OKCupid Asks Users to Stop Being Activity Partners With Firefox and its Anti-Gay CEO

Perhaps you missed Brenden Eich‘s rise to CEO of Mozilla, the company that makes the Firefox browser (among other things). Eich is a co-founder of Mozilla and the inventor of much of Javascript, the language that makes sites and forms interactive. It sounds like he’s super qualified for the job, yeah? It’s just corporate movement like any other, right? Except this time around, the CEO in question has made anti-gay donations, specifically $1,000 to the campaign for California’s Proposition 8.

Dammit, can’t I use anything anymore?

Firefox-Logo

Mozilla employees had a lot to say about the controversial appointment: “I love @mozilla but I’m disappointed this week,” Chris McAvoy of Open Badges said via Twitter. And he called for the CEO’s resignation and was not alone among the companies employees. Mozilla board members even resigned over the selection, though some news outlets are reporting that the resignations were in the works regardless of CEO choice.

Eich himself wrote on his personal blog:

I know some will be skeptical about this, and that words alone will not change anything. I can only ask for your support to have the time to ā€œshow, not tellā€; and in the meantime express my sorrow at having caused pain.

What seemed to be an almost internal issue (albeit a very publicly played out one) has now become very, very newsworthy ā€” OKCupid, the anecdotally best-loved online dating platform for the queer community (and many straight people), has asked its users to consider using competitor browsers Chrome, Safari and, hell, even Internet Explorer rather than accessing the website via Firefox:

Politics is normally not the business of a website, and we all know there’s a lot more wrong with the world than misguided CEOs. So you might wonder why we’re asserting ourselves today. This is why: we’ve devoted the last ten years to bringing peopleā€”all people ā€” together. If individuals like Mr. Eich had their way, then roughly 8% of the relationships we’ve worked so hard to bring about would be illegal. Equality for gay relationships is personally important to many of us here at OkCupid. But it’s professionally important to the entire company. OkCupid is for creating love. Those who seek to deny love and instead enforce misery, shame, and frustration are our enemies, and we wish them nothing but failure.

okc_mozilla

You know shit is real when real live tech people offer Internet Explorer as a viable option.

We are no stranger to gay-rights-backed boycotts of institutionsā€”from Chick Fil-A to Target and their cute-ass undies. But this is majorly different than any other consumer boycott. Why? Because it’s not a consumer boycott ā€” it’s a vendor boycott. This would be the equivalent of chicken farmers refusing to sell chickens to Chick-Fil-A or underwear designers refusing to sell their mega-cute underwear at in Target stores.

This boycott is also different because the product being boycotted is free. And though there is a certain amount of privilege needed to be worrying about your internet browser (as in, you must own a computer or control the use of one), this is a boycott that a ton of people can take part in without cutting their nose off to spite their face, unlike refusing to shop at Target. This boycott is just plain easier to do.

So, then, a question might be:Ā Is internet activism in this case more effective than a consumer boycott?

I submit to you yes, it is.

OK Cupid claims 1 million users per day. And as many of us know from experience, that one-million-strong active user pool contains a lot of different fish ā€” people from all walks of life who may not have followed Proposition 8 closely. Or may not have heard really anything at all about gay rights. OK Cupid giving first billing to a gay rights issue to any Mozilla user that comes their way? That’s a giant amount of people who now have the potential to think differently than they’ve been thinking. To think more critically about the world around them, and about where they choose to give their support. If we look at boycotting Barilla pasta as comparison, it doesn’t necessarily have the power to start the same conversations or accomplish the same goals; discussions about marriage equality and activism aren’t generally happening in the pasta aisle, but they are on the internet. To the degree that boycotts can be a tool which organizes and focuses public conversation, a boycott of a web-based product can generate much more discussion than a boycott of a product out in the real world.

Granted, Mozilla has a good track record in other areas ā€” the company has reached out to the general population of the internet reminding them that the official company policy is one of inclusion:

Mozillaā€™s mission is to make the Web more open so that humanity is stronger, more inclusive and more just. This is why Mozilla supports equality for all, including marriage equality for LGBT couples. No matter who you are or who you love, everyone deserves the same rights and to be treated equally.

