det.social

The CEO of Mullvad is the main financer of the Swedish Örebro party

Risse · 604 points · 1.4K comments · 22 小时前
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dang16 小时前

There have been multiple posts about this and hundreds of comments, so there is clearly appetite to discuss it, although none of the submitted links have been very detailed. I've merged the other threads into this one, so you'll see some anachronistic timestamps below.

sph15 小时前

The post linked has been removed, so I don't know what more we can speculate upon, 650+ comments in. It's strange to see HN mods allow this much attention to a political, and contentious issue.

modeless14 小时前

I don't think "appetite to discuss" should be a justification to override the guidelines against political submissions and discussion. There is far too much politics on HN and it leaks into unrelated discussions too. There are plenty of other places to discuss politics on the internet.

dang12 小时前

The guidelines say that most political articles are offtopic. Most != all. The question is what should be in the setdiff of all - most. About that, there are lots of past explanations: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... Edit: more at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48724830 in this thread

irthomasthomas14 小时前

The comment from the other Mullvad founder is here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48696800

dang14 小时前

What has been removed? The links I saw didn't have much information but as far as I can tell they're still up. From an HN point of view the idea is to give the discussion a place, since the community obviously wants to have it.

sph14 小时前

The Mastodon post itself. I get a 404 error. It was fine when this reached the frontpage yesterday or when was it. Looks like the author deleted it. EDIT: nvm it's rate limited

naturalmovement13 小时前

> From an HN point of view the idea is to give the discussion a place, since the community obviously wants to have it So where do you draw the line? Just this week I saw multiple offtopic Epstein schizoposts by 10+ year old accounts that were alternately flagged and vouched. Should we allow that too? My takeaway is this is a highly politically charged rant on a niche social media site — exactly the kind of discussion we're meant to avoid. Things are rotten below ground and you give an inch, they'll want a mile.

microgpt13 小时前

Well the title already says most of it, doesn't it? I'm also surprised. Usually opinions opposing the far right are removed from HN.

ironneat13 小时前

[deleted]

tomhow7 小时前

The guidelines still apply here. Comments that are inflammatory should be flagged/killed and repeat/egregious offenders should be banned. In the case of your past account: we happily unban accounts when people establish a track record of contributing positively. We don’t hold grudges and indeed we welcome it when users reform their style of participation.

kfreds2 天前

Hi, Mullvad has two owners, founders, and CEOs - Daniel Berntsson, and me, Fredrik Strömberg. All posts I've seen yesterday and today, including the newspaper articles, talk about Mullvad as if Daniel is the single owner, founder and CEO. It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission. If you have any questions, comments or concerns you're welcome to comment on this thread, or email our customer support. See below for the response you'll get from support: ----- Mullvad is a political company. We fight for freedom of speech, freedom of information and the right to privacy. These are firmly held values of the founders of Mullvad. Mullvad protects the right for people to express things we don't agree with. We protect the right of everyone to access views we don't agree with. We also live these values by being tolerant in our daily work. Everyone is welcome to collaborate with Mullvad if they share these narrow core values. As employees, contractors, customers, suppliers, lobbyists, campaign partners or whatever it might be. No matter what their other opinions are and no matter whether the founders or anyone else in Mullvad dislike them. The founders themselves fundamentally disagree on several important issues. This is what allows us to advance our common causes. Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment is also liberating and promotes truth seeking. The more people do this, the better a place the world will be. 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. That said, if you no longer want to be a Mullvad customer for philosophical reasons, we think it's important to honor that. In that case, reach out to support.

WhitneyLand15 小时前

Fredrik, while acknowledging everything you said, the fact remains some of my money can end up empowering politics I find repugnant. If it were a small amount of money, it wouldn’t be an issue. If the politics at stake were less important, it wouldn’t be an issue. They’re not going to stop at immigration, look at other places in the world to see the future risk. Sorry, I was a paying and satisfied customer, and now I’m out.

kfreds14 小时前

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 some of his views. I know he doesn't share all of Örebropartiets views, but I should let him provide that nuance. 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. [1]: https://dberntsson.info

ouraf7 小时前

If you bought the product, the money went to the company. You don't need to take personal responsibility beyond that, and the company isn't doing the thing you hate so much. By the same token that "some of your money might end up (after many twists and turns) empowering politics you find repugnant", a much bigger share of this money is paying for the food on the table of the employees, their families and their children. How many people unrelated with your personal gripe, people that were doing a good job since you were paying and satisfied customer, are you willing to punish in order to "send a message"? This is an impossible standard to live by and demand from everything you buy and every service you pay for. Doubly so if you need to announce to the world you're dropping a product because of something that isn't done by or responsibility of its employees.

handedness9 小时前

> If it were a small amount of money, it wouldn’t be an issue. I'm not speaking for or against anyone's views for or against anything here, but it's worth noting that Brendan Eich's $1K donation caused quite the stir.

hnben2 小时前

I am sympathetic to the sentiment, but the argument does not hold water. > the fact remains some of my money can end up empowering politics I find repugnant are you paying taxes? are you using gasoline? are you paying for amazon? Some ratio of your money will always go toward something you hate. The big question is: is for a mulvad subscription that ratio bigger than for the alternative? The next question is: how is the ratio for things you like?

vr462 小时前

I am so so disappointed with Mullvad and this founder. I can’t believe I let myself get suckered and then paid up-front for the year again. The only influence I have is with my money.

JuniperMesos12 小时前

I'm a long-time Mullvad customer, and I respect what the company has been doing and the pro-privacy political stance it openly and publicly stands for. I agree that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission, and shouldn't be. But what I do care about, strongly, is that Mullvad as a company doesn't bow to pressure from pro-immigration activists who are attempting to impose social and financial consequences on people and institutions like Mullvad that tolerate anti-immigration political speech. Which is of course why people are publicizing this donation and publicly stating that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because of it. I want to state publicly that what would make me no longer do business with Mullvad is if Mullvad, organizationally, attempted to pressure Daniel Berntsson into not donating to anti-immigration political parties because it induces pro-immigration activists to attempt to boycott the company. I don't want to live in a world where people trying to run a pro-privacy VPN feel pressure to police anti-immigration speech unrelated to the core mission among people in their organization, and that's the principle that my customer dollars are riding on.

kfreds12 小时前

> I'm a long-time Mullvad customer, and I respect what the company has been doing and the pro-privacy political stance it openly and publicly stands for. Thank you.

bigyabai12 小时前

> Which is of course why people are publicizing this donation and publicly stating that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because of it. But you're doing the same thing, making the same threat. You've only escalated it from a conscientious protest to a Mexican stand off. I'm not icked-out by immigration discussion, but I am concerned by business owners starting down a political path. VPNs are not a very glamorous segment of the industry, and Mullvad had carved out a niche in taking a neutral side and fostering trust through a transparent product. My former boss spoke well of them and visited their sites in-person after hearing the marketing line about their RAM-only VPNs. Their appeal was not in protecting politicized speech, but protecting all speech and defending it as an apolitical technological imperative. Now more than ever, it's hard for me to believe their brand identity. You're allowed to have political opinions, voice them and vote for them when you're a CEO. But spending your paycheck on inordinate political investments is how you ask for a boycott. It's how I would feel about any political investment that their CEOs make, and its already tarnished the Mullvad brand for me.

gpm12 小时前

The speech people are objecting to isn't anti-immgiration. It is pro crimes against humanity against people who previously immigrated, and their descendants. A stance that Sweden should reduce the amount of immigration they accept would be utterly unremarkable and never result in outrage like this.

fzeroracer9 小时前

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kamaitachi2 天前

Hi Fredrik I’m a long time Mullvad customer, likely paid Mullvad upward of 400€ in the past number of years, as well as recommended it to friends and family members. What you seem to be missing in your comment, is that some of that money I paid, found its way to support an organisation that has extreme racist views. I’ve reached out to support and requested a refund of my outstanding credit. I’ll be moving on.

dgellow15 小时前

Not just “support”, it’s literally the main source of funds for the party. >70% of donations. If it was a small donation that would be sort of controversial but maybe defendable, but here we are talking about funding pretty much the whole party

kfreds13 小时前

Hi. I get what you mean. I made that post with limited time. Sorry to hear you're leaving.

ciefa16 小时前

Where will you move to? Are there any alternatives left? For me, Proton isn't one.. not sure what else there is.

adamzenith32 分钟前

What is the issue with Proton?

