It doesn't change that Mullvad is not, and never can be, responsible for his donation.

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  • [+] -20 points 3 months ago (6 children)

    Every nazis salary comes from somewhere, or do you boycott just about everything?

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  • [–] 24 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    do you boycott just about everything?

    It's just not buying stuff. You make it sound impossible.

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  • [+] -11 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    No I mean, every nazis or racist gets their money from somewhere, be it Mullvad or Nestlé or Walmart, how do you avoid supporting that? Do you just don't buy stuff from anywhere or do you have an ever shrinking base of viable options?

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  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago* (2 children)

    Well take this guy for example - I dont know how he invests but I know a significant portion of his income will be coming from Mullvad. So yeah, I can't personally choke all of his income, but I can boycott a wee bit of it. I will do that, because I think its the right thing to do.

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  • [–] -1 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    The guy made a donation with his own money

    Uhh where do you think that money comes from? If you’ve bought Mullvad’s services you have unwittingly contributed to that donation.

    This is what I was thinking of. Aren't we at risk to do this all the time? I am curious how you manage it, not arguing against you boycotting anything, that I support.

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  • [–] 8 points 3 months ago

    Yes, absolutely! I have an ever shrinking list of suppliers for my business and the household.

    It’s not an on/off situation.

    The point of any such action dealing with complex consequences is simply a statistical approach. Deny custom with the oligarchs whenever you can, and it adds up in aggregate.

    Buy local, barter, buy from vetted independent companies, use boycott apps, keep a shitlist and consult a company family tree if you are wondering about a product.

    Smaller scale family farms are less likely to poison themselves, they live close to the fields; buy direct from them when you can. Farmer's markets. It's less convenient. It’s culturally richer.

    There are hidden costs in cheaper products. It's not as big a sacrifice as it seems to avoid oligarchs whenever you see them.

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  • [–] 31 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    Not sure how involved he is but I guess as a co-founder he is bound to be getting some of the Mullvad money

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  • [+] -19 points 3 months ago* (4 children)

    Yes of course he is. but once it leaves the company to pay him his share, Mullvad is not able to control of what that money is spent on whatsoever. Since he made a private decision outside the control or influence of the company, how couod Mullvad be accountable for it?

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  • [–] 19 points 3 months ago

    We get that the people who work for a jerk, are not responsible for the bad decisions of that jerk, and it's a shame that they will suffer for his bad decisions, but that's part of the risks you take as an employee, and there are a great many risks you take working for anyone, most of which the owner class refuse to acknowledge. We all recognize that it's a struggle to find new employment, but they always have the option of finding a new company to work for.

    The owner is the primary beneficiary of any capital investment. Collateral damage for their decisions is their responsibility, not the consumer.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago*

    I agree.. although I also understand people who feel the other way. As a top guy in the company the money he gets is going to be usually much more than an employee and for just existing at the top. So it feels more like company money than someone getting paid for actually putting in the grunt work to keep the company running. Not to mention that nobody is talking about mullvad and the ideology of random coder #26, the actions of the cofounder is always going to be in the same sentence as mullvad. So I understand taking a stance to not feed into that.

    However I don't agree with the moral superiority stance that often (not always) comes with that viewpoint. By all means boycott them yourself but I'm not one to push that on others unless it is actually the company itself donating or if their views start poisoning the quality of the service they provide (brave for example)

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  • [–] 38 points 3 months ago* (2 children)

    I'm seriously worried about what's going on around this.

    There is quite the push here for people to move to VPNs under the legals jurisdiction of surveillance heavy states, not just the US and UK but also places like Gibraltar and the British Virgin Islands which are British Overseas Territories with the same laws as Britain except were they passed specific local legislation that overrides British Law.

    We're talking about places with Information Courts which issue secret mass surveillance orders to companies based in or operating there and it doesn't mater if that VPN is no logs because for all you know they've been forced to install realtime surveillance equipment/software and they can't even tell you because BY THE LAW OF WERE THEY OPERATE if they did so they would end up in jail.

    I would expect that the kind of people who would leave Mullvad because one of it's owners is a far-right nutter are also the kind of people who don't want everything they do and say tracked by the likes of the US or UK.

    Further, the push is pervasive. For example https://vpn.techlore.tech/ is supposed to help you choose a good VPN, only if you look at those VPNs based in British Overseas Territories (Gibraltar, BVI) they're listed as "Not 14-eyes" which that's bullshit - I was actually curious and went and look at how Legislation works in Gibraltar and, as I wrote above, they have the same as in Britain except were they wrote their own legislation that overrides British legislation, which means that (unless somebody can point me out the legislation in Gibraltar that overrides it), the very same legislation that support the mass surveillance activities in Britain as a member of not only the "14-eyes" international surveillance agreements but the actual "5-eyes" one, applies to Gibraltar and hence to the likes of IVPN.

    Frankly, looking for a replacement for Mullvad whilst having some awareness of the mass surveillance shit in supposedly democratic nations is scary as fuck, since most VPNs, for all their (possibly theatrical) "No logs" and whatnot, are actually in places with Information Courts which can issue secret court orders forcing them to install mass surveillance equipment.

    Absolutely, if all you care about is avoiding lawyer letters because of pirating stuff, any "No Logs" VPN will probably do, but if you're worried about the rise of the Far-Right then it makes sense that you're not into there being a real risk that all you're doing over your supposedly "No logs" VPN is in fact being logged directly into NSA or GCHQ systems (in the kind of country whose governments think being a leftwinger is "extremism" or even "terrorism"),

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

    Thanks, that's a great point about IVPN and Gibraltar. They do have a warren canary but I've heard those are bullshit too. The question is, are they compromised already or not.

