Mullvad has operated public encrypted DNS (DoH) servers since 2022. They are unnecessary when using Mullvad VPN — traffic is already encrypted and Mullvad VPN's internal DNS handles all queries.
The amount of hate on mullvad for what they openly acknowledged was a personal donation from someone who was a founder sure does seem like it’s astroturfing against an otherwise solid vpn provider with a better trackrecord and more transparency then most.
Seems like the Same sort of ppl who would pay for services with a bank card and then be shocked when that links them to an account.
What do these people want? Should Mullvad fire this person? On what grounds? Do people honestly think companies should have a say over what their employees or members spend their personal money on? That seems like a fascist attitude to me.
Benefit of the doubt that you aren’t asking in bad faith.
Most people aren’t demanding Mullvad fire the founder, but that also doesn’t mean that we have to give him money to donate to fascists.
Mullvad are free do what they like with their right wing founder. Just like customers are free to refuse to fund anti-immigration policies. If Mullvad doesn’t like that, it’s up to them to decide how to appeal to customers.
Nobody is denying that Mullvad is a good product, but I need this specific vpn less than I need a safer future for my children.
Most people aren’t demanding Mullvad fire the founder,
except they kind of are by saying they’re switching because of his donation specifically, which implies to me that those same people would have to think its acceptable for a company to know and have influence over its founders political beliefs or donations. Like what other result are people expecting other then to have him step down from the org (because probably it would be illegal to actually oust them over political donations, so it’d have to be voluntary anyway).
Lets say it was the case for you, you founded a VPN company and turns out your partner is a fascist but you had no idea when it started because it wasnt until 5 years after the founding that they started dropping hints, what would you do? Start a brand new company? You could pressure them to step down privately, you could release a statement saying the company does not support those causes, and you could do everything in your power internally to ensure that person (and really NO person) has access to any kind of logging or things that could expose users (and thats also just practical in terms of keeping your reputation as a VPN provider in tact really). Mullvad has aready done the last bit, any VPN provide worth using would have to be setup in a similar way really.
Benefit of the doubt that you aren’t asking in bad faith.
How would this be in bad faith? I’m saying i think its short sighted because it seems to me they didn’t think through the entire consequences of what happens if it gets flipped on you or someone you support, while ignoring the things that would actually put more limitations on their own risks, primarily if you just switch to another VPN provide but dont ALSO stop paying with a card or something linked to your name/bank then you are not actually improving your own situation much.
It’s similar to the reaction for Proton “exposing” a customer’s payment information, of course i dont agree with them doing it, but I also understand they are a corporation and subject to laws of their country and court orders so the lesson should not be “dont use this VPN provider because they will rat on you” it should be “Dont give VPN providers enough information TO rat on you”
You realize companies have and do fire people for actions in their personal lives, right? Especially in the US where virtually everyone works “at will” and having signed a piece of paper stating they would not hurt the reputation of the company or face termination? Other countries and contracts have similar clauses. Sweden is one such country, where there is a process involved but it is still very much a thing.
So why is it when an individual high up in the company, someone with decision power and who directly benefits from sales, does something that hurts the public perception, suddenly you’re asking us to just ignore it?
Why is it that your accusation of astroturfing sounds suspiciously like… well, astroturfing.
So why is it when an individual high up in the company, someone with decision power and who directly benefits from sales, does something that hurts the public perception, suddenly you’re asking us to just ignore it?
This is where its clear you you aren’t actually listening to what im saying. I didnt say it should be ignored. My point is that i think people are learning and sharing the wrong solution, The solution isnt to use your name associated bank account to pay a different VPN provider, its to avoid giving ANY vpn provider information that could link you to the account, and verify that they don’t keep logs. You can do this with LOTS of different vpn providers by looking at their transparency reports and how they respond to court orders, but very few people actually do that, they’d rather just be perforamtive and say “im voting with my wallet” which is lazy and does nothing to improve the situation for anyone.
This same sort of thing happens anytime a VPN company (like proton) responds to a legal court order, everyone was all “How could they do this to us!?!?” and not “Why would an activist pay using a credit card?, maybe we should teach people how payment systems work so they can avoid this in the future” I think we should focus more on the latter, preventative education, so that less people can be targeted or exposed in general.
I see this as a teachable moment, I’m not trying to get people to ignore the underlying issue, I just think it should be part of a more complete re-evaluation of how we all use and pay for VPN providers.
When i say its astroturfing, i don’t mean against mullvad alone, I think there is a coordinated effort going on to instill division and mistrust among vpn users and providers. I think the goal is to amplify negative publicity for any VPN provider they can, its becoming a trend now.
