Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich’s resignation highlights Internet’s mob mentality

So Brendan Eich has **resigned as Mozilla CEO** after weeks of outrage and protests left him with little choice. It was either resign or let brand Mozilla and its philosophy take a hit as daily potshots were being taken by those **opposing his appointment** .   The **protests erupted** over Eich making contributions from his personal account to oppose the Proposition 8 gay marriage ballot measure in California. His contributions, which amounted to little over $3000, were made in 2008, but the Internet never forgets and certainly doesn’t forgive. Proposition 8 banned gay marriage in the state, though it was reversed after being deemed unconstitutional in 2012.   I may make a few enemies with my stance here, but Eich is free to choose whatever side he wants to choose in the debate on gay marriage or any other debate for that matter. Nobody can force him into making a stance he is not comfortable with. He made a contribution to a cause he may or may not have supported. Do we even know if he feels the same way six years since and why should we even have to know? It’s his personal view, after all. But when the Internet decides somebody is a public enemy, it won’t let up till that person is ground out. [caption id=“attachment_221121” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Brendan Eich is the co-founder of Mozilla and creator of JavaScript[/caption]   Don’t get me wrong; I have a major bone to pick with people who oppose gay marriage and relationships, but it doesn’t mean I am going to invalidate everything about someone with a opposite view. It doesn’t mean I am going to sit in protest till they resign from their job, because the job in reality has nothing to do with their views. I am certainly not going to attack someone under the guise of liberalism to make them feel like outcasts themselves, when the issue at hand is about a group of people feeling like outcasts.   For the sake of argument, let’s flip the shoe. Let’s say we were in a society where gay marriage was the biggest transgression possible, and Eich contributed to a group supporting it. Angry protesters cry he’s wrong, and force him to resign. Who has your sympathy now?   We are comfortable with working for someone whose views on gay marriage are unknown, but as soon as we find out their personal view is not in line with ours, we hold them in judgement. If anything we are the ones discriminating. Is there only room for one political world view on the Internet?   In an interview before his resignation today, Eich told CNET in a long interview, “I don’t think it’s good for my integrity or Mozilla’s integrity to be pressured into changing a position. If Mozilla became more exclusive and required more litmus tests, I think that would be a mistake that would lead to a much smaller Mozilla, a much more fragmented Mozilla. We have a strong Indonesian community. I have people there on the other side of this particular issue. They don’t bring it into Mozilla when they work in the Mozilla community.”   And that’s an issue that those who called for Eich’s resignation have failed to understand entirely. His appointment as CEO did not mean that everyone had to conform to his views; it was nothing more than work. Eich said when he comes to work he leaves his personal views out of the office. Isn’t that the tolerant CEO we ask for?