MegagramEnjoyer8 小时前

IVPN, NymVPN

nevon15 小时前

I did the same, except I'm paying for Mullvad through the Tailscale partnership, so I reached out to them and expressed my desire for them to partner with other privacy focused VPN providers like Njalla, Airvpn and others. I don't feel great about my money funding ethno-fascists in my country.

qweqwe1415 小时前

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RIMR12 小时前

Yeah, what's your point? Plenty of us are actively opposing the evil things our tax dollars fund all the time. If we could safely opt out of paying taxes for those things, we would. But Mullvad isn't the government. I can get a VPN from somewhere else. I can opt out of funding something that I consider morally abhorrent.

lbnzuni15 小时前

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gray_-_wolf21 小时前

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deaux5 小时前

Hi Kamaitachi, What you seem to be missing is that every single € you've spent on virtually anything in the past number of years, some of it has found its way to support organisations that have extreme racist views.

dom9614 小时前

As a customer I can no longer support you. But as someone that has been in a similar situation to you, I understand it's tough to end up building something big with someone who's politics you do not agree with. I would seriously urge you to consider building something new that rejects this kind of politics explicitly.

kfreds10 小时前

I'm sorry to hear that. Oh, I definitely agree with some of his political opinions, the obvious ones being around free speech, free press, and privacy. There are important issues where we don't agree. His values around empathy stretch to most sentient beings, and he believes I commit torture when I eat fish for lunch. And he's still willing to associate with me.

BitWiseVibe16 小时前

Thank you for everything you do Fredrik. Very happy to be a customer of a company that supports freedom and privacy for everyone regardless of views.

gpm11 小时前

> that supports freedom ... for everyone Unless you happen to be of Somalian descent in Sweden. Then you should be ripped away from the only home you've ever known, indeed possibly the only country you've ever been in, and sent to a foreign country you have no citizenship in, where you have no home, don't understand the language, know no one, and be forced to try and survive.

kfreds10 小时前

Thank you!

actualwitch2 天前

Hello Fredrik! As a heavy user of Mullvad in the past, easily spending hundreds of euros over the years, I was reserving my judgement to see what the official statement on this would be. Thank you, now I have my answer. > It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission. It should be obvious that what people are concerned is their money being used to support these political causes, whether it was done in a way that keeps the company out of it or not is besides the point. Daniel, of course, is free to choose what to do with his money. I am, too, and based on this I will be making a choice to not spend any more money on Mullvad subscriptions. Nothing personal, and it's a shame because I have nothing but praise for the technical side of it. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

kfreds13 小时前

Of course. Sorry to hear you're leaving. Thank you for the compliment.

jasonvorhe14 小时前

It should be obvious that he's perfectly fine with your decision because he wrote exactly that in the post you just replied to.

wanderer232314 小时前

Thank you for supporting the civil liberties and individual freedom of expression!

kfreds13 小时前

Thank you. :)

khriss13 小时前

Fredrik, thank you for a clear and honest statement of Mullvad's position rather than corporate word salad. > Mullvad protects the right for people to express things we don't agree with. We protect the right of everyone to access views we don't agree with. > That said, if you no longer want to be a Mullvad customer for philosophical reasons, we think it's important to honor that Combining the above statements, would you have any recommendations on VPN providers for people who choose to leave Mullvad? As you will agree, anonymity and privacy are under attack the world over and even people who leave Mullvad deserve have access to tools enabling the same. The VPN space is a cesspool of shady operators who seem to spend more on marketing than technology and it's really hard even for the HN audience to know which providers are legit. This is where your background and experience are really valuable, so any recommendations would be very welcome. Yes, I am aware that the ask here is to endorse a competitor, however if someone has made up their mind to leave Mullvad, they are going to do so anyway. Enabling them to do so while retaining their anonymity and privacy will go a long way in advancing the political aims Mullvad stands for.

kfreds10 小时前

Hi! No worries. I haven't spoken with Nick Pestell of IVPN in ages, but he's always struck me as genuine and empathetic. We met the first time at RightsCon in 2018 I believe. TunnelBear and ExpressVPN were also there. We all wrote this thing together: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2018/10/17/signals-trustworthy-v... Since those conversations I've always thought that IVPN is closest aligned with Mullvad's values. Again, I haven't spoken with Nick in ages, so I don't know what IVPN is doing now.

unknown15 小时前

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Pr0ject21715 小时前

Thanks for supporting civil liberties.

insane_dreamer13 小时前

What you said makes sense, but what the founders do matters. I'll never buy a Tesla car because of Elon's actions. I cancelled my Amazon Prime subscription because of Bezos' actions. There are plenty of people for whom it doesn't matter, but for some it does.

kfreds13 小时前

Indeed. It matters to me. In fact, most of my political opinions have atrophied, or rather I have self-censored. Daniel believes that is not the right trade-off to make in this case. I understand his point of view, and disagree.

vitally364314 小时前

That's great and all but can I have a refund for the portion of my mullvad subscription that went to supporting organizations who think that people like me don't deserve to live?

dijit14 小时前

Can you point to the charter where the Örebro party ever said that you don't deserve to live? The embellishments of what people actually believe is extremely exhausting. FWIW, I'm an immigrant in Sweden and if they gained power I would be affected, but we talk about people with differing views to us as if they're actively violent in order to shut down conversation. This catasphrophising language will eventually not help your cause, because ordinary people start to feel numb to it and the hard-right will not be defeated by it.

zombot2 小时前

> We fight for freedom of speech, freedom of information and the right to privacy. OK, but the far right, like all totalitarians, has an agenda that is thoroughly opposed to this. That leads to the tolerance paradox: You must be intolerant to agendas that would put an end to tolerance.

unknown15 小时前

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kgwxd16 小时前

> This is what allows us to advance our common causes. Being in a tolerant and intellectually open environment is also liberating and promotes truth seeking. Nope, that is what will get you taken over by the assholes. Reasonable defense is necessary in reality. There ARE bad actors, they must be kept out.

peterfirefly2 小时前

> There ARE bad actors, they must be kept out. There are very good (and well-documented) reasons to believe a large part of the recently immigrated foreigners in Sweden are exactly such bad actors. Your arguments don't really work the way you seem to think they do.

jasonvorhe14 小时前

Everyone has their own definition of a bad actor. The fact that you're implying to know how to spot them says a lot about your tolerance for differences in opinion.

honr16 小时前

If you still wonder why there are sudden attacks on Mullvad, I "heard" there are Chinese (in addition to the others; dual- / triple- vendoring is key) LLM-based tools to check for swarm origins and campaigns.

epistasis15 小时前

I'm pretty familiar with these right-wingers that claim to fight for "freedom of speech" they all end up fighting for "freedom of speech for the things I want to say, jail for those who oppose me." The 2024-2025 swing was pretty extreme on that front. Political extremists are all the same, left or right, nobody should be surprised because they seek power above all else. I had been pretty concerned about the level of advertising for Mullvad I've seen recently, that's usually a really bad sign for a VPN type company. But seeing this comment, in combination with the news article linked here, tells me everything I need to know for trust. VPNs are all about trust. Mullvad has completely broken all trust with me.

JuniperMesos12 小时前

Do you think any of the people publicly claiming that they will no longer do business with Mullvad because Daniel Berntsson donates to an anti-immigration political party, wouldn't make donating to that party an illegal, jail-able legal offense if they had the political power to do so?

unknown16 小时前

[deleted]

ryan_n14 小时前

> It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission Why should this be obvious? I don't think that's obvious at all. The owner of a company could very easily decide to one day use their company to further their political beliefs/ideologies (see: Twitter, FaceBook, etc..). Why would Mullvad be any different?

kfreds14 小时前

I'm sorry to hear you'll be leaving us. To answer your question, we started building this organization in the summer of 2008 for idealistic reasons, and we are still idealists who think privacy is fundamental to a civilized society. The best strategy for achieving societal impact through entrepreneurship is consistent, long-term, and value-based ownership. For us, this disqualifies taking outside investment, either through venture capital or going public. Mullvad has instead been growing organically without outside investments. Our principles have withstood the test of time. Our conviction has remained unchanged through multiple serious offers of acquisition and outside investment. Words are cheap of course, but consistent action over the course of almost two decades is not. Mullvad is about privacy. Neither Daniel nor I have used Mullvad's brand to promote our personal opinions.

vrganj2 天前

Hi Fredrik, long time user of your service. I have to say, this is a disappointing message. The thing about intolerant movements is that tolerance doesn't fix them, it makes them worse and lets them accumulate power until they can destroy the tolerant. I'd recommend reading Karl Popper and his Paradox of Tolerance, which he formulated after seeing this exact thing play out in his native Austria with the rise of the Nazis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

kfreds1 小时前

Hi! Thank you. Both Daniel and I are well aware of Karl Popper. We've both been interested in politics since we were teenagers.

phendrenad22 天前

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joinjune15 小时前

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storus16 小时前

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gpvos21 小时前

"Mullvad AB and its parent company Amagicom AB are 100% owned by founders [1 person] and Daniel Berntsson [...]"[0] So I'll assume he owns about 50%. Well, that ends my usage of Mullvad.[1] I appreciate that probably many of Mullvad's employees have different views, and obviously Berntsson has every right to his opinions and to express them, and I also appreciate that someone can have control over an opinionated company and run it for one particular set of reasons but not for other causes that someone believes in, but in the end I just don't want my money supporting anti-people causes. [0] https://mullvad.net/en/about [1] If it was a small amount, say less than 5% or maybe 10%, I might have decided differently. But it's still millions, so probably not.

