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.
Horseshoe theory, rather than being as described,is actually caused by far right parties being more willing to label themselves as left. E.g. national socialists.
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.
> 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'.
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.
"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.
Aren't far-right parties opposed to government control and censorship? Ideally a provider should be politically neutral, but I'm wondering if it's preferable to have one that is opposed to government control and censorship.
>> Mullvad is a political company fighting for free speech, free information and privacy, with two equal co-founders, co-owners and co-CEOs who fundamentally disagree on many issues. Daniel's donation to a political party is private and not part of Mullvad's mission. We protect the right to express and access views we disagree with. We welcome anyone sharing these core values, whatever their other opinions. We are happy to refund others who don't, where we can.
To be fair... I'm not sure how you could take any other position as a privacy-first VPN. By technical nature, you have to believe pretty hard in 'people's business is their own business and not mine.'
I'd rather have a founder who believes whatever, but supports others rights to disagree vehemently, than one who agrees with what I believe but is less flexible on allowing others choice.
They got 43.9% in what Wikipedia marks as "semi-free yet questionable election". Also more correct question IMHO would be "was the NSDAP extreme in 1933?" and the answer is probably "no as much as by today's standards".
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."
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?
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
Companies can absolutely refuse a customer and many do. Companies will often have public rules about not doing business with weapons manufacturers or tobacco producers.
They also can refuse business due to political stance. They can even give different prices to different customers.
For some people, the answer is obviously yes. For others, they'll judge Mullvad purely by its track record, audits, and technical design.
Honestly, you could say the same about the CEO of ANDURIL in the US - the Oculus guy...but he just cares about the US and wants to make money by making weapon systems etc.
Is he a bad person? Is he a patriot? Who knows, I ain't gonna play the ultimate judge game - but he did release a cool gameboy clone which is literally the closest I will ever get to his work... [1]
Look at Zuck and Musk. Their platforms are still used by millions. It's only "us" that care about the pedigree of our tech founders, most people couldn't care less.
There has to be some reason that so many projects are started by right wing people. Something in their personality that makes them both RW and willing to start lots of projects.
In some ways I would say it could even increase trust: if the guy is a privacy absolutist, ultra-libertarian, "my business is not the state's business" type, his VPN products are likely to be pretty good.
On the other hand, he might have other strong right-wing views that users don't agree with, and which might take precedence in one's set of priorities. If I like football and they like football, but they also want to kill me because of <other reason>, I don't think I'd want to give them my money.
A right to say something is not the same as the right to say (and do) something without being called out on it.
He has the right to do what he’s doing. Other people have the right to react and say “That sucks, it’s against my values, I no longer trust you or want to do business with you.”
We need to add something to this nice rule about using services that are good from people we don't (fully) agree with.
I'm not personally inclined to be so strict about this, but there are people with objections against the Proton CEO who once agreed with Trump on twitter, or DHH (there is this one blogpost about his extreme views). Etc.
Nothing, it's just an empty platitude that can be used for justifying any kind of abhorrent act against "others".
It's why it's so effective as a rallying cry, it means nothing substantial, can be molded into whatever the speaker wants it to mean, it's an empty vessel for the bearer's hatred.
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?
Because normal people don’t want to deal with the headaches. Your choices are weird people or intelligence cutouts. (Or abandoning any attempt at privacy in an attempt to be ideologically pure.) Sorry, but those are the options.
A headline and 20 comments and no mention of what this party actually stands for. Only simple labels such as "far-right". Ehh. The Republican Party in America is EXTREMELY far right by Swedish standards. So maybe one should base this on the actual substance rather than labels?
Up/Down (authoritarian/libertarian) is what matters there.
If he has high allegiance to the extant power structure then promises should be questioned.
If he is for radical decentralization and antiwar then I'm more likely to trust promises made about privacy and autonomy.
Then there's international confusion about left/right. Scandinavia is known as a good place to run a business because businesses regulation is much lighter than places like the US which are heavily regulated. In the US business regulation is "left wing" in Scandinavia it's "right wing".
We'd use a 14-dimensional vector for political positioning if we wanted to be studious but most folks are just looking for a friend/enemy distinction. Even many of the comments here looking to dump a well-regarded service if either "tastes great" or "less filling" is confirmed. The false dialectic as means of control and all that jazz.
its not uncommon. The overtly racist parties in the UK (e.g. the BNP) for example has quite a lot of left wing policies (e.g. nationalisation of utilities), ending NHS outsourcing to the private sector, and free healthcare.
