Just perusing the front page of Nya Dagbladet, it looks like their business’s main bank account has been cut off (perhaps similar to how Visa or Paypal will routinely freeze the accounts of grey-area or politically unpalatable businesses here in the US), and now they are scrambling to try and get funds where they can:
It’s possible that this is the context in which Tegmark made the (very poor) decision to attempt to rush a 100K grant to a “foundation” set up in equal haste by Nya Dagbladet. Which would come off less as “funding a neo-nazi foundation to pursue shadowy neo-nazi projects” and more as nepotistic misuse of FLI’s funds to keep the newspaper Nya Dagbladet afloat, perhaps as a way of helping out Tegmark’s brother?
I would also note that, as Erich_Grunewald describes in his comments, the paper clearly does come across as populist / right-wing, but seems only a bit more sensationalized and extreme than something like the Washington Examiner or NY Post, and less so than things like Breitbart, the Drudge Report, Infowars, etc. It definitely does not come across as the homepage of a neo-Nazi organization:
Still seems like an extremely dubious use of FLI’s funds to make a sketchy grant to a random populist newspaper with bad moral values and bad epistemics! But “pro-nazi” seems like it might be an exaggeration on the part of Expo.
This is very classic Holocaust denialism. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to call a website that actively promotes ethnonationalism and Holocaust denialism “pro-Nazi”, unless you think that the literal words “pro-Nazi” must appear somewhere in order to qualify.
I don’t know about Sweden, but it takes a lot more than being “a bit more sensationalized and extreme than something like the Washington Examiner or NY Post” to get your access to banking cut off in most liberal democracies. The content they posted with an imminent threat of a banking cutoff may not be representative of their historic content.
The FLI activity started several months before the alleged bank freeze. For the “grant” to be motivated by the bank threat, one would need to conclude that ND knew of the risk of freezing yet couldn’t get a bank account anywhere . . . yet somehow they are still able to take donations via PayPal. Seems less likely they are on some sort of global or even national blacklist given that datum. So basically I don’t believe their assertion of a banking blacklist against them in the first place.
If I had to guess, they were probably financially failing because they were too toxic for ad networks or for other reasons.
It seems like the paper’s dispute with their bank has been going on for a while before the recent drama, perhaps long enough to make the timelines match up. But yes, it’s confusing to me why they couldn’t just switch to another bank. Definitely possible that they are basically just out of money and their bank is trying to cut them off, but the paper is hyping this up as political persecution in order to buy time / gain some negotiating advantage.
(Of course, regardless of what the actual story turns out to be, there is seemingly zero reason for FLI money to be involved in this BS .)
Just perusing the front page of Nya Dagbladet, it looks like their business’s main bank account has been cut off (perhaps similar to how Visa or Paypal will routinely freeze the accounts of grey-area or politically unpalatable businesses here in the US), and now they are scrambling to try and get funds where they can:
It’s possible that this is the context in which Tegmark made the (very poor) decision to attempt to rush a 100K grant to a “foundation” set up in equal haste by Nya Dagbladet. Which would come off less as “funding a neo-nazi foundation to pursue shadowy neo-nazi projects” and more as nepotistic misuse of FLI’s funds to keep the newspaper Nya Dagbladet afloat, perhaps as a way of helping out Tegmark’s brother?
I would also note that, as Erich_Grunewald describes in his comments, the paper clearly does come across as populist / right-wing, but seems only a bit more sensationalized and extreme than something like the Washington Examiner or NY Post, and less so than things like Breitbart, the Drudge Report, Infowars, etc. It definitely does not come across as the homepage of a neo-Nazi organization:
Still seems like an extremely dubious use of FLI’s funds to make a sketchy grant to a random populist newspaper with bad moral values and bad epistemics! But “pro-nazi” seems like it might be an exaggeration on the part of Expo.
It is not uncommon, and I will even say usual, that Nazi sympathisers are at least somewhat subtle about it.
This is not particularly subtle. Here’s their section on the Holocaust: https://nyadagbladet.se/tag/forintelsen/
Here’s an editorial written for Holocaust Remembrance Day. Their central claim is that the way to prevent antisemitism it to stop “lying” about how many Jews were killed. https://nyadagbladet.se/ledare/sa-forebygger-vi-den-verkliga-antisemitismen/
This is very classic Holocaust denialism. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to call a website that actively promotes ethnonationalism and Holocaust denialism “pro-Nazi”, unless you think that the literal words “pro-Nazi” must appear somewhere in order to qualify.
I don’t know about Sweden, but it takes a lot more than being “a bit more sensationalized and extreme than something like the Washington Examiner or NY Post” to get your access to banking cut off in most liberal democracies. The content they posted with an imminent threat of a banking cutoff may not be representative of their historic content.
The FLI activity started several months before the alleged bank freeze. For the “grant” to be motivated by the bank threat, one would need to conclude that ND knew of the risk of freezing yet couldn’t get a bank account anywhere . . . yet somehow they are still able to take donations via PayPal. Seems less likely they are on some sort of global or even national blacklist given that datum. So basically I don’t believe their assertion of a banking blacklist against them in the first place.
If I had to guess, they were probably financially failing because they were too toxic for ad networks or for other reasons.
It seems like the paper’s dispute with their bank has been going on for a while before the recent drama, perhaps long enough to make the timelines match up. But yes, it’s confusing to me why they couldn’t just switch to another bank. Definitely possible that they are basically just out of money and their bank is trying to cut them off, but the paper is hyping this up as political persecution in order to buy time / gain some negotiating advantage. (Of course, regardless of what the actual story turns out to be, there is seemingly zero reason for FLI money to be involved in this BS .)