HDBaseT9 小时前

Lets remember for a second that Mullvad has enabled people on all side of the political spectrum to communicate online, anonymously. This is more noble than almost anything else. Mullvad has enabled freedom for yourself, and millions of others, regardless of their political or personal leans.

kfreds14 小时前

I'm sorry to hear that. Yes, Daniel and I own 50% each. > obviously Berntsson has every right to his opinions and to express them Indeed. > and I also appreciate that someone can have control over an opinionated company and run it for one particular set of reasons but not for other causes that someone believes in That is exactly the case. > but in the end I just don't want my money supporting anti-people causes. As is your right. Daniel made his choice and now you make yours, as a number of other people in this thread has done. Some believe this party is left-wing, others right-wing. Some approve of it, others don't. Personally I don't, and as I've said elsewhere in this thread I wish he hadn't donated. As do many of our colleagues. To be fair though, there are also colleagues who do seem to approve. And then there are those who don't seem to care either way. Still, I'm glad you recognize the possibility that Daniel and I are able to keep our personal opinions separate from the mission of our company. This is something we live in our daily work as well. As a workplace I'm glad we're not a monoculture of 100% like-minded individuals.

square_usual13 小时前

> As a workplace I'm glad we're not a monoculture of 100% like-minded individuals. But if you're tolerant of someone in your workplace that wants to make it a monoculture, and then succeeds in doing so, will you remain glad?

gpvos12 小时前

I would like to add one note: if I were an activist in Iran, or in any other way my livelihood would depend on strong privacy services, I might keep using your service and even be (slightly) more certain of the company's resolve to keep my privacy protected. Although I would be very aware of the irony. But choosing for one's own safety can override other concerns. Very few things in life are black and white.

SpaceNoodled13 小时前

Ironically, remigration is a means to achieve a monoculture.

chinathrow13 小时前

Time for a new VPN co then, right?

jlokier12 小时前

> the possibility that Daniel and I are able to keep our personal opinions separate from the mission of our company This isn't about opinions. Very large political financing is not a mere opinion. It has a much larger material effect. I don't think it's possible to separate "mission of our company" from "large scale political financing", for purely structural reasons. I think the legal and fiduciary concept of Conflict of Interest is relevant here, but perhaps only by analogy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest is quite informative. In some business, political and legal roles, we deem certain structural relations to be a conflict of interest regardless of what people on those roles actually do.. The mere potential for excessive improper influence arising from the structure of their relationships and roles is what creates the deemed conflict. As the owners of a company making substantial profit like Mullvad, you always had the potential capability to financially influence political outcomes on a scale which most your customers cannot, in ways that may seriously harm some of your customers and to be potentially against the stated mission of your company. I think the relationship between running a company with an openly advertised public mission, or even an implied mission in the minds of customers, while in another role (wealthy private citizen) being able to make a substantial material action against the same mission, should be recognised as inherently a conflict of interest. But obviously it's one we can't avoid, as long as we allow people to get rich from a mission-driven company. What we can do, is recognise that if someone actually takes a large material action against the company's mission, then they have gone a step further and demonstrated the conflict of interest. We generally favour free speech, including political donations. But when the money for very large political financing comes mostly from customers who, by virtue of the advertising and marketing of the company's mission, are led to believe they are supporting the company's mission? In my view, at that point the customers are being tricked into paying for something while their money is paying for something else which opposes the thing they thought they were funding. At the least, it should be dealt with in a similar way that conflicts of interest are dealt with when, for example, directing multiple companies: By making sure everyone knows, so other people are able to consent or not on the major conflict issues those other people might have a view on. The analogy for customers is their consent shown by their informed decision to become or remain customers. In Mullvad's situation, that would mean Mullvad should explain to customers, embedded clearly within it's public marketing of the company missions and values, that one of its current major owners receiving customer funds by way of profit, is the main financier of a political party which sponsors remigration in Sweden. Because that is clearly a thing some customers care about when evaluating whether to pay for Mullvad's services from now on. You know that, I know that, so there's no legitimate excuse for not letting customers who would care know. Then, as you said, customers will be free to choose.

prmoustache11 小时前

The thing is, you can't be pro freedom of speech and pro privacy yet support right wing extremists. They are totally against that. It can only means that Daniel is setting up a trap with Mullvad.

e4012 小时前

Who sees the party as left wing? Its seems like a disingenuous argument to make.

LocutusOfBorges13 小时前

> Some believe this party is left-wing, others right-wing. Some approve of it, others don't. For a company that puts political principle so fundamentally at the core of its marketing strategy, it's astonishing to see this kind of stance being taken. The man who owns half the company seemingly choosing to funnel his share of its profits to a political party that advocates the mass deportation of people is, in that context, something with significant consequences. I understand how awkward the position you're in must be, but it's obscene to present this as somehow being a thing that one can be morally neutral on. In the context of rising fascism across the continent, it's dismaying to see a company that a lot of us rely on so decisively pick the worst possible side.

aarjaneiro9 小时前

Is your buddy incapable of speaking on his own behalf? Im sure he's aware of the reputational damage he's caused your company by now...

iioiio6 小时前

Yes. Please go and find an option who support the leftist politicians who are directly responsible for the increase in crimes in Sweden in the last decade. People who actively hid migrant crimes so that their naive policies are not questioned. People who failed so spectacularly that the country became the rape capital of Europe and has more crime than El Salvador today.

phatskat3 小时前

> People who failed so spectacularly that the country became the rape capital of Europe and has more crime than El Salvador today. > the rape capital of Europe I’ve read that this is because Sweden changed how rape is counted - instead of multiple votes instances within the same relationship being counted as “one rape”, each instance of non-consensual intercourse is counted individually. > and has more crime than El Salvador today I couldn’t find any reliable data here other than Sweden’s homicide rates are a little higher than historically, but still pretty low. And the comparison to El Salvador is off the mark in general because the murder rate there has fallen dramatically from where it was historically.

incompatible3 小时前

The crime rate in El Salvador is allegedly quite low these days, and I don't think Sweden has had a left-wing government since 2022. https://elsalvadorinfo.net/homicide-rate-in-el-salvador/

drbscl16 小时前

Wikipedia of the party in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party# Doesn't really sound all that far-right to me. Nationalist, sure. I'm not Swedish though, so I would be interested in the thoughts of those who are actually affected by Örebropartiet's policies.

yreg15 小时前

>Doesn't really sound all that far-right to me. To me too, then I got to the leaders quote on TV: "We must deport these damn parasites who sit and live at our expense." Yeah, okay. I know some politicians who speak like that, I feel I get the picture.

Auracle15 小时前

I think you'd be surprised at how quickly that sentiment has moved from the far-right to close to the center. People are (rightly, in my opinion) pretty upset at their governments for letting mass migration happen with pretty much only downsides for their actual citizens. People are all about the idea of helping the downtrodden when it's just an ideal, but when they realize it's having negative consequences for them that can easily change.

runjake14 小时前

From a US perspective, just up until a decade ago, it was a sentiment that left-center perspective that people like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton had. I was caught quite off-guard by this new "open borders" perspective. It doesn't seem sustainable at all.

dpoloncsak14 小时前

I think, all pretty recently (atleast in the 'States), there's been much news and noise about the abuse and fraud of these systems designed to help the downtrodden. Now whether that's all true, has always been true, is propaganda...whatever, but it's easy for me to understand why sentiment has been changing as the spotlight is focused more and more on the abuse of the systems as opposed to the benefits. I also think there's some 'hierarchy of needs' going on here, where as the economy shifts and more and more Americans are struggling to afford housing, groceries, and other necessities, it's easy to feel like you should be putting yourself first over strangers. Combine that with the prior point, and you have a great recipe to build resentment. Selfish, maybe, but I can understand how you get there. This is NOT to say 'There is no xenophobia' or anything...racism in general is alive and well in the USA... but I have pretty sound-minded people around me starting to echo this mindset, and this is my best understanding of what's been brewing.

ashley9511 小时前

Comparing the US and Sweden, it's also useful to know that the proportion of refugees accepted by these two countries is wildly different. Sweden has historically taken in many refugees (including draft dodgers from the US). In 2015 (an outlier) they accepted rouhgly 1 refugee (163k) for every 60 people (~9.4m) in the country. At its peak in 2024, the US admitted 100k refugees, significantly fewer than the Swedish peak. The impact of refugees is much more visible (also in budgetary allocations) in Sweden than the US because of this difference.

radicalbyte12 小时前

Migration in my part of Europe (Holland) has largely been workers for jobs the Dutch won't do. These people are abused as a sort of semi-serf labour mainly in the farming sector. Some groups are a big net benefit to our (looking at the income the group benefits / social support costs) and others slight net negative. But once you take the economy into account it's positive.

grafmax4 小时前

Immigrants are a timeless scapegoat for the problems faced by the working class.

