Stripe – this is what You are supporting

Dear Stripe,

Greetings from the Swedish people powered movement Skiftet.

First of all, thank you for dropping french alt right organisation Génération Identitaire as a customer! We are happy to see that breaking the user agreement has consequences. That is the reason I am writing You today.

In Sweden, the alt right is comparably strong and vital, and is getting stronger. We also saw during the weeks coming up to our national election in September that racist junk news sites had a huge reach, much bigger than traditional media. This is a big concern for us as an organisation working for democracy and against racism, but also a big concern for Sweden as a country. The spread of misinformation and racist ideas makes our democracy weaker, and has to be stopped.

Regarding that, we have unfortunate news for You, Stripe. Many of the organisations and junk news sites are funded with the help of Your services. Fortunately, Skiftet has done some research, and these organisations and junk news sites are using Stripe for funding:

  • Nordisk Ungdom: The organisation is the youth division of the organisation Skandinaviska förbundet. Nordisk Ungdom is racist and homophobic. In September twelve of its members were convicted in court for an action against the Pride festival in Stockholm in 2017. In 2017, members of Nordisk Ungdom violently disturbed a manifestation by young asylum seekers. One person was prosecuted for throwing a bengal at people taking part in the manifestation. These are just examples of Nordisk Ungdoms violent actions.
  • Skandinavisk Frihet: Connected to Nordisk Ungdom is the racist junk news site Skandinavisk frihet, who also uses PayPal.
  • Nordisk alternativhöger: Nordisk alternativhöger is an alt right organisation, built out of the mold of white supremacist Richard Spencer’s National Policy Institute. Nordisk alternativhögers founder is Daniel Friberg. He has close ties to Richard Spencer and thinks that the politicians that has been in charge of immigration in Sweden the last years has committed such great crimes that capital punishment should be considered for them. Nordisk alternativhöger also used to sell antisemitic merchandise that riled up people to hang “traitors” by the hundreds from lamp posts.
  • Alternativ för Sverige (AfS): AfS is a Swedish right extremist, nationalist and populist party, founded in the March 2018 with a goal to challenge the nationalist party Sweden Democrats with an even more radical and racist politics. AfS wants to replace the Swedish immigration authority with a “return agency” and force hundred thousands of people out of Sweden. Members from the party also poses with fascists in photos, put up antisemitic stickers and is spreading nazi propaganda.
  • Det fria Sverige: Det fria Sverige is a fairly new alt right organisation, who wants to function as an “ethnic organisation” for Swedes. The organisations founder and president Dan Eriksson used to run the nazi podcast Motgift. With the help of Stripe Det fria Sverige has raised over 1 million krona to buy a house. They recently bought one, where they will open “Svenskarnas hus”, The Swedes House, where they will hold activities to promote an ethnically “pure” Sweden. Dan Eriksson has also has called the Nürnberg trials “a shame for the European civilization”.
  • Svegot: Svegot is Det fria Sveriges media platform. The platform is a continuation of, amongst others, the podcast Motgift.
  • Nya tider: Its founder Vávra Suk has ties to nazi organisations in Sweden and used to be a member of the nationalist and right extremist party Nationaldemokraterna. It was after a fight with them, he left and started Nya tider. One of the writers in Nya tider has previously written for the nazi organisation Svenska motståndsrörelsen. The writers at Nya tider also has ties to the violent nazi organisation Nordiska motståndsrörelsen.
  • Samhällsnytt: Samhällsnytt is a junk news site that used to be called Avpixlat, a right extremist and racist hate site. It has amongst the biggest reaches on social media of any Swedish news outlets and is a spreader of misinformation and fake news. During the weeks leading up to the Swedish election in September, Samhällsnytt was one of the three most shared junk news sites on Twitter.

We at Skiftet hope that You at Stripe will look into these organisations and news sites and see that they are violating the user agreement in spreading hate, violence and discrimination.

In hope of good collaboration,

Skiftet

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