OkCupid & Mozilla Hypocrisy

      On April 3, 2014 Brendan Eich chose to step down from his role as CEO of Mozilla amid the brewing controversy highlighted by the OkCupid website (Baker, 2014). Here is what awaited visitors to their website:

Figure 1: Screen shot of letter posted by OkCupid

      This controversy centers on the fact that Brendan Eich made a $1,000 donation in support of California’s Proposition 8, a 2008 ballot proposition defining marriage as being between one man and one woman. For this action, and this action alone, Brendan Eich was branded as an opponent of equal rights for gay couples and people were encouraged to take action against a company that Mr. Eich worked for.

Let’s explore some of the facts:

         1)  Brendan Eich made a $1,000 donation in support of California’s Proposition 8

          Comments:

• This donation was done personally and not affiliated with his employment at the time
• In the U.S. it is everyone’s right to choose their belief system and support that belief
• In the U.S. everyone has the freedom of speech
• To date, there is no evidence that supports the assertion that Brendan Eich is against gay rights; only that he has a belief that marriage is between a man and a woman

         2)  OkCupid encouraged its users to not use the Mozilla software

          Comments:

• OkCupid has the right to free speech

        Now it seems that evidence has surfaced that Chris Coyne, Sam Yagan, Max Krohn and Christian Rudder, the four Harvard grads who founded the dating site OKCupid, also founded a site called “The Spark” (The Spark, 2001). This site contained an application called "Deliver the Dis" which is an insult generator that included insults aimed at gays (Sexton, 2014). Furthermore, the OkCupid co-founder and CEO Sam Yagan made a $500 donation to Congressman Chris Cannon (R-UT) in 2004 (The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan & OkCupid, 2014) who opposed same-sex marriage, voted against a ban on sexual-orientation based job discrimination, and voted for prohibition of gay adoptions (On The Issues, 2011). Is this hypocrisy?

        Perhaps this whole controversy is a PR stunt as stated on Salon (Eidelson, 2014). It definitely appears that way given that OkCupid does not appear to have a coherent policy regarding LGBT discrimination. However, Mozilla does have a clearly stated inclusiveness policy (Community Participation Guidelines, 2013) and this policy was highlighted in a statement by Brendan Eich (Eich, 2014). So was it fair to target Mozilla?

        It does seems interesting that Mozilla claims that its “organizational culture reflects diversity and inclusiveness” yet they claimed that they “didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started” (Baker, 2014). So it appears that they encouraged Eich to step down regardless of the facts that seem to show that Brendan Eich has the ability to keep his personal beliefs separate from his professional obligations. For a company that professes diversity and inclusivity, this does not seem to be the case. Is this hypocrisy?

        Even with the apparent hypocrisy on both sides, this is not even the most important issue. What this controversy truly exposes is the dangerous slope we are on when we are ostracized for our personal beliefs. Have we come so far in our fight against discrimination only to discriminate against those who hold beliefs different from our own?

Bibliography

Baker, M. (2014, April 3). Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO. Retrieved April 9, 2014, from The Mozilla Blog: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-steps-down-as-mozilla-ceo/

Community Participation Guidelines. (2013, January 7). Retrieved April 9, 2014, from Mozilla Community Participation Guidelines: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/participation/

Eich, B. (2014, March 26). Inclusiveness at Mozilla. Retrieved April 9, 2014, from Brendan Eich: https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/

Eidelson, J. (2014, April 4). OkCupid’s gay rights stunt has its limits: Taking a deeper look at the savvy ploy . Retrieved April 9, 2014, from Salon: http://www.salon.com/2014/04/04/okcupids_gay_rights_stunt_has_its_limits_taking_a_deeper_look_at_the_savvy_ploy/

On The Issues. (2011, March 8). Retrieved April 9, 2014, from On The Issues: http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Chris_Cannon.htm#Civil_Rights

Sexton, J. (2014, April 8). OKCupid Founders Promoted 'Dis' Generator with Gay Insults. Retrieved April 9, 2014, from Breitbart: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/04/08/OKCupid-Founders-Promoted-Dis-Generator-with-Gay-Insults

The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan & OkCupid. (2014, April 6). Retrieved April 9, 2014, from Uncrunched: http://uncrunched.com/2014/04/06/the-hypocrisy-of-sam-yagan-okcupid/#comments

The Spark. (2001, April 13). Retrieved April 9, 2014, from Web Archive: http://web.archive.org/web/20010413170553/http://www.thespark.com/toys/