Computer013 小时前

There’s expected to be 1 billion climate refugees by 2050. What will be this factions answer to that? Bullets?

microgpt14 小时前

How can you be sure the opinion moved to the center and not that the center moved to the right? Migration is all a distraction anyway. Brown people existing doesn't hurt you. Whenever you think they drive up rents or whatever, that has nothing to do with the brown people, that has everything to do with the system that sets rents.

foxes4 小时前

You mean the Overton window or whatever has drifted right. Nationalism is a right wing concept.

mindslight14 小时前

At least from a US perspective, the problem is that the downsides are the deliberate policy goals of the political class. Immigration was but one tool used to achieve them, and now the immigrants themselves serve as a convenient visceral scapegoat for releasing the grassroots political pressure. We finally built enough political capital to do something about the economic vise most Americans find themselves in, only for it to be squandered on performative vice signalling.

throwitaway22215 小时前

We were sold one thing and got another.

dbingham14 小时前

No. That sentiment didn't "move toward the center". What happened is that the far-right -- and, lets not use euphemisms like "the far right" here, we're talking about fascists and literal Nazis (ethno-fascism is Nazism) -- have successfully taken control of much of our mass media. They've also more or less captured the government of one of the world's super powers. Those two things put together have allowed them to make their views appear mainstream. This is exactly what happened during the 1920s and 1930s prior to World War II. And similarly, you were finding Nazi views expressed openly and proudly and being given a veneer of respectability. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_Nazi_rally_at_Madison_Squ...) But they are no less extreme now than they were then. They are still fascist and Nazi views. And they still ought to be abhorrent to anyone who considers themselves a decent human being.

zarzavat6 小时前

You have to consider the context which is that Sweden does have an awful lot of fake refugees mixed in with the real refugees. "Parasite" is harsh but unfortunately all too accurate for some of the migrants who are essentially gaming a system intended for people in real distress.

unknown15 小时前

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fsmedberg15 小时前

I think it’s quite important to understand in what context that have been said. The ”parasites” are immigrants that have not integrated, entire families and generations living off welfare and the ethnic group basically have a super high unemployment rate of maybe 50% or more. I’ve listened a lot to talks from the party leader of Örebropartiet, and while I think he would benefit from slowing himself down, yell and insult less, I really can’t see he being racist or far-right. More leftist actually. I think he’s simply VERY motivated/obsessed around questions like to get government less corrupt, much more efficient governence, and to stop major ethnic groups from very poor parts of the world get an unreasonable high amount of the governments welfare spending.

dnlzro14 小时前

It's possible to support all of the same policies without referring to human beings as "parasites," and I don't think we should be flippant about what language is used. It's relevant. It reflects a state of mind. I personally do not ever see myself voting for (or otherwise indirectly supporting) a politician that speaks like that, regardless of whether you can steelman it with more neutral language.

microgpt14 小时前

Isn't that what every politician who ended up doing an ethnic cleansing said?

unknown15 小时前

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cucumber373284212 小时前

Maybe he was talking about beltway bandits, do they have those in Sweden?

something76547814 小时前

Funny, I usually hear that sentiment from left wing sources complaining about billionaires.

nozzlegear14 小时前

Interesting, but what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

catlikesshrimp14 小时前

The billionaries don't need/care about sympathy And most importantly, the billionares don't do hard work for minimun pay.

tastyface12 小时前

Billionaires always have the option to un-parasite themselves, quite trivially. Nobody is calling MacKenzie Scott a parasite.

yreg13 小时前

Well I find the 'Eat the rich' slogan equally disgusting.

wat1000014 小时前

Won’t somebody please think of the poor oppressed billionaires!

fleroviumna13 小时前

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xdennis12 小时前

> To me too, then I got to the leaders quote on TV: "We must deport these damn parasites who sit and live at our expense." Firstly, you should probably cite that. Searching for it leads here. Hopefully, you didn't manufacture it. But, while the language is unfortunate, do you really think natives should tolerate migrants who are not a net positive?

yreg3 小时前

> you should probably cite that. I got it from reading the Wikipedia article linked in the comment I was replying to. Specifically here, third paragraph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party#Immigration_... The statement has a citation but I did not follow it.

ZeroGravitas16 小时前

Spot the odd one out: > Some of its key issues include lowered wages for politicians, ending the tax payer funding of various sculptures, monuments and art, large scale remigration, a stricter immigration policy, and free dental care.

dijit15 小时前

To understand why there might be a desire to limit spending on art; There was a recent case where city of Malmo was building a hospital; during the building of the hospital it was decided that a splice of the oldest tree in the world would be installed. A very expensive life-support system was developed and an enormous amount of money paid for the splice. (not including the life support system, which was also an inordinate amount). The tree didn't take, and needs to be replaced. It's called "Spruce Time": https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/skane/region-skane-har-lag...

fc417fc8028 小时前

I think government art projects the western world over would fare better if they went through a reasonably local direct democracy type process. Instead we get unelected bureaucrats with absolutely bizarre tastes commissioning wildly expensive projects that the majority don't really appreciate. Even though that only describes a minority of cases I think it shouldn't be any surprise that it results in backlash and defunding.

justin668 小时前

I hope you don't think that is the odd one out.

nitnelave16 小时前

For context, from wiki: > Remigration is a far-right concept referring to ethnic cleansing via mass deportation of non-white minority populations [...] to their place of racial ancestry

Auracle15 小时前

Well, if there isn't a better example of Wikipedia's bias I haven't seen it. Here's Grokipedia's first sentence, for comparison: "Remigration is a policy proposal for the organized repatriation of immigrants to reverse demographic and cultural shifts resulting from sustained immigration in Western host countries." Meriam-Webster: : the act of migrating again especially : the act of returning to one's original or previous home after a migration One study of pre-1930 immigration showed that Jews and Irish were most likely to stay (a remigration rate of less than one in eight) … — Mark Jacob and Stephan Benzkofer Notice how Wikipedia uses the term "ethnic cleansing" and how they focus on 'non-white' instead of 'immigrants,' even though the term absolutely has nothing to do with skin color. Calling it a far-right concept is an insane leap as well considering the first known use of the term was in 1608.

adamrezich11 小时前

For more context, from wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grenade_attacks_in_Swe... Sweden is the only country I'm aware of that has a Wikipedia page specifically about this incredibly niche local phenomenon which by the way has no correlation to anything being discussed here at all.

ReptileMan15 小时前

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blockmarker13 小时前

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KaiserPro15 小时前

> large scale remigration which is literally kicking out people who don't look or sounds like me, out of the country. Whenever that has happened it has been rather bad for most parties.

dijit13 小时前

What about kicking people out who don’t believe in equal rights for women? Because, that is pretty core to the Swedish cultural identity.

xdennis15 小时前

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DaSHacka15 小时前

> which is literally kicking out people who don't look or sounds like me, out of the country. Or, more accurately, people who weren't born there (particularly first generation immigrants). No one's talking about legitimately doing deportations via family guy race cards.

threetonesun16 小时前

We want everyone here to be exactly like us, but we do recognize we have bad teeth.

honeycrispy13 小时前

No, we just want them to not hate us and our culture. People in general are tired of being tolerant to the intolerant.

throwitaway22216 小时前

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LaurensBER16 小时前

Split from: Left Party So basically the left but with a stricter view on immigration?

pesus16 小时前

Source that every single left wing party in the 90s wanted to get rid of every single person of a non-white background?

guerrilla16 小时前

> Nationalist, sure. That's pretty far-right by itself. The fact that they want mass deportations should solidify it for you though.

drbscl16 小时前

It's definitely possible to be a left-wing nationalist

SpecialistK9 小时前

Canada's (mainstream) nationalism is also part of its political left.

guerrilla15 小时前

I mean it's definitely possible to call yourself that, but I'd argue no, it's not possible to actually be that.

microgpt14 小时前

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onraglanroad15 小时前

No-one defines what they mean by "nationalist" so it could apply to a rock.

al_borland16 小时前

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KaiserPro15 小时前

> celebrate that culture. The party explicitly votes against paying for local culture > wanting to protect There is a big difference for wanting to protect culture, as in celebrate, educate and promote, and removing people from the land that has that culture. I would say the two are orthogonal. For example, a huge influence on the British music scene comes from either getting pissed in Hamburg, or music coming from the Caribbean. None of which could have happened if people were dead set on "re-migration" (ie removing non "white" people.)

newtonianrules15 小时前

You can protect your “culture” without deporting all non-White people. If your culture can’t be protected without that, maybe that culture doesn’t need protecting.

projektfu14 小时前

Interesting for a European party to choose red and black as colors and be right of center.

tastyface12 小时前

It's not an accident.

tokai12 小时前

Not without precedent. Maybe they are big fans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.

