So last
week, Mozilla, the
mission-based makers of lagging web browser Firefox, fired its
newly appointed CEO Brendan Eich after the dating site OK Cupid
publicized Eich’s donation to Prop. 8, a California ballot
initiative that barred same-sex marriage in the Golden State.
As I wrote here and for
Time:
Now that we’re well past a subsistence economy, we live in a
world of largely symbolic exchange, where we don’t simply choose
something because we’re hungry or naked but because we want to make
a statement about what sort of person we are, what sort of taste we
possess, and what sort of values we share.
That’s especially true of an organization such as Mozilla, which
has feet both in the nonprofit activism and for-profit business
worlds.
Conservatives – including those who support gay marriage, such
as Hot Air‘s Allahpundit – have
been howling that Eich’s ouster is an ominous new form of
blacklisting that seeks to discredit and silence all opposition to
the “hoMOsexual agenda” (as it’s often pronounced by
detractors).
Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight has generated a
table of Prop. 8 donations by top Silicon Valley firms from a
Los Angeles Times database:
Opponents of Prop. 8 (that is, supporters of gay marriage) were
far more common among tech firms, but the opponents ponied up much
more dough.
Allahpundit writes that “what the Eich case is [really]
about” is stopping or halting the progress of high-profile business
people who oppose marriage equality:
His donation’s been a matter of public record for five
years but only after he became the face of Mozilla by being named
CEO was it deemed an unforgivable trespass. Prop 8 fans can
continue to work in tech as long
as they aren’t given positions of significant
influence. That’s when the hammer comes down….When do we get a list of Silicon Valley donors to Obama’s
campaign circa 2008, when he was still formally against traditional
marriage? True, he didn’t support Prop 8 or other attempts to
legally ban SSM (a strong signal at the time that his stated view
was a lie), but the whole point of the equal protection argument
against traditional marriage laws is that you can’t reserve
“marriage” for straights without implicitly slapping a
second-class-citizen stigma on gays. Obama was willing to do that,
at least rhetorically. Let’s have the names.
Regardless of the specifics of this case, I think the Eich story
showcases how technology, symbolically-based economic activity, and
access to information has really changed things (and generally for
the better). At the same time, I share the ambivalence of many
between blurring of lines between private and public activities.
All businesses have things that I find objectionable from time to
time.
Many specific individual artists and creators have been accused
of or acknowledged absolutely horrible and criminal behavior (such
as Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, and Arthur Koestler). It is no
simple calculation for individuals to decide when learning about
such things means boycotting a given company or person. Surely, the
fact that Firefox has not really been a dominant browser for years
makes it easier for many pro-gay-marriage people simply to say they
will continue NOT using Firefox in the wake of the Eich
affair.
Here are some questions for Reason.com
readers:
1. Do you think a business’s personnel decisions or corporate
actions should ever be a factor in deciding whether to patronize a
firm? Don’t we rally around banks such as BB&T when its
leadership says it won’t underwrite deals based on eminent domain
abuse? Or Overstock.com when it fights against Internet sales tax
plans?
2. Is the problem with Mozilla that it caved so quickly to OK
Cupid’s campaign? Many stories about Eich suggest that his Prop. 8
donation/stance was well-known within the organization and the
subject of controversy. Having made the decision to promote Eich –
a giant in tech innovation – is the real crime here that Mozilla
didn’t push back against a backlash?
3. How important is it that we’re talking about the private
sector rather than the public or political sector? We generally
talk about how different rules can and should apply to
private-sector actors than public-sector ones (quick example:
Private universities are not bound by the same First Amendment
legal principles as public ones are). Many critics of Eich’s
resignation talk about how Obama himself was against gay marriage
back in 2008 and that many sitting Democratic senators still are.
Is that in any way relevant?
4. Does the particular issue matter? If you found out, say, that
a particular company or CEO was a massive supporter of, say,
Venezuela’s current strongman, or of any given cause about which
you feel strongly? Is it worth mentioning that conservatives call
for boycotts of Girl Scout cookies due to alleged ties of the
parent org’s ties to abortion?
Read Reason 24/7’s deep dive
on the issue.
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