Its a combination that appeals to the worst off who compete with unskilled immigrants for jobs and rely on free healthcare etc.
I use Mullvad because it physically prevents anyone from logging my data.
What a co-owner does with his personal money in a local Swedish municipal election has zero impact on the code protecting my traffic.
Did a quick research - calling a party that campaigns for a 30-hour work week and socialist dental care 'far-right' just because they have a strict immigration policy shows how carelessly people throw labels around these days.
The wikipedia article about the party is pretty interesting [1]. "The party has also been described as both right-wing populist and left-wing populist as well as left-conservative"
The party was founded after the founder was thrown out of the Left party for liking a far-left extremist group on Facebook and not backing down from that. Since then the party has evolved to also include goals traditionally attributed to the right, like large scale remigration and a stricter immigration policy.
The party also seems inconsequentially small, even at the municipal and regional level. They have 0 seats at the national level
As is typical, left ultras are once again being drafted (manipulated) into service against the few businesses that actually look out for their interests. Look out! Nazis under the bed again!
Anyone who still listens to these people after the last decade is hopelessly gullible.
Hey guys, ever wonder why your masters never get you to swarm the actually clearly evil businesses? Too scared to fight the real bad guys or what?
You're ignorant for claiming that being able to separate political opinion from creating good products (and standing for privacy) is ignorant. And you're proud of it.
> The Örebro Party (Swedish: Örebropartiet, ÖP) is a political party in Sweden. The party was initially only a local party in Örebro, Sweden. Markus Allard is the party leader. According to Allard the party cannot be placed anywhere on the traditional left-right spectrum. 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.[3][4]
And everyone is free to chose not to buy products from people who have opinions that differs fundamentally from their own?
And some opinions cannot be tolerated in a democratic society. An obvious example is anti-liberal/anti-democratic opinions as they threaten the system itself. You cannot have a free democratic society if a majority removes the freedoms of a minority.
You have freedom of speech to advocate for your politics. The rest of us have the freedom of association to not want to be involved with you in any way.
These are not contradictory - they are both essential freedoms.
For most people, the concern is the money, not the voting. People don't want wealthy people reshaping politics to fit their interests through their wealth. They can vote for whomever they want.
This sounds a bit irrational. Where does "wealthy" start? Mullvad co-CEO donated ~ $500K, would him donating $100K have the same effect? What about $10K? What if a Mullvad _employee_ donated $500K?
What about work in units of median annual household disposable income, which are at least somewhat responsive to the distribution of money?
What % do you think a reasonable voter should accept a person donating to a political campaign before it causes concern about the donor's influence vs the median household's voice?
Off the top of my head, I'd guess 500k USD is about 1000% / 10x median annual household disposable income in SE, which I think would give the median voter pause.
For what it's worth (my own view): I think about 10% (~5k USD) is obviously acceptable, and I expect most anyone would agree that donations at that level are fine. I think your proposed 1000% is obviously unacceptable, and I expect most people would agree with me on that as well.
I'm not sure exactly where the level is that opinion would flip, but I feel pretty confident about those boundaries.
A company shouldn't be able to fire an employee over their opinion,[0] so that wouldn't matter to me. For a major owner, the donation amount starts to matter to me around $5-10K, but YMMV.
[0] I suppose unless they have a very influential position and it's about a matter that contradicts main company goals
In a free democratic society nobody is forced to do business with anybody they don't agree with, and free speech means they can talk about their decision without fearing repercussion.
Very weird interpretation of "voluntarily choose to not continue supporting them financially"
Presumably you want everyone to be forcibly compelled to finance the political parties they disagree with? And you would define this as a democratic society?
The guy owns half the company, so a significant part of the money I'm paying is involved. Yes, it is quite ethical to decide based on matters like that. It's not an employee or minor shareholder.
Not doing business with a company (for any reason btw) is not 'punishment'. Nobody is taking away anything from the company or any people involved with that company.
Haters will now say that the far right will destroy exactly that: "our" democracy. The Western morality is a joke, and many HN readers comment like an infant. I feel ashamed.
Everyone is free to make up their mind and vote for what they believe.
And if I disagree strongly enough then I am free to take my business elsewhere. Especially if the money I hand over might go to support speech and parties I fundamentally disagree with.
Freedom swings both ways, and freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from people thinking you're an asshole and not wanting anything to do with you. That's their freedom.
Why is Orebro a far-right party? I've not heard of them before so asked ChatGPT to summarise the party:
> Stricter immigration: The party supports significantly tighter immigration policies than Sweden has traditionally had. More recently, it has also advocated policies encouraging or expanding the return of some migrants to their countries of origin.