GuinansEyebrows12 小时前

i can think of one notable right-of-center European party that featured those colors heavily.

projektfu12 小时前

Fair enough. (And white)

jimbokun10 小时前

> Some of its key issues include lowered wages for politicians, ending the tax payer funding of various sculptures, monuments and art, large scale remigration, a stricter immigration policy, and free dental care. Limiting immigration along with generous government benefits for citizens is an interesting new space for political parties not fitting the traditional left right axis.

gnoll_of_gozag1 小时前

just "stricter policy" is an understatement. they want mass expulsions

mullingitover4 小时前

It’s not a new idea. I’d put it at around ninety years old.

0xbadcafebee16 小时前

"The party has also been described as both right-wing populist and left-wing populist as well as left-conservative." Well that clears things up

DaSHacka15 小时前

Lol, that quote really reads like "we have terminal direction-brain and can't place these people in our arbitrary categories"

jasonvorhe14 小时前

Or: We're cherry picking ideas from all sides where applicable.

forshaper12 小时前

It's all a Louis XVI seating chart anyway.

dgellow15 小时前

The horseshoe still going strong

onraglanroad15 小时前

Fascists always incude left wing policies to try to appeal to the "working man". There's a reason the Nazis included "socialist" in their name. It's not because they give a crap about the plebs.

toxik14 小时前

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victorbjorklund3 小时前

They are a really strange party revolving around their leader who got a personality. It can be seen more as Trump where ideology isn’t as important as what the leader says.

Aachen13 小时前

I suppose how extreme a party seems to a person depends on the context they're in

unknown12 小时前

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exiguus7 小时前

In my understanding its far-right or right-wing and definitely a populist party. See also the Ideology Section from the link you added.

ath3nd14 小时前

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dsign15 小时前

Slightly tangential on Swedish society, there are similarities between USA and Sweden. There's a large segment of society that is white and very blond, and there's a largish segment which is not. Along that same line there are all kinds of divisions: economic, education, religious, sets of values, and of access to things and possibilities. What pisses me off is that the cast of "CEOs of successful companies" live in an sphere of privilege where they really are not bothered at all by the brown people. They in fact have plenty of places to go, a vast archipelago, out of reach for anybody who can't afford a boat. Though they get all the benefits, including cheap qualified labor from people who had to leave their homelands displaced by poverty, conflict and war. I'll switch VPN provider too. One of these days we will elect somebody who is corrupt and morally corrupt, incompetent and poorly educated and who'll promise to screw us over many times and in many positions, and we will let him just do so so that there are concentration camps for the brown people.

mjburgess14 小时前

What's the relationship between race and immigration status? It's not entirely clear what the argument which unites them is supposed to be. This unification is always in the mind of the white matry not the person opposing immigration. In the UK polish immigration was opposed, en mass, poles are white. SUPPOSE there are large numbers of poorly assimilated people in a country, whose culture of origin is very different than that of the host country. What does the minor coincidence of their common lack of european ancestry show, other than to prove the point, they lack such ancestry? White skin evolved in europe, with the peoples of europe, as with european culture -- that whiteness tracks this culture is a conincidence. (There's less-and-less european diaspora in america -- which, if imported en mass, might also enrange europeans). The refusal to treat large scale immigration as a cultural and economic phenomneon, to try and insult opponents of this position with a slander of racism -- this tactic doesnt work any more. All you are doing is driving those people to say, "OK, so its racism. We'll vote for that then." And the result is real racists are elected. Do you have any analysis of the issues people opposed to large scale immigartion, from non-western cultures, and who would reverse at least some of it -- do you have any arguments that engage the issues they actually raise?

iamnothere11 小时前

It is strange, because this party’s platform seems to mirror the positions of the blackest Swede I know (Malcolm Kyeyune, a Marxist writer who is also often accused of being a right-winger). I suspect that the divisions in Sweden are much deeper than race.

SiempreViernes13 小时前

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mjburgess13 小时前

So suppose there's a large group of people arriving into your country en mass, you poll them about eg., women's rights and you find that 80%+ of them hold highly regressive views that were rare and fringe in even in the last 100+ years of your own country. Indeed, women would be warned about them even in the antebellum south. Now suppose they're a different colour than the present inhabitants. Which fact is most salient in your analysis of whether to retain their presence, or admit more? If its the latter, then I think there's racism in play here, but not of the kind you imagine. Namely, it seems you'd think feminism is only for white people. Or perhaps that human rights are a white things. Others, of course, disagree.

throwawayqqq1112 小时前

> The refusal to treat large scale immigration as a cultural and economic phenomneon > and insult opponents of this position as racist On the other hand, you treat the negative effects of current immigrant milieus as eternal and innert to their ancestry (dare to say: genes). This way, you can look at integration as if it has to happen in a single generation and also, allows you to ignore the more important part of diminishing social mobility, which effects the natives as much. Look at germany, where after WW2, alot of turkish "guest workers" were invited and stayed. After several generations the descendant of those immigrants are as german as you can be. They are still soft muslims, drink alcohol, engage with german bureaucracy, have a heavy turkish accent -- some of them are even candidates for the far right AfD. Please note, they migrated into an economic boom. Isnt that utterly ridiculous? When time proves you wrong, it reveals your narrow mindedness. And when you reduce immigrants to percieved negative innert properties, isnt that racist? When you broaden your scope, youll see the bigger problems are elsewhere, dont get distracted by bigotted populists, that are as clueless about problems or their solutions.

philipallstar12 小时前

> hand, you treat the negative effects of current immigrant milieus as eternal amd innert to their ancestry (dare to say: genes). I don't think they did say any of this. I don't understand why people who debate against limiting immigration (and it often is only this way round) continually mis-represent the person's clear, stated concern and try and replace it. It is a completely transparent attempt, and no one is fooled. This isn't 2015 when an accusation of racism was taken seriously, because who would mis-accuse someone of such an awful thing? Well, it turned out millions of people would do that. The US President would do it[0]. As for the genetics comment, this is ridiculous on its face as well. Race and culture are in no way tied. But culture survives for many generations, particularly when the immigrating group is large enough. This is obvious. Germans in the 1900s could move almost anywhere in the world and become the best brewers in the region, not because they have the genotype of a brewer, but because they had (and still have) an incredible brewing tradition handed down from parent to child. Culture doesn't change because you move into another country. It moves because you assimilate, make lots of native friends, and learn the language. Lots and lots of people are not doing that. [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kyle-rittenhouses-mothe...

hackinthebochs11 小时前

>On the other hand, you treat the negative effects of current immigrant milieus as eternal and innert to their ancestry A bad faith misrepresentation of the issue. The issue is why should existing citizens have to suffer the backwards views of the immigrant population while immigrants "assimilate over multiple generations"? Why should the host country have to absorb increased crime, feeling less safe, having their culture changed, etc for the sake of the immigrant population? Where does this supposed moral impetus come from?

mjburgess12 小时前

> cultural and economic phenomenon

bjelkeman-again11 小时前

> a vast archipelago, out of reach for anybody who can't afford a boat No. That is just false. There is a very well developed ferry/commuter boat network. [1] The cost on some lines are included in the Stockholm public transport pass. A five day ticket is €12/day. No need to buy a boat. [1] https://images.ctfassets.net/4l7cjdaypzcu/UrqsczDUUVXP3wS6rU...

rwyinuse11 小时前

Sweden wasn't like USA until politicians decided to make Sweden a "humanitarian superpower" by establishing the most liberal refugee policy in the world, without thinking of how they can actually integrate and offer a better future for all those refugees. I guess the real motivation may have been getting cheap labor, rest of the society be damned. In any case, Sweden's policies on humanitarian migration have been an utter failure, and I can't really blame Swedes for wanting to make it stricter. Obviously refugees are not the ones to be blamed here, but politicians who took in more than they could successfully integrate.

optionalsquid10 小时前

> Slightly tangential on Swedish society, there are similarities between USA and Sweden. There's a large segment of society that is white and very blond, and there's a largish segment which is not. Do you have a source for that? I tried searching, but didn't find anything supporting this notion. I can find numerous sources pointing to the high prevalence of blonde hair in Sweden and other Nordic counties, but the US rarely even makes an appearance in those rankings. If anything, it seems like a point of difference rather than a similarity

throwawaypath9 小时前

>Slightly tangential on Swedish society, there are similarities between USA and Sweden. There's a large segment of society that is white and very blond, and there's a largish segment which is not. There are no similarities at play here. Swedes are the native, indigenous people to Sweden. "White people" in the US are not native nor indigenous to the US.