    I only bought a month of time so maybe i'll move to Nym. They have decentralized servers and have mixnet functionally which seems a safer bet.

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  • [+] 69 points 3 months ago* (10 children)
  • [–] -1 points 3 months ago (8 children)

    Fascism requires support for an authoritarian dictatorship, among other stances. It is not purely "about racial and national purity and hierarchy". That's ethno-nationalism. Yes, fascists are ethno-nationalists, but not every ethno-nationalist is a fascist.

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  • [+] 16 points 3 months ago* (3 children)
  • [–] 0 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    In a democracy you just require a (super)majority for everything necessary to be changed and done to achieve anything.

    It is of course easier in a dictatorship to achieve ethnic cleansing, but doesn't require one. Look at Turkey and how they treat the Kurds. Not saying they are the best example of a democracy, but it isn't a dictatorship by definition.

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  • [+] 14 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

    I can see where you're coming from, as I mentioned, Turkey isn't the best example of a democracy, but even now Erdogan can still get removed by a majority of the population, which is not the case in a dictatorship. A dictator can only be removed by the military.

    I disagree with the last sentence, the definition of fascism is pretty clear, it is an ideology with certain beliefs and opinions. Not a process, not a form of government, but a set of ideas. If the set of ideas is not complete, it is not that ideology. I already gave you the name of the ideology you were describing.

    It is like describing something socialist as stalinist. Like yeah, stalinists are socialists but not every socialist is a stalinist.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago* (4 children)

    Definitions of fascism has always been problematic because it is a chimera. Personally I really like this one: Fascism is the moral belief in inequality based on identity, like e.g. ethnicity or gender. It is a bit more wide ranging definition, but pretty simple and clear. For example a democracy where women are not allowed to vote and are exploited as cheap labor at home would be fascist.

    Contrast that with neoliberalism, which is the moral belief in inequality based on class / wealth. Which explains why they ally so easily.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago* (3 children)

    You can't just pick and choose definitions of a word. When you use a word, the most common definition of it is how you will be understood (depending on context). Otherwise I could say that poop is worth a lot and then say that poop means gold.

    Moreover, sadly, many people do not even have the slightest idea of what certain ideologies are called. They don't get further than "fascism bad nazi bad communism bad" without being able to make a distinction. This allows for easy manipulation of the masses by defaming anything you don't like as one of these things. That's all it is.

    If you use a word that you don't entirely understand, research the word, and if necessary, explain how you understand the word. Allows for good-fath discussions. Do not misrepresent it.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (2 children)

    Check out the book I linked. The definition of fascism is an academic question.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

    I took a better look at it. I understand that the definition of fascism is an academic question that has been discussed about a lot. However, that also means you shouldn't just trust one person that researched it. The text explicitly states that (paraphrasing) "it should be looked at from the left", which is just a confession of the definition being pretty biased. Therefor, the claim in the text about (paraphrasing) "his definition becoming the new consensus" is pretty flawed. It is true the word is getting used more and more like this by leftists, but that doesn't make it a consensus.

    In one paragraph he says (paraphrasing) "the specific flavor is not important, the inherent ideology is ultranationalism with wanting to go back to a mythological past".

    I reject this. What he is describing is literally just ultranationalism/ethno-nationalism. That's literally how he describes it himself. That's just like me saying "yeah stalinism in today's day and age is very impractical and you won't see it like this today, so in order to be able to use the term, we need to look at it broader, and at it's core, their ideology is ultra-socialist with the focus on rapid industrialization. Therefor, we should call social-democracts stalinists, because they share the same core ideology.

    Wtf? If you read that with some critical thinking you'll understand why his definition is not the concensus at all.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 months ago

    I never implied this definition of fascism is the consensus. It is however undeniably clear and concise. There have been an actual and real problems with defining fascism, like that 12 criteria thing is pretty useless in normal political discourse.

    How do you fight fascism effectively if you you can't easily define it? At any moment someone is going to come in with a sideways tackle "actually it doesn't fulfill the criteria 532.2 of subparagraph 7 so shouldn't be considered fascism!" lol.

    Which is basically what the OP mainstream news is doing, see OP article with their fucking mealy mouthy both sides approach. This approach helps the actually fascist Örebro so if they do happen to get into power and commit a ethnic cleansing...

    Needless to say I definitely consider ethno-nationalism or even just strong nationalism as at least partially fascist. And I think the specific leadership configuration like authoritarian dictatorship doesn't really matter than much or have anything to do with the ideology.

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  • [–] 47 points 3 months ago

    It should be obvious that [founder's] private donation to a political party is not part of [his company's] values or mission

    Riiiiiiiiiight, because it always shakes out like that

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  • [–] 93 points 3 months ago (17 children)

    If they are rich they are almost always a right wing asshole. Why would anyone be surprised by this?

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  • [–] 41 points 3 months ago (8 children)
  • [–] 21 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    I always say there should be a hard cutoff at a million a year and you should be taxed 100% at anything over that.

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  • [–] 25 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, literally 99.999% of products you buy in 2026 fund right wing fascism, and most of it you can't escape because they own the entire supply chain.

    Ain't capitalism fun?

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  • [–] 7 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    Per his blog he’s a “libertarian anarchist”.

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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  • [–] 19 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    ->libertarian.

    I always read that as ‘far right, but kinda ashamed, or can’t get laid by claiming it so….’

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  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    It means "I want to do bad things without consequences" just like free speech absolutist means "I want to say bad things and no one is allowed to call me names".

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago

    In the US I've been saying "Libertarian is a Republican who wants to smoke weed." But seeing as they're not villianizing it much anymore the Libertarians really don't have a talking point left in the country.

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