Do people honestly think companies should have a say over what their employees or members spend their personal money on?
Even without the “freeze peach” context, the company directly chose to give this individual in particular way more money than most people have including probably most of their other employees, that would enable them to make donations at the scale of hundreds of thousands of USD/EUR, so they already do have a lot of say. And in this case they’re a cofounder, not a random employee, so they as a person quite literally decide the company’s values.
You do make an excellent point on the differentiation between work and private lives. The majority of jobs I’ve ever worked would have fired me for my political donations and/or commentary, and as I am not an American Conservative, that would not be a good career move XD
What is the proof that they’re a solid VPN provider and not a NSA honey pot? Do they publish their infrastructure? Can you audit the servers? Is there any evidence?
No.
That means that the fact that they’re a “solid VPN provider” is based completely on their reputation.
Their reputation is that the company is run by a person who donates to repugnant people who are the ones who build and leverage surveillance states.
the problem is that the same people who buy vpn services are the people who care that parties like he supports don’t get to power… so when they learn that their money (that they paid for the vpn) directly helped to pay for that donation (via the company that made him rich) they are understendably pissed.
I would hope that such people would think their own political beliefs and private donations are none of their employers business. I would hope people would pause and think “what happens if this gets flipped on me” if suddenly donating to say anti-fascist causes where to become a fireable offense I bet those same people would be pretty upset
Just seems like very poorly thought out reason for rejecting a service like Mullvad especially given that the company put out a statement that did not defend the donation and distanced themselves from the persons personal views which they most likely didn’t know until well after the check was cashed.
Call me a conspiracy theorist but I think there might be a less organic reason why this is being pushed, like maybe Mullvad is difficult for certain agencies to strong arm due to their discouraging of using traditional trackable payment methods and having well secured servers.
Difference is I don’t own a company, but you are more than welcome to have a soured opinion of the company I work for for employing me based in whatever political beliefs I hold. How is this any different than boycotting JKR for her right wing TERF donations?
Me giving Mullvad money will directly put money in this co-founder’s pocket to give to facists, not just as an employee but as a stake holder in that company. No, he can’t be fired, and I would also not like to be fired for my political beliefs, but the population is absolute free to chose not to spend money at establishments that hosts those views.
I think you can apply Occam’s razor here. Do people just not want to fund someone with express interest in racist/racist/nazist ideology like with JKR, Musk, Trump etc. or is there a conspiracy that 3-letter agencies are sour they can’t crack Mullvad and so want people to use other services?
Hey, I’m a real person who organically discovered this news and made behavioral changes based on the news.
I am not a nazi. I do not want to support nazi policies or beliefs or people who would strengthen and distribute Nazi policies or beliefs. If someone supports forcibly relocating citizens based off their bloodline history or the color of their present day skin, I think they should be as far away from a position of power as society can possibly manage while still treating them like a human.
I believe, based on the Mullvad news, that one of the main benefactors if mullvad - meaning one of the guys who got a % for every euro I spent on the service - actively and meaningfully supports a national party with policies akin to Nazis. I want as much of my money to go to NOT-Nazis as possible, ideally 100%. So I left Mullvad for… I think it’s airvpn. Or ivpn actually, although I considered airvpn.
I don’t think this is a crazy response. I also wish it was the overwhelmingly common response.
meaning one of the guys who got a % for every euro I spent on the service - actively and meaningfully supports a national party with policies akin to Nazis. I want as much of my money to go to NOT-Nazis as possible, ideally 100%. So I left Mullvad for… I think it’s airvpn. Or ivpn actually, although I considered airvpn
Unless you fully audited every founder, owner, and staff member at IVPN (Nick Pestell et al.) or AirVPN (Paolo Brini / the activist group behind it), how do you know they don’t hold similar political views or make donations privately to similar effect? I couldnt find anything looking them up and it seems very unlikely they are fascist algigned, but i think you can understand my point here, unless you have an explicit statement from the company, its very possible they could have a closet fascist in the ranks.
I don’t mean to say the posts here are entirely fake, i mean to say the outrage being stoked seems short sighted, While i agree with not wanting my money to support fascist causes, I don’t consider someone’s personal donations or how they spend their money any of their employers business, nor would i want to live in a society where an employer or a business gets to have a say in those things. I read mullvads response, if they had doubled down and defended the guy that would be one thing, but they clearly have to walk a careful tightrope due to a difficult situation that i believe the other founders genuinely did not know about until it came out in the news.