josh26009 小时前

Only if you pretend the Sami's don't exist, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1mi_people

throwawaypath9 小时前

The existence of the Sami does not falsify the following fact: Swedes are the native, indigenous people to Sweden.

earthnail13 小时前

I lived in Stockholm for seven years. One of the biggest mistakes was not buying a boat. They‘re not as expensive as people make you believe; you can get a really nice day cruiser for around $10k, which you can sell again for $9k after a few years. Used boats have very little depreciation. Yes, you can go fancier; a nice weekender like a Nimbus 250 sets you back $60-70k, but that’s just like cars. You can get an Audi or BMW, or you start with a Kia. The problem with boats isn’t that they’re expensive - the Stockholm archipelago can largely be considered like a lake, not like the sea. It’s education. And I don’t mean university. I mean: which boat is appropriate? How do I navigate? On which cliffs can I stop, and how? How do I prepare for a nice day out? Which insurance do I choose, which parts need repair and when, what Mai tweets must I do myself vs pay someone, how much should I expect in upkeep costs, etc These are all very manageable things to learn, but if you’re not used and not exposed to boat culture you won’t do it. But the problem isn’t money. $10k isn’t free, but it’s less than most used cars, and annual upkeep is less than a car, too.

jamesblonde12 小时前

It took me 5 years to get the boat - a 22ft daycruiser with toilet. That was 15 years ago, haven't looked back. Got a daycruiser from the UK. Drove there, bought a trailer there, drove it home. Arbitrage during the financial crisis - half the price of the same boat in Sweden at the time.

kruxigt13 小时前

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fleroviumna13 小时前

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TheSmoke14 小时前

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microgpt13 小时前

If it's a nice country, you should expect people to want to go there.

Herring12 小时前

Yeah. This discussion is hilarious. Some people just can’t wrap their heads around generosity. “Why don’t you just let them die in the wars?”

hottakeoftoday14 小时前

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InsideOutSanta14 小时前

If you think about what you said for just a second, you'll realize that, even ignoring how off-putting it is, it makes absolutely no logical sense.

microgpt14 小时前

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GardenLetter2713 小时前

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w4yai13 小时前

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solid_fuel13 小时前

Please make an effort to engage with this forum in good faith, instead of posting flame bait.

redsocksfan4513 小时前

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lightbulbish3 天前

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.

ndsipa_pomu2 天前

I don't think it's reasonable to "demand" integration. What should happen is that the existing cultures should be open and welcoming enough so that new-comers want to take part. Also, I like the idea of immigrants bringing their culture with them (and in some cases, that may be the last representation of that culture) and welcoming people to learn about it. Multi-culturalism should be about championing different cultures and not forcing everyone into a cultural homogeneity.

hackinthebochs2 天前

Why is the burden always on the host nation and never the immigrants?

arnoooooo40 分钟前

Do you let anyone come into your home ? If you did, you'd no longer have a home, and therefore would not be able to offer hospitality anymore. Don't you expect people who come to your home to abide by at least a few rules ? It's the same for a country. It's because it has borders, rules, and a strong culture that it has something to offer that immigrants might be interested in.

em-bee1 天前

the burden should always be on the ones who are stronger to accommodate those who are weaker. the majority needs to welcome and support the minority. and it's not that there is no burden on the immigrants. they still have to learn to understand the local language, culture, rule of law, etc... we should learn from each other and take the good from each. the burden for that is on both sides.

defrost2 天前

Always? Never? There are > 190 countries in the world and many of them require immigrants to meet at least the same criteria for employment and assistance as born citizens.

SmirkingRevenge11 小时前

The truth is, assimilation is usually a process that takes a generation or two. First generation immigrants don't assimilate very well. Many never manage to even learn the host country's language. Assimilation really happens at the level of their descendants, who grow up entirely within the host country, going to their schools, consuming their pop culture, etc, and think of themselves as Swedes or Americans or whatever.

throwa35626210 小时前

I think it is very reasonable to demand _some_ integration: get a job, pay taxes, learn the language as best as you can, don't do crime. But at the same time, you should not be expected to give up your culture (as long as it is not doing something against the law).

port112 天前

GP literally addresses your points. I think we’re very welcoming in most of Europe, adopt others’ traditions, and are not too imposing. Just, you know, leave women alone and don’t aim fireworks at ambulances. Dismissing any amount of integration is chicanery. We’re pro-social creatures, and knowing the lay of the land makes your life better.

ndsipa_pomu2 天前

I'm not saying that people shouldn't want to integrate, I'm saying that "demanding" it is problematic. Imagine grandparents being brought over from a different country and they don't speak the language - should they be forced to attend language school? What level of language ability would be considered the minimum and does that also include reading/writing? By all means provide encouragement and resources so that people can adapt to their new situation, but don't demand it.

em-bee2 天前

compared to the rest of the world europe is absolutely not welcoming. heck, even as a native german if you move from one region in germany to another you are treated as an unwelcome outsider. less so in big cities where you are more anonymous but still. if you are lucky you can find "your tribe" and your children may be accepted if they grow up there. the only places in germany where i ever felt welcome was linux user groups, and other fringe groups which as a whole had more of an outsider status.

AlecSchueler2 天前

> Just, you know, leave women alone and don’t aim fireworks at ambulances. Where I'm from (Northern Ireland) harassing women and attacking emergency services have been part of the culture for as long as I remember. Would you suggest that people arriving should actively take part in these behaviours?

hagbard_c14 小时前

> I don't think it's reasonable to "demand" integration Yes, it is reasonable to demand people who come into a country adapt to rules - written and to a certain extent also the unwritten, of which Sweden has many - of that country. When in Rome, act as the Romans. This adaptation will never be 100% but that is not the point, what is most important is that newcomers learn to assimilate to such a level that the natives are open and willing to maybe integrate some parts of the newcomer's culture. People who 'are the last representatives of [their] culture' can write a book about it while becoming part of their new culture since it is clear that their old one did not stand the test of time. They're much better off that way instead of living like cultural fossils for the likes of NPR and PBS to make documentaries about. By all means document what that extinct culture had to offer but life is for the living and culture is the commonly agreed upon set of rules how to live it. Multiculturalism is a pipe dream, something dreamt up by people who listened to one too many version of John Lennon's Imagine. It has been shown not to work time and time again, it makes it harder for people coming in to a new country to assimilate and integrate because there is no clear target to aim for. Culture is not a fixed thing, it evolves through time by adopting new things and getting rid of old customs. Multiculturalism does not call for cultural evolution, it calls for revolution: here's a whole new culture, now deal with it. Revolution hardly every works and when it does it tends to go badly for those on the wrong side of it.

Aachen12 小时前

> Translated from Swedish Wikipedia [...] I think it is very reasonable When I looked into this party when news broke a few days ago, I was surprised to find that the English article was comparatively longer and included the more appalling statements. Seems worrying that their narrative on the native version appears to be working

throwa35626213 小时前

Would this change your mind? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48704714 Source https://x.com/AllardKlipp/status/2060109271635771457

AlecSchueler2 天前

> 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. What kind of things might be involved in a mandate for people to "get into the culture?"

port112 天前

It’s a hot topic, but in Belgium some people are taught how to take the bus, do their taxes, and not harass women. One of my Dutch teachers led the integration course and said this stuff was really difficult to land. If you come from a culture of groping women, not doing is gonna be a challenge. I get it. But we’ve also built mosques and have pagan festivals and allow public servants to wear their choice of religious attire. I think it’s a balance, but nobody is ever happy with wherever you set the balance. When I learn the local language, I’m happier; it’s nice to talk to people. Not everyone agrees. Tja.

AlecSchueler2 天前

TIL Belgians don't grope women.

raffael_de14 小时前

I not just agree ... I can't even fathom how one can not agree with your comment.

card_zero2 天前

Don't we also get a dopamine release from empathy, or is it just no fun?

lightbulbish17 小时前

I’ve read a few books about dopamine/motivation/common neurotransmitters and this has never come up. In my amateurish view I think empathy is more connected to oxytocin (which afaik does release during social connections, which The book ”The molecule of more” covers a bit).