> Anti-establishment and anti-corruption: A central message is that established political parties are wasteful and disconnected from ordinary people. The party proposes reducing politicians' salaries and cutting what it considers unnecessary public spending.
> Protecting core public services: It argues that savings should come from administration and projects it views as non-essential, while prioritizing healthcare, schools, elderly care, and other local services.
Free dental care: This has been one of its more prominent welfare proposals.
> Social conservatism and secularism: The party is generally described by political scientists and reference works as socially conservative and nationalist, while also supporting a secular state.
I asked more about the immigration point which seems to be the only right-wing position here and even that seems based around reducing immigration from culturally incompatible (and often far-right) countries and migrants who are an economic burden to Swedish tax payers. Which would be weird to brand far-right? Maybe slightly right-wing, but hardly unreasonable.
ChatGPT seems to think they're neither really right-wing or left-wing, but more populist which seems to be a better description if this is a good summary of their beliefs?
Asking because I don't really trust MSM sources to be unbiased against populist parties and I know ChatGPT has it's biases and issues. Would be nice if a Swede can explain if this is actually a far-right party, or just "far-right" by Swedish standards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
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'.
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.
https://mastodon.online/@mullvadnet/116822244689326681
It includes a short statement from the CEO.
Any other verified sources?
>> Mullvad is a political company fighting for free speech, free information and privacy, with two equal co-founders, co-owners and co-CEOs who fundamentally disagree on many issues. Daniel's donation to a political party is private and not part of Mullvad's mission. We protect the right to express and access views we disagree with. We welcome anyone sharing these core values, whatever their other opinions. We are happy to refund others who don't, where we can.
To be fair... I'm not sure how you could take any other position as a privacy-first VPN. By technical nature, you have to believe pretty hard in 'people's business is their own business and not mine.'
I'd rather have a founder who believes whatever, but supports others rights to disagree vehemently, than one who agrees with what I believe but is less flexible on allowing others choice.
Was the NSDAP "extreme"? They got 43.9%
I don't see any issue with your flipped argument, it's the same thing, no?
They also can refuse business due to political stance. They can even give different prices to different customers.
For some people, the answer is obviously yes. For others, they'll judge Mullvad purely by its track record, audits, and technical design.
Honestly, you could say the same about the CEO of ANDURIL in the US - the Oculus guy...but he just cares about the US and wants to make money by making weapon systems etc.
Is he a bad person? Is he a patriot? Who knows, I ain't gonna play the ultimate judge game - but he did release a cool gameboy clone which is literally the closest I will ever get to his work... [1]
[1] https://modretro.com
https://www.analogue.co/products
https://www.analogue.co/editions
I think these look a lot cooler, though they're less hackable.
On the other hand, he might have other strong right-wing views that users don't agree with, and which might take precedence in one's set of priorities. If I like football and they like football, but they also want to kill me because of <other reason>, I don't think I'd want to give them my money.
He has the right to do what he’s doing. Other people have the right to react and say “That sucks, it’s against my values, I no longer trust you or want to do business with you.”
I'm not personally inclined to be so strict about this, but there are people with objections against the Proton CEO who once agreed with Trump on twitter, or DHH (there is this one blogpost about his extreme views). Etc.
Uncontrolled migration needs to stop.
It's why it's so effective as a rallying cry, it means nothing substantial, can be molded into whatever the speaker wants it to mean, it's an empty vessel for the bearer's hatred.
The CEO’s extracurricular activities are none of my business.
Would you subscribe to an excellent VPN service, if it was run by [insert universally abhorred brutal dictator from history here]?
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?
However the original statement:
> The CEO’s extracurricular activities are none of my business.
Basically says that no border should exist, and it makes no difference at all who provided the service as long as the service itself is excellent.
That is a fundamentally different argument that I very much disagree with.
Up/Down (authoritarian/libertarian) is what matters there.
If he has high allegiance to the extant power structure then promises should be questioned.
If he is for radical decentralization and antiwar then I'm more likely to trust promises made about privacy and autonomy.
Then there's international confusion about left/right. Scandinavia is known as a good place to run a business because businesses regulation is much lighter than places like the US which are heavily regulated. In the US business regulation is "left wing" in Scandinavia it's "right wing".
We'd use a 14-dimensional vector for political positioning if we wanted to be studious but most folks are just looking for a friend/enemy distinction. Even many of the comments here looking to dump a well-regarded service if either "tastes great" or "less filling" is confirmed. The false dialectic as means of control and all that jazz.