BTW here are the only VPN providers i could find that have openly and explicitly declared anti-fascist beliefs:
I wonder what kind of response you’d get if you emailed VPN providers to ask about the personal donation habits or political leanings of their founders, maybe thats a project i’ll take on another day. Probably something worth knowing and keeping public.
The amount of hate on mullvad for what they openly acknowledged was a personal donation from someone who was a founder sure does seem like it’s astroturfing against an otherwise solid vpn provider with a better trackrecord and more transparency then most.
Seems like the Same sort of ppl who would pay for services with a bank card and then be shocked when that links them to an account.
What do these people want? Should Mullvad fire this person? On what grounds? Do people honestly think companies should have a say over what their employees or members spend their personal money on? That seems like a fascist attitude to me.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
Benefit of the doubt that you aren’t asking in bad faith.
Most people aren’t demanding Mullvad fire the founder, but that also doesn’t mean that we have to give him money to donate to fascists.
Mullvad are free do what they like with their right wing founder. Just like customers are free to refuse to fund anti-immigration policies. If Mullvad doesn’t like that, it’s up to them to decide how to appeal to customers.
Nobody is denying that Mullvad is a good product, but I need this specific vpn less than I need a safer future for my children.
except they kind of are by saying they’re switching because of his donation specifically, which implies to me that those same people would have to think its acceptable for a company to know and have influence over its founders political beliefs or donations. Like what other result are people expecting other then to have him step down from the org (because probably it would be illegal to actually oust them over political donations, so it’d have to be voluntary anyway).
Lets say it was the case for you, you founded a VPN company and turns out your partner is a fascist but you had no idea when it started because it wasnt until 5 years after the founding that they started dropping hints, what would you do? Start a brand new company? You could pressure them to step down privately, you could release a statement saying the company does not support those causes, and you could do everything in your power internally to ensure that person (and really NO person) has access to any kind of logging or things that could expose users (and thats also just practical in terms of keeping your reputation as a VPN provider in tact really). Mullvad has aready done the last bit, any VPN provide worth using would have to be setup in a similar way really.
How would this be in bad faith? I’m saying i think its short sighted because it seems to me they didn’t think through the entire consequences of what happens if it gets flipped on you or someone you support, while ignoring the things that would actually put more limitations on their own risks, primarily if you just switch to another VPN provide but dont ALSO stop paying with a card or something linked to your name/bank then you are not actually improving your own situation much.
It’s similar to the reaction for Proton “exposing” a customer’s payment information, of course i dont agree with them doing it, but I also understand they are a corporation and subject to laws of their country and court orders so the lesson should not be “dont use this VPN provider because they will rat on you” it should be “Dont give VPN providers enough information TO rat on you”
You realize companies have and do fire people for actions in their personal lives, right? Especially in the US where virtually everyone works “at will” and having signed a piece of paper stating they would not hurt the reputation of the company or face termination? Other countries and contracts have similar clauses. Sweden is one such country, where there is a process involved but it is still very much a thing.
So why is it when an individual high up in the company, someone with decision power and who directly benefits from sales, does something that hurts the public perception, suddenly you’re asking us to just ignore it?
Why is it that your accusation of astroturfing sounds suspiciously like… well, astroturfing.
This is where its clear you you aren’t actually listening to what im saying. I didnt say it should be ignored. My point is that i think people are learning and sharing the wrong solution, The solution isnt to use your name associated bank account to pay a different VPN provider, its to avoid giving ANY vpn provider information that could link you to the account, and verify that they don’t keep logs. You can do this with LOTS of different vpn providers by looking at their transparency reports and how they respond to court orders, but very few people actually do that, they’d rather just be perforamtive and say “im voting with my wallet” which is lazy and does nothing to improve the situation for anyone.
This same sort of thing happens anytime a VPN company (like proton) responds to a legal court order, everyone was all “How could they do this to us!?!?” and not “Why would an activist pay using a credit card?, maybe we should teach people how payment systems work so they can avoid this in the future” I think we should focus more on the latter, preventative education, so that less people can be targeted or exposed in general.
I see this as a teachable moment, I’m not trying to get people to ignore the underlying issue, I just think it should be part of a more complete re-evaluation of how we all use and pay for VPN providers.
When i say its astroturfing, i don’t mean against mullvad alone, I think there is a coordinated effort going on to instill division and mistrust among vpn users and providers. I think the goal is to amplify negative publicity for any VPN provider they can, its becoming a trend now.