Matl20 小时前

Depends on if Atlas Shrugged is your Bible or not.

spockz16 小时前

Is it so hard to imagine that someone willing to take such a principled stance on privacy that they start a company to provide a privacy focused vpn company that they also hold other extreme views? It takes a certain kind of personality to become a founder especially more do for such a strongly principled company and adhere to it.

rwyinuse11 小时前

What counts as an "extreme view" is relative. If my country had seen such a surge in gang violence as Sweden has, I too would support mass deportations of migrants with a criminal record, and much harsher migration policy. It's not that extreme of a stance considering how bad the situation has got in Sweden. I don't want to live in a society where teenagers are regularly hired as hitmen and shootings & explosions are a weekly, if not daily thing.

cedws11 小时前

Can it really be called "extreme" anymore? Europe is swinging strongly towards being anti-migration at the moment. Other parts of the world like Japan are also going through such swings. Many countries never opened their borders to begin with. This political party sounds like it's closer to the average than people would like to admit.

bigyabai11 小时前

They're so populist, in fact, that they require CEOs to donate them millions of dollars to constitute the backbone of their party. Oh wait, that's what political interest groups do.

bigyabai11 小时前

Mullvad's principle was that they protected speech. It wasn't a political imperative, and they enjoyed business from all sides of the political aisle perusing this product. Now the apolitical appeal is fading. It's not hard to understand why VPNs, one of the most commodified businesses on the internet, struggle to find customers without that kind of niche reputation that Mullvad once had.

distracted_boy14 小时前

This comment reminds me of Sweden < 2015, where any critique of immigration labeled you as a supporter of the Swedish Democrats (SD) and possibly a Nazi.

seethishat16 小时前

I pay for and use Mullvad VPN. I believe they value everyone's privacy and I believe they are competent technologists. I don't care about politics. I will continue to buy and use Mullvad VPN.

devindotcom15 小时前

you value privacy, but you don't think privacy is a political topic? VPNs, encryption, and other privacy tools are regularly under attack or protected by legislation and policy that is actively debated and lobbied for. I think that you do care about politics, you just don't care about this particular topic or policy. That's your prerogative of course, but don't pretend you are wholly above the fray. I suspect if a company's founder had donated millions to a party aiming to mandate backdoored encryption you would suddenly find yourself to be a very political person.

yunnpp14 小时前

And what does that have to do with the guy leaning right? He runs a VPN. If you care about privacy, that should be sufficient to support it, his other opinions aside.

deejaaymac15 小时前

Agreed. I use mullvad because I believe they are the best off the shelf choice. If I stopped using things because of the owners opinions, then I'd live in a cave.

devindotcom16 小时前

I understand Mullvad has historically been a leader in privacy among the big VPN options. What are some other equally affordable and user friendly options that you all have been satisfied with? Think for someone who saw Mullvad advertised during the Super Bowl but looking to leave because of this news.

cassianoleal16 小时前

I've been quite satisfied with AirVPN [0]. [0] https://airvpn.org/

khriss13 小时前

+1 on AirVPN. They are amongst the handful of companies which successfully resisted the war on torrenting (targeting VPNs that allowed persistent ports) and still allow for port reservation. Mullvad, like most other VPNs gave in in the end and removed port reservations.

Insanity16 小时前

I haven’t used Mullvad, so can’t say how it compares to ProtonVPN but I’m happy with Proton. It is super easy to set up, even on Linux and iOS devices.

Tistron14 小时前

I've used both, and for me mullvad has worked a lot better. They seem more focused on VPN as core to what they do and don't leak data when reconnecting to a different server, and with proton I often experience that my connection stops working if my laptop gas been closed for some time, and the only way to make it work again is to reconnect to a new server. And then it leaks connections for a few seconds.

elorant13 小时前

Do they have a CLI?

newtonianrules15 小时前

Does Proton keep logs? I’ve heard good things.

sudonem15 小时前

It’s worth noting that Proton’s CEO is also known to be a supporter of right-wing causes. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. I keep along the effort, but it just continues to be impossible.

solid_fuel12 小时前

What is the general consensus on NordVPN? They are frequent sponsors on youtube but I haven't heard much substantial about them either way.

netsharc12 小时前

I think they're relying on the fact that "Nord" sounds like "Nordic", so consumers think "they must be a Swedish company, I hear some Swedish techies are hardcore on freedom, e.g. the PirateBay is Swedish!". In reality they're based in Panama, and their parent company is Dutch: https://support.nordvpn.com/hc/en-us/articles/19441152966161...

unknown12 小时前

[deleted]

wasfgwp14 小时前

By any chance are you using any Apple products and are you a supporter of Donald Trump? Because if the answer is yes and no singling out Mullvad seems be rather hypocritical? Based on his actions Tim Apple openly is an ardent supporter of Trump. So effectively everyone here who has a MacBook was supporting a company run by by a pro MAGA ceo... Of course greed and corruption might be considered a mitigating factor by some people (instead of seemingly doing it purely due to one's personal convictions and without any coercion which is presumably the case here

notahacker14 小时前

Without wishing to defend Tim Cook at all, there is a difference between a corporation donating to an incumbent government that seems unusually receptive to bribes (including to be left alone) and an individual CEO being the main financial backer of a local fringe far right party he wants to make a national force, presumably because of his enthusiastic support for their policies which include the 'remigration' of citizens deemed excessively brown...

the_gastropod13 小时前

You’re doing the “we should improve society somewhat” meme guy thing. People are allowed to do better without being perfect.

microgpt14 小时前

[deleted]

leumon16 小时前

ivpn

dumdellidum57 分钟前

Everyone hating, I hope you check every company you use to make sure their political stance align with yours. No AWS or Google Cloud if you're pro-abortion, for example: "Together, Amazon, AT&T, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, Comcast, CVS, General Motors, Google, T-Mobile, Walgreens, Walmart, Wells Fargo and Verizon have spent at least $15.2 million to support anti-abortion politicians, according to publicly available political spending disclosures." from https://truthout.org/articles/companies-like-amazon-and-cvs-...

pluc22 小时前

Their stance seems to be "people can do things on their own personal time": https://mastodon.online/@mullvadnet/116822244689326681

cryo3220 小时前

And we can choose not to fund those things.

Shortness817 小时前

Some commentary here: https://korben.info/en/mullvad-cofounder-funding-far-right.h... Daniel Berntsson is still involved with Mullvad and part-owns Mullvad's parent company with his co-founder.

reassess_blind10 小时前

That article calls the party far-right, which for US based readers will imply they have the same ideology and policies as the US “far-right” concepts. Is that actually the case? I’m not familiar with this party, and it’s difficult to get a grasp on whether they are Nazi-level pure evil, or an otherwise reasonable party with stricter views on immigration policy.

yaris21 小时前

I try to turn it other way in my head, like if Mullvad got to know somehow political views of some of their customers and say "We don't like what you say, so we decide to end our business with you. We don't want our infra to be used to spread opinions like yours."

piva0020 小时前

They could do it, some people would align with that stance, and some wouldn't. Exactly how it plays out being a customer: now we've discovered he supports a far-right party here in Sweden, I can choose to not support the CEO with my money and let others know about their political leaning to decide by themselves if they want to support him and his business aware that their money might got to far-right parties. I don't see any issue with your flipped argument, it's the same thing, no?

yaris19 小时前

I imagine that if a company really denied a customer due to disagreement on some views there would be similar flood of comments like "my views is my problem, I pay you money you must do business with me". Maybe I'm wrong though

teddyh15 小时前

You’re not taking it far enough. What if Mullvad has someone you disagree with as a customer, and does nothing about it. Does this mean that Mullvad is supporting them? Does this mean that you have to stop supporting Mullvad? What about Mullvad’s landlord? The company that provides them their electricity? Their internet provider? Their internet provider’s internet provider? Should you boycott the entire internet because Mullvad has not been given the BGP death penalty?

aoshifo14 小时前

What are you trying to say with this? This is absurd. The outrage has nothing to do with Mullvad itself supporting people with certain opinions or not. The problem I and many others have, is that if the founder takes our money and gives it to causes that I (edit: or rather we) find reprehensible, we don't want to give them our money anymore. Simple as that. I will not try to stop you from using Mullvad by any other means than my arguments. Hopefully you understand now where we are coming from and agree. If not, just do your thing.

solid_fuel14 小时前

It's almost like there's a difference between selling services to someone and directly donating to a political party.

jzb18 小时前

If the far-right parties they're supporting are similar to MAGA in the U.S., what they're doing is taking customer money and funneling it into a political effort to do just what you're describing - just in a different way. "We don't like groups X, Y, and Z, so we're going to fund a political effort to take their rights away by using government." As I understand it, the Örebro party pushes for deporting immigrants and has a "Sweden belongs to the Swedes" policy that includes deportation for even those born in Sweden if their parents were born in, e.g., Somalia. So basically, "we don't like certain people, so we want to use customer money to force them out of our country". That really doesn't paint Mullvad as the victim, here.

iAMkenough13 小时前

When it comes to publishing anti-human, genocidal rhetoric, I hope they would say "we don't want your blood money." Flipping that back around, I'm glad I'm not a Mullvad customer that would say "I'm okay with a portion of the money I give you being used to call for genocide."