I am not sure "far right" is an accurate label. Maybe populist? Its a mix that would probably get a lot of support in other European countries.
Its a combination that appeals to the worst off who compete with unskilled immigrants for jobs and rely on free healthcare etc.
What a co-owner does with his personal money in a local Swedish municipal election has zero impact on the code protecting my traffic.
Did a quick research - calling a party that campaigns for a 30-hour work week and socialist dental care 'far-right' just because they have a strict immigration policy shows how carelessly people throw labels around these days.
Of course, you have to trust the company on that.
The party was founded after the founder was thrown out of the Left party for liking a far-left extremist group on Facebook and not backing down from that. Since then the party has evolved to also include goals traditionally attributed to the right, like large scale remigration and a stricter immigration policy.
The party also seems inconsequentially small, even at the municipal and regional level. They have 0 seats at the national level
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party
Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20260629105534/https://det.socia...
The other owner replied here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48696800
Right wing should be boosting immigration to give businesses cheaper labour and erode worker rights.
Explains why they UK immigration rose massively with the tories.
Many parties outright lie about this to grow their voter base, but the difference in policy vs promise is huge.
So who do people recommend now?
Anyone who still listens to these people after the last decade is hopelessly gullible.
Hey guys, ever wonder why your masters never get you to swarm the actually clearly evil businesses? Too scared to fight the real bad guys or what?
I see no problems
...as long as they don't have opinions that differ from ours, in that case we might punch em in the face...
And some opinions cannot be tolerated in a democratic society. An obvious example is anti-liberal/anti-democratic opinions as they threaten the system itself. You cannot have a free democratic society if a majority removes the freedoms of a minority.
These are not contradictory - they are both essential freedoms.
What % do you think a reasonable voter should accept a person donating to a political campaign before it causes concern about the donor's influence vs the median household's voice?
Off the top of my head, I'd guess 500k USD is about 1000% / 10x median annual household disposable income in SE, which I think would give the median voter pause.
For what it's worth (my own view): I think about 10% (~5k USD) is obviously acceptable, and I expect most anyone would agree that donations at that level are fine. I think your proposed 1000% is obviously unacceptable, and I expect most people would agree with me on that as well.
I'm not sure exactly where the level is that opinion would flip, but I feel pretty confident about those boundaries.
[0] I suppose unless they have a very influential position and it's about a matter that contradicts main company goals
Nobody is calling for violence though?
In a free democratic society nobody is forced to do business with anybody they don't agree with, and free speech means they can talk about their decision without fearing repercussion.
Very weird interpretation of "voluntarily choose to not continue supporting them financially"
Presumably you want everyone to be forcibly compelled to finance the political parties they disagree with? And you would define this as a democratic society?
Is that somehow undemocratic?
Is anyone censoring the guy?
https://knowyourmeme.com/sensitive/memes/richard-spencer-pun...
And if I disagree strongly enough then I am free to take my business elsewhere. Especially if the money I hand over might go to support speech and parties I fundamentally disagree with.
Freedom swings both ways, and freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from people thinking you're an asshole and not wanting anything to do with you. That's their freedom.
> Stricter immigration: The party supports significantly tighter immigration policies than Sweden has traditionally had. More recently, it has also advocated policies encouraging or expanding the return of some migrants to their countries of origin.
> Anti-establishment and anti-corruption: A central message is that established political parties are wasteful and disconnected from ordinary people. The party proposes reducing politicians' salaries and cutting what it considers unnecessary public spending.
> Protecting core public services: It argues that savings should come from administration and projects it views as non-essential, while prioritizing healthcare, schools, elderly care, and other local services. Free dental care: This has been one of its more prominent welfare proposals.
> Social conservatism and secularism: The party is generally described by political scientists and reference works as socially conservative and nationalist, while also supporting a secular state.
I asked more about the immigration point which seems to be the only right-wing position here and even that seems based around reducing immigration from culturally incompatible (and often far-right) countries and migrants who are an economic burden to Swedish tax payers. Which would be weird to brand far-right? Maybe slightly right-wing, but hardly unreasonable.
ChatGPT seems to think they're neither really right-wing or left-wing, but more populist which seems to be a better description if this is a good summary of their beliefs?
Asking because I don't really trust MSM sources to be unbiased against populist parties and I know ChatGPT has it's biases and issues. Would be nice if a Swede can explain if this is actually a far-right party, or just "far-right" by Swedish standards.
<Explanation>
Now if someone could give us a trustworthy explanation."