Mozilla CEO steps down over anti-gay marriage donation

HumanIPO reported earlier this week dating site OkCupid had urged its users to boycott Mozilla-owned search engine Firefox in protest at the appointment of Eich, who supported an anti-same-sex marriage campaign.

OkCupid members navigating to the site on a Firefox browser are met with a message encouraging them to use an alternative browser to access the site.

Eich has now chosen to step down in the face of the negative publicity.

“Brendan Eich has chosen to step down from his role as CEO. He’s made this decision for Mozilla and our community,” said Mozilla executive chairwoman Mitchell Baker in a blog post.

“Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it. We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves,” she said.

“We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better.”

Baker said Mozilla believes in diversity and inclusiveness, which was reflected in its company structure.

“Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard,” she said.

She said Mozilla’s future leadership was still under discussion, but that the company wanted to be more open about its future. She said it would provide more information next week.

“However, our mission will always be to make the web more open so that humanity is stronger, more inclusive and more just: that’s what it means to protect the open Web,” she said.