teravor12 小时前

mullvad's mistake was to respond. it's all universally performative, the only reason it elicits reactions (1000+ comments here) when the view of a megacorp don't is because people anticipate the ability to elicit a response from a smaller company like mullvad. rule number one: ignore any and all political controversies, don't respond in any way. deviation is nearly always punished. unless it's part of some PR campaign with a side-risk of backfire.

deaux5 小时前

> mullvad's mistake was to respond. it's all universally performative, the only reason it elicits reactions (1000+ comments here) when the view of a megacorp don't is because people anticipate the ability to elicit a response from a smaller company like mullvad. You're underestimating the large influence of paid actors/FUD here. It's no coincidence that in this very thread, normally supposedly intelligent people conveniently forget that about half the companies they buy stuff from have blatant MAGA-like CEOs. HN didn't suddenly suffer from a 20 point IQ drop.

bigyabai11 小时前

Mullvad did not respond, as far as I'm aware. One of the owners has chimed in with their opinion, but I have not seen any official acknowledgement from Mullvad, the business entity.

unsupp0rted22 小时前

I’m not Swedish. Does Mullvad do what it says on the tin? That’s all that matters. The CEO’s extracurricular activities are none of my business.

dlgeek14 小时前

He's not just the CEO, he's a co-owner... Meaning that the profits from the business acrue to him... and therefore enable this party. So, it's a question of "am I ok paying for this service, knowing that a portion of that money will flow to this political party and how do I feel about the results of that funding?"

sunaookami13 小时前

How do you feel about providing value to Hacker News, a plattform made by Y Combinator funding several startups, many of them destroying our society and benefiting from mass surveillance? You can do this argument with every company.

leokennis21 小时前

Let's draw this to its ultimate conclusion. Would you subscribe to an excellent VPN service, if it was run by [insert universally abhorred brutal dictator from history here]?

belorn18 小时前

We can easier look at conclusion people make about banks and stock options. Will people invest money into index fonds and pension fonds if those fonds invest money into companies that produce and sell weapons to abhorred brutal dictators? What about buying stocks from telecommunication producers who operate in abhorred brutal dictatorships and who helps those dictators to control their population?

yaris20 小时前

A thought experiment: Let's think of the other extreme as well: exactly the same excellent VPN service, is run by an almost-the-best-person-in-the-world who has just one small quirk that makes them not 100% perfect for you (they pat kittens not as often as you'd like them to do). Obviously there is a border between your extreme and mine, which border defines "use" and "no use" cases for you. And now: wherever this border is - should it be the same for everyone?

unknown16 小时前

[deleted]

iamnothere20 小时前

Next iteration of this smear article: “Mullvad is basically HitlerVPN”

icase12 小时前

holy shit a sane person all this “cancel mullvad!” nonsense is 2020 cringe all over again

drngdds13 小时前

You are responsible for the consequences of your actions

mortarion3 天前

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

ortusdux3 天前

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

josefritzishere3 天前

Seems more complicated than that, in reading the wiki.

gpm3 天前

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".

irthomasthomas3 天前

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"

iamnothere3 天前

This is just a rephrasing of the lumpenproletariat, coupled with the professional-managerial class. You could also refer to the latter as a modern version of the lumpenbourgeoisie (although this term is applied rather broadly). It sounds more like pro-labor, pro-work, anti-lumpen Marxism. In no way “right-wing” unless you want to call North Korea “right-wing”, which is a very ultra-left thing to do (what orthodox Marxists call left deviationism).

ShinyLeftPad3 天前

By your logic USSR was far right.

Saline95153 天前

This is actually very far left, just not the current wealthy-urban-lgbtq far left. USSR marxists and Maoists held the same views, where the individual's main function was to work and refusal to work or low productivity required either reformation (aka often, Gulag) or hunger. "Those how do not work, do not eat" - Mao Interestingly, psychoanalysis in the USSR was aimed at helping the patient to go back to work, for instance.

mortarion3 天前

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.

whalesalad3 天前

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

vrganj3 天前

[deleted]

fsmedberg3 天前

Try radical populist left-economic-leaning nationalists

Saline95153 天前

There are many flavors of national socialism, in reality nazis should be called hitlerians because of this.

anonym293 天前

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

elzbardico3 天前

People living there that should not be living there. It was basically an invasion.

eckesicle22 小时前

I saw this a couple of days ago, here's the original article that broke the news, in Swedish: https://www.flamman.se/techprofil-ger-miljoner-till-orebropa... It includes a short statement from the CEO.

99990000099910 小时前

Once I meet a Swedish girl whose parents were from XYZ. She went on a rant on how new refugees from XYZ were ruining everything. That’s the immigration debate in most of the world. The moment a new immigrant gets their citizenship they often feel they’re the last good one and all pathways need to be shutdown. I’ll switch to a different vpn. It’s one thing to donate a nominal amount as a private citizen. It’s a whole different matter to be the primary source of funding.

stefanfisk22 小时前

To be fair, Örebropartiet can also be called an extreme left party. It’s complicated… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party

KaiserPro15 小时前

Does it matter if they are left or right? The point is, they want to round up lawful citizens and turf them out of the country because they have the audacity to be slightly foreign, or worse born to someone foreign. that is the issue, not how much tax/spend big/little government.

epistasis15 小时前

Exactly, the problem is not left/right it's the authoritarianism, which is again a huge threat to the world after being held mostly in check in Western democracies for many years. People tend to forget about the "Last Man" part of Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man", but we are definitely in the phase of the Last Man seeking conflict and fighting against our hard-won freedoms.

stefanfisk2 小时前

I matters because a lot of people will only read the headline and then get a skewed view of the political landscape. I did not post my comment to defend him or the party. All I wanted was for people to understand the situation a bit better than they would by just reading the title and post content.

distracted_boy14 小时前

That's not at all what they want. It's comments like yours that create unnecessary controversy, based on nothing but lies.

tumetab112 小时前

Most people agree that immigration over X% amount is undesirable. Many governments ignored people's will for many years. Some new political parties want to fix that, is reasonable enough.

throwawaypath14 小时前

>The point is, they want to round up lawful citizens and turf them out of the country The US isn't the only country in the world. Sweden does not have birthright citizenship. Many (most?) of those to be remigrated are not Swedish citizens.

hootz21 小时前

I don't see how, given their answers to simple questions as described in the "2026 run up to the elections" section, this party could ever be considered a leftist party.

dtj112313 小时前

Maybe the issue is that mapping political ideologies onto a 1-D line doesn't work if you have more than two distinct ideologies.

wongarsu21 小时前

They are very pro education. But that's basically the only thing, all the other answers are enthusiastic right wing answers

Sammi21 小时前

Horseshoe Theory strikes again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

microgpt20 小时前

[deleted]

belorn18 小时前

To add to the context. The founder of the was the chairman for the youth organization of Vänsterpartiet (English name: The left party), the furthest left party in the Swedish parliament, and he recruited members primarily from the same organization when he was kicked out. The reason he got kicked out was that he was seen praising the Revolutionary Front, a far-left extremist political and militant network in Sweden. It should be added that the area where they are active is in the local government of Örebro Municipality, a place with a total population of 160,143 people. Looking at the political leanings of parties for a small local government with the lens of national parties might not give a very clear picture. Their strategy is also directed toward local voters, not national voters, through a strategy called the 12% line.

flohofwoe21 小时前

Sounds like the logical evolution of left/right-populism into 'absolutist-populism' ;)

mrtksn21 小时前

That's typical for extremist parties, AKA Horseshoe theory. IRL Erdogan's party went so far to the right that they started actually adopting very socialist/communist policies. The party names is AKP which stands for "justice and development party" but many people are calling it "Allahs Communist Party" since in Turkish communist is written with K and they are islamists doing communist stuff.

dominojab21 小时前

[deleted]

catheter21 小时前

It doesn't seem that complicated to be honest with you. That is how they self identify but none of their policies seem particularly left wing. At least not from that Wikipedia page. Extremely left wing dental care is the best I will give them.

flohofwoe21 小时前

> Extremely left wing dental care is the best I will give them. Free dental care is considered "extemely left wing" now? That's just bizarre tbh. If a country would decide to use tax money to provide health care services for free to everybody that's not much different than using tax money to maintain an infrastructure network that's free to use (like roads), or free police and firefighting services - and I think none of those examples are considered particularly 'left-wing'.

graemep18 小时前

What about more social housing, reductions in working hours, and opposition to privatisation? Sounds left wing to me. They have been called Marxist-Lenninist by more mainstream politicians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party#2021_bus_rap...

khurs15 小时前

A big question I suppose is what Mozilla are going to do in reaction? As Mozilla VPN is white labelled Mulvad I think

subarctic13 小时前

They already ousted their own ceo over a political contribution so I'd imagine they'd do something here too, sadly