Highly recommend everyone read the direct response this article is quoting. Direct from the other owner of the company on Hacker News. Makes the whole “scandal” seem very understandable in my opinion.
Not good enough. If I give them money, the fascist co-owner will use it to donate to other fascists. Either remove him from the company or lose some customers. That is their choice. There is no middle ground with fucking Nazis. It’s us or them!
That reply just shows me that he fundamentally misunderstands the issue. By giving money to Mullvad I would directly support the pos party that this guy donates to. Do they not understand where the money in their bank account is coming from?
I read it as he implicitly does understand that and is the reason he suggests getting a refund if that is your priority.
He is just urging people to see nuance that there is collateral damage for the rest of the people that make mullvad too.
A loose analogy would be, I disagree with Trump and I wish my country would divest from the USA, which is all well and good, but the workers don’t have great protections and would likely be the first to hurt. Sure a majority of them voted for him I could rationalize, but that’s not the same rationalisation companies use to layoff before they actually start to hurt.
Decent people are boycotting the USA though, because that is the only chance we have to get the people of the USA to snap out of it and care enough to change their society. The same applies here, where Stromberg says it is not that big a deal, it’s just fascism.
and we appreciate y’all doing it, at least here in California.
the line for the secret delicious berries was shorter this year than usual (they are in watsonville and delicious. go get some at gizdich ranch and give Nita my love) but that’s probably because the growing season is all el nino wonky.
Sure, that’s fine, I tend to agree, I was drawing out the picture of the collateral, so it’s considered as much or as little as it is worth, but at least considered.
I would hope that the mullvad staff are completely opposed to fascism, it would be naive to believe that is true of all of them though. I have no interest in them losing their jobs (except for the fascists of course), or in the company failing. But it would be dishonest to continue supporting mullvad now, while long term not supporting companies such as unilever, monsanto, nestle, amazon etc etc.
Mullvad are no doubt in a bit of a crisis right now, but I do not believe they have responded well to this… they posted on nazi twitter, but not on mastodon, or bluesky for instance.
I’m currently looking into alternative vpn options, and don’t have a single one that ticks the boxes. This sucks, my government (australia) has serious overreach/privacy issues, and is very clearly in the pocket of the usa, and israel.
Sounds reasonable for me to cancel Mullvad and tell everyone else to cancel. I don’t care if that piece of shit white supremacist Nazi did it as a personal choice or as part of the company. He is my enemy, I am at war with him and I will not do anything to support him. Hopefully enough people stand up so they put him out on his ass and he loses everything which is less than Nazi’s deserve.
Also i want to point out that understanding doesn’t equal support. it’s closer to validation, like, you can think what they’re saying makes sense but disagree with it.
Understandable in that there’s no way a company or employer can tell you how to spend your money. That there’s 2 owners with divided beliefs who are working for a similar cause. They are indeed private individuals using their individually earned money for private purposes.
If, let’s say, Mullvad as a company was donating to this political party, that would be alarming and worth freaking out about, but it’s one guy, basically donating with his funds he makes from his job. In a corporate environment there are many different people with different beliefs, of different economic statuses. Somebody might be donating thousands to one candidate, another donating hundreds to another.
Just because the co-owner of a company you like supports somebody you don’t like, doesn’t mean you should jump ship. Who knows if everybody else in the company is donating to other political causes?
Highly recommend everyone read the direct response this article is quoting. Direct from the other owner of the company on Hacker News. Makes the whole “scandal” seem very understandable in my opinion.
Additionally,
All I see is a bunch of both-sidesing, conflating “speech” with economic power, and making claims that clearly don’t align with their actions.
Not good enough. If I give them money, the fascist co-owner will use it to donate to other fascists. Either remove him from the company or lose some customers. That is their choice. There is no middle ground with fucking Nazis. It’s us or them!
That reply just shows me that he fundamentally misunderstands the issue. By giving money to Mullvad I would directly support the pos party that this guy donates to. Do they not understand where the money in their bank account is coming from?
I read it as he implicitly does understand that and is the reason he suggests getting a refund if that is your priority. He is just urging people to see nuance that there is collateral damage for the rest of the people that make mullvad too. A loose analogy would be, I disagree with Trump and I wish my country would divest from the USA, which is all well and good, but the workers don’t have great protections and would likely be the first to hurt. Sure a majority of them voted for him I could rationalize, but that’s not the same rationalisation companies use to layoff before they actually start to hurt.
Decent people are boycotting the USA though, because that is the only chance we have to get the people of the USA to snap out of it and care enough to change their society. The same applies here, where Stromberg says it is not that big a deal, it’s just fascism.
and we appreciate y’all doing it, at least here in California.
the line for the secret delicious berries was shorter this year than usual (they are in watsonville and delicious. go get some at gizdich ranch and give Nita my love) but that’s probably because the growing season is all el nino wonky.
Sure, that’s fine, I tend to agree, I was drawing out the picture of the collateral, so it’s considered as much or as little as it is worth, but at least considered.
I would hope that the mullvad staff are completely opposed to fascism, it would be naive to believe that is true of all of them though. I have no interest in them losing their jobs (except for the fascists of course), or in the company failing. But it would be dishonest to continue supporting mullvad now, while long term not supporting companies such as unilever, monsanto, nestle, amazon etc etc. Mullvad are no doubt in a bit of a crisis right now, but I do not believe they have responded well to this… they posted on nazi twitter, but not on mastodon, or bluesky for instance. I’m currently looking into alternative vpn options, and don’t have a single one that ticks the boxes. This sucks, my government (australia) has serious overreach/privacy issues, and is very clearly in the pocket of the usa, and israel.
Many options, so much dodgy. https://embed.kumu.io/9ced55e897e74fd807be51990b26b415#vpn-company-relationships
Sounds reasonable for me to cancel Mullvad and tell everyone else to cancel. I don’t care if that piece of shit white supremacist Nazi did it as a personal choice or as part of the company. He is my enemy, I am at war with him and I will not do anything to support him. Hopefully enough people stand up so they put him out on his ass and he loses everything which is less than Nazi’s deserve.
Understandable how?
Also i want to point out that understanding doesn’t equal support. it’s closer to validation, like, you can think what they’re saying makes sense but disagree with it.
Understandable in that there’s no way a company or employer can tell you how to spend your money. That there’s 2 owners with divided beliefs who are working for a similar cause. They are indeed private individuals using their individually earned money for private purposes.
If, let’s say, Mullvad as a company was donating to this political party, that would be alarming and worth freaking out about, but it’s one guy, basically donating with his funds he makes from his job. In a corporate environment there are many different people with different beliefs, of different economic statuses. Somebody might be donating thousands to one candidate, another donating hundreds to another.
Just because the co-owner of a company you like supports somebody you don’t like, doesn’t mean you should jump ship. Who knows if everybody else in the company is donating to other political causes?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
If I had any doubts about leaving, the apathy shown in your screenshots from the co-founder has removed them