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So the solution you're describing is: apply public posturing to appease the mob, and highlight the queer/LGBT-positive stance of the company (while disregarding the importance of its engineers, given that Mozilaa is a tech company first, not a social justice company)?

Since when have a "good fraction of their user base", i.e. of Mozilla's, been the queer and LGBT community?

> apply public posturing to appease the mob, and highlight the queer/LGBT-positive stance of the company

I'm not suggesting public posturing. I'm suggesting sincerity.

> given that Mozilaa is a tech company first, not a social justice company

I don't accept that premise. ~20 years ago, Mozilla was primarily about empowering all ordinary people to make full use of the web.

They talked about their mission rather than products; they used slogans like “Take back the web” [from big corporations] and “This technology could fall into the right hands”; and they unironically used revolutionary socialist imagery.

If they were just a tech company I wouldn't care about them.

> Since when have a "good fraction of their user base", i.e. of Mozilla's, been the queer and LGBT community?

Always. Depending on where you get your numbers from, around 15% to 25% of people are LGBTQ+. The fraction appears higher among people born since about 1990, for the same reason that the number of left-handed people appeared to increase in the 1950s.

And the proportion of people who believe that LGBTQ+ people are worthy of dignity (which is the group Mozilla would be alienating) is even higher than that.

> Always. Depending on where you get your numbers from, around 15% to 25% of people are LGBTQ+.

I would love sources for that statement, otherwise I will have to call bunk.

We're talking about a global population of Firefox users.

> This tactic will only work if Mozilla doesn't want to bring queer people along with them — an open web for _most_ people, but some people aren't welcome to join in.

What about people who hold opinions you disagree with?

> affirm that Mozilla's position is on the side of diversity and inclusivity

The SIDE of INCLUSIVITY? LMFAO

Anti-gay is dead… It’s just flat out wrong — based off incorrect assumptions about how the world works. And it is also quite harmful.

Like with slavery, creationism, and a bunch of other bad ideas, the world is moving on. Or trying to, at least.

> What about people who hold opinions you disagree with?

I don't understand the question you're asking here. Can you ask it more directly?

> The SIDE of INCLUSIVITY?

Seeking to include as many people as want to be included; as opposed to deliberately excluding people.

> LMFAO

A subtle point, eloquently expressed.

> Making tools and services for public use is always political

Why and how?

If I need a hammer, should I care what opinions the guy making it has, as long as he is making (and striving to) make good hammers?

Trying to politicize every single seems to be part of the problem here. We're almost at the point where you can't buy a hammer. You can either buy a LGBTQ hammer or a anti-LGBTQ hammer, even though all you care about is a piece of metal on a a piece of wood that you can hit nails with.

Perhaps the word “tool” was misplaced. For something like a hammer that you can buy once and then just use, the manufacturer's corporate personality isn't really relevant, yeah.

But for goods and services where you're (perhaps tacitly) entering an ongoing relationship with the manufacturer — like software, which requires maintenance — the company's reputation is important, and it reflects on the values of the consumer.

In a free market, consumer choice dictates what companies do, so by buying from a company that uses child labour (for example), you're endorsing and literally funding that practice.

I don't think this is a new phenomenon: companies have long been rewarded and condemned for taking positions on the moral questions of the day, at the very least as far back as Luddism.

I guarantee that at least 15-25% of the population finds same-sex marriage morally reprehensible and that Mozilla is alienating an enormous number of current or potential users with its woke ideology. Is flipping the bird to the conservative half of the electorate good for business?

Maybe corporate virtue signaling appeals to you but it repulses me. Given the choice between a company that supports far-left causes and one that remains politically neutral, I would, all other things being equal, always go with the latter.

Is there any case of a company that went through those steps and it was well received by the public?

Because I'm under the impression the people who were asking for Brendan's head are the ones who believe a CEO's personal political position would always reflect on his company. Mozilla just trying to say it does not wouldn't be enough.

Consider why some people were “asking for Brendan's head”.

Yeah, some of them will have thought “he's one of the bad ones; good riddance and I hope he loses”, and they're not likely to be persuaded.

But some people will have been scared. Civil rights are not a done deal; this was the prospect of someone who's campaigning against civil rights, in a position of authority for a project you care deeply about and believe to be important…

They may have _said_ they wanted rid of Brendan, when what they really wanted was an assurance of safety.

That sort of empathetic approach from Mozilla might have persuaded some of this group, and fostered greater understanding between the people who ended up on opposite sides of the argument. Treading more carefully would have pissed off the “other side” less too; and Mozilla would have benefited from Brendan's technical expertise for longer.

Looking back, I think Mozilla reacted too hurriedly. They could hypothetically have done a better job of defusing the situation more gently.

The only person whose civil rights were violated in that situation was Brendan.