Discussion
Today, Mullvad and their fascist co-owner Daniel Berntsson each published an excuse essay. Excuses for why supporting fascists is okay.
I wrote about how they failed, with receipts for how their sorry-not-sorry essays align with Nazi Germany.
https://markwrites.io/mullvad-and-daniel-berntssons-failed-cleanup/
@markwyner This is one company, i was really rooting for , alas time to route my money to other company 😪
@markwyner "excuse essay" really is an art form unto itself isn't it 😬
@mxchara 😂 I wasn’t even sure if that was the right phrasing. I’m glad you appreciated it.
@markwyner I hate it so much that privacy techbros and fascists are often holding hands. please share with us if you find another values-aligned VPN.
@fremachuca I’m recommending @ivpn, which is where my research led me.
https://www.ivpn.net/en/manifesto
I really hope it doesn’t come out that they’re fascist boot-lickers. 🤞🏻
@markwyner @fremachuca Does IVPN also let me just pay cash for an account number, or do they need more data about me? Because if they do, they're less anonymous than Mullvad, which is dangerous.
@markwyner "After a weak, ambiguous analogy (good luck deciphering it)"
my quick take
@beaiouns perfect phrasing: “trying to keep it together to read the rest.” Man, I was literally shaking my head in absolute confusion about what I was reading.
@markwyner this is a disgusting episode and it causes me to wonder how anyone ever accepted the idea that "I'm not racist even though I fund multiple racist organizations" was ever valid
@mxchara @markwyner if he had instead spent 451 567€ on a fleet of electric Volvos for the staff, BAHCO tools for the maintenance team and other Swedish things to be "patriotic", there would have been 0 shitstorm and it might even have been considered a good move my many.
But instead he actively chose to support a fash party in his country, knowing that this would be noticed the world over..
@vfrmedia @mxchara @markwyner Your point is valid *but* Volvo is Chinese-owned these days: you may need to find over local products to substitute.
@cstross @mxchara @markwyner thats why I put patriotic in quotation marks (many BAHCO tools are also made in China), Ikea also makes its products all over the world these days but these companies do still have significant resources and staff within Sweden..
I don't think you can buy a 100% British car any more either, even specialist marques like Morgan use a lot of German components these days!
@markwyner Is there a less restrictive alternative to Tor for browsing without leaving a trace?
@Homer unfortunately there’s no perfect browser out of the box for this. It requires diligence on the setup. And everyone claims they have the golden ticket for this.
Librewolf and DuckDuckGo are the most solid bets. But do some research to decide which one you’re most comfortable with, personally.
@markwyner Soo asking for a friend, if someone were looking into a worker cooperative hosting/vpn company in or near the EU, where should the core legal entity be formed?
It seems like the legal protections of so many nations is in decline these days.
@metaphase Iceland. Hands down. Do some research on their privacy acts and their constitution. It’s wild.
@markwyner @metaphase Check out Iceland-based 1984.is for VPS (paid) and free DNS services. I use the latter and am happy.
To be fair, I'd consider all companies to use and support fascism in various ways for their justification of hitting it 'rich' by enabling technofeudalism.
Companies who do NOT have fascist/technofeudalist aspirations are the rarity.
@markwyner I'm not a heavy VPN user to have researched, what have you personally found as a good alternative, if any? what's the word on the VPN street what are the kids saying they use now, hopefully FOSS
@nokke VPNs are tricky, because so many have popped up in recent years. And most of them are sus.
I did research and asked around. I kept finding paths back to IVPN and liked what I saw. So I went with them. So far so good. Solid service from folks with integrity (at least so far as I can tell).
@markwyner
Thank you for having the will, courage and tenacity to read through what I am guessing is a word salad of weak excuses and absurd attempts at rationalizations, because I am sure if I read through it, I would likely be left feeling so angry I would probably want to throw something.
This is not a complex topic. It is quite simple to understand.
There are no legitimate excuses for cozing up with fascists.
simple, eh.
@TrueNorthSpice it’s disappointing, to say the least. All of it. I only read through the posts because I had a tiny bit of hope that I’d read something logical. 🤷🏻♂️
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