Even without the “freeze peach” context, the company directly chose to give this individual in particular way more money than most people have including probably most of their other employees, that would enable them to make donations at the scale of hundreds of thousands of USD/EUR, so they already do have a lot of say. And in this case they’re a cofounder, not a random employee, so they as a person quite literally decide the company’s values.
There’s nothing fascist about harm reduction.
You do make an excellent point on the differentiation between work and private lives. The majority of jobs I’ve ever worked would have fired me for my political donations and/or commentary, and as I am not an American Conservative, that would not be a good career move XD
What is the proof that they’re a solid VPN provider and not a NSA honey pot? Do they publish their infrastructure? Can you audit the servers? Is there any evidence?
No.
That means that the fact that they’re a “solid VPN provider” is based completely on their reputation.
Their reputation is that the company is run by a person who donates to repugnant people who are the ones who build and leverage surveillance states.
No astroturfing is needed, this is the result.
the problem is that the same people who buy vpn services are the people who care that parties like he supports don’t get to power… so when they learn that their money (that they paid for the vpn) directly helped to pay for that donation (via the company that made him rich) they are understendably pissed.
edit: this guy below said it much better than me https://lemmy.world/post/51539700/25684523
I would hope that such people would think their own political beliefs and private donations are none of their employers business. I would hope people would pause and think “what happens if this gets flipped on me” if suddenly donating to say anti-fascist causes where to become a fireable offense I bet those same people would be pretty upset
Just seems like very poorly thought out reason for rejecting a service like Mullvad especially given that the company put out a statement that did not defend the donation and distanced themselves from the persons personal views which they most likely didn’t know until well after the check was cashed.
Call me a conspiracy theorist but I think there might be a less organic reason why this is being pushed, like maybe Mullvad is difficult for certain agencies to strong arm due to their discouraging of using traditional trackable payment methods and having well secured servers.
Difference is I don’t own a company, but you are more than welcome to have a soured opinion of the company I work for for employing me based in whatever political beliefs I hold. How is this any different than boycotting JKR for her right wing TERF donations?
Me giving Mullvad money will directly put money in this co-founder’s pocket to give to facists, not just as an employee but as a stake holder in that company. No, he can’t be fired, and I would also not like to be fired for my political beliefs, but the population is absolute free to chose not to spend money at establishments that hosts those views.
I think you can apply Occam’s razor here. Do people just not want to fund someone with express interest in racist/racist/nazist ideology like with JKR, Musk, Trump etc. or is there a conspiracy that 3-letter agencies are sour they can’t crack Mullvad and so want people to use other services?
Hey, I’m a real person who organically discovered this news and made behavioral changes based on the news.
I am not a nazi. I do not want to support nazi policies or beliefs or people who would strengthen and distribute Nazi policies or beliefs. If someone supports forcibly relocating citizens based off their bloodline history or the color of their present day skin, I think they should be as far away from a position of power as society can possibly manage while still treating them like a human.
I believe, based on the Mullvad news, that one of the main benefactors if mullvad - meaning one of the guys who got a % for every euro I spent on the service - actively and meaningfully supports a national party with policies akin to Nazis. I want as much of my money to go to NOT-Nazis as possible, ideally 100%. So I left Mullvad for… I think it’s airvpn. Or ivpn actually, although I considered airvpn.
I don’t think this is a crazy response. I also wish it was the overwhelmingly common response.
Unless you fully audited every founder, owner, and staff member at IVPN (Nick Pestell et al.) or AirVPN (Paolo Brini / the activist group behind it), how do you know they don’t hold similar political views or make donations privately to similar effect? I couldnt find anything looking them up and it seems very unlikely they are fascist algigned, but i think you can understand my point here, unless you have an explicit statement from the company, its very possible they could have a closet fascist in the ranks.
I don’t mean to say the posts here are entirely fake, i mean to say the outrage being stoked seems short sighted, While i agree with not wanting my money to support fascist causes, I don’t consider someone’s personal donations or how they spend their money any of their employers business, nor would i want to live in a society where an employer or a business gets to have a say in those things. I read mullvads response, if they had doubled down and defended the guy that would be one thing, but they clearly have to walk a careful tightrope due to a difficult situation that i believe the other founders genuinely did not know about until it came out in the news.
BTW here are the only VPN providers i could find that have openly and explicitly declared anti-fascist beliefs:
NymVPN / " I am proud to be an anarchist against fascism." - Harry Halpin
RiseUpVPN
I wonder what kind of response you’d get if you emailed VPN providers to ask about the personal donation habits or political leanings of their founders, maybe thats a project i’ll take on another day. Probably something worth knowing and keeping public.