Mozilla also provided the space for the Lesbians Who Tech Hackathon, and has been an active supporter in diversity throughout the tech industry, proving that while one bad apple at the head of the company kind of sours the taste of the group as a whole, it certainly doesn’t spoil the whole bunch. The employees are just as peeved about their CEO’s purported beliefs as OKC is.

Luckily for the employees of Mozilla, OK Cupid’s boycott will probably do little to their revenue streams. But the precedent of websites getting involved in the political decisions of another company’s CEOs is an interesting one ā€” did you know that most of Mozilla’s revenue comes from Google search royalties? Could you imagine if Google followed suit next time contract negotiations were up? Eich would be out of a job faster than you can say “I think I’ll take my business elsewhere.” But that’s not what we’re talking about here, I don’t think.

We’re talking about awareness and visibility. And yes, there are a million other causes to be active for. A million other things that are as important to the queer community as marriage is, that deserve airtime to OKC’s 1 million active users per day. But marriage equality is directly within the purview of a website aimed at bringing people together for the purpose of hookups, relationships and, yes, sometimes marriage. And it’s a brilliant move on OKC’s part ā€” you can’t move around the internet right now without hitting their name.

Although the internet right now seems fairly solidly aligned with OKCupid and against Firefox, it’ll be interesting to see what happens if Eich takes the recommendations set out by Owen Thomas at Readwrite: apologize. So far, Eich has done what many people in power do when a mistake is made public; he’s said he’s sorry he hurt anyone’s feelings without saying he’s sorry for taking the action itself. Eich needs to admit he was wrong instead of saying that his personal actions shouldn’t be taken into account when discussing his job ā€” he is a CEO of a major Silicon Valley player, a nonprofit organization. Like it or not, his actions do contribute to the culture of the industry as a whole. But Eich has the option to acknowledge that and make a real apology ā€” and maybe then the ratio of “match” percentage to “enemy” percentage with the queer community will be improved.

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A.E. Osworth

A.E. Osworth is part-time Faculty at The New School, where they teach undergraduates the art of digital storytelling. Their novel, We Are Watching Eliza Bright, about a game developer dealing with harassment (and narrated collectively by a fictional subreddit), is forthcoming from Grand Central Publishing (April 2021) and is available for pre-order now. They have an eight-year freelancing career and you can find their work on Autostraddle (where they used to be the Geekery Editor), Guernica, Quartz, Electric Lit, Paper Darts, Mashable, and drDoctor, among others.

A.E. has written 542 articles for us.

23 Comments

  1. As someone who uses Firefox because of its respect for user privacy and commitment to open source programming, I will not personally be switching but I suggest people who want to switch shift to another open source browser rather than IE or Chrome.

    • Sadly, no other open source browser is near as good as Firefox. (Neither is any proprietary one, really).

      As much as this guy sucks, so do other browser options, IE is downright dangerous in addition to being incompatible with established web standards, Chrome is google (and I just really disliked it when I tested it). Most other open source browsers I’ve investigated are lacking in features I use regularly with FF.

      So… it’s hard. But since Mozilla isn’t getting any of my money, it’s a bit easier to decide against dropping FF.

  2. I find this boycott bizarre and out of proportion, even as a largely symbolic gesture. $1000 is small change, and Mozilla the corporation hasn’t done anything remotely anti-LGBT.

    Not going to stop using Firefox.

  3. How self-righteous for a company that doesn’t have gender options other than female and male on their sign up page. Obviously there’s a difference, but how bout they focus on their own LGBT-inclusive shortcomings rather than those of others, know what I’m saying?

    • Agreed. I also find it rather insulting that they did this on Transgender Day of Visibility.

  4. The current CEO of Firefox, Brendan Eich, also happens to be the inventor of JavaScript. If we’re boycotting Firefox, should we also disable javascript on everything and crawl back into the dark ages of the internet? It sucks that he has ignorant beliefs that we don’t like, but at the end of the day, Firefox as a company remains tolerant. Check out their statement: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/03/29/mozilla-supports-lgbt-equality/
    I’ll boycott Firefox the day that they use company finances to threaten LGBT rights or release a company-sponsored statement that’s anti-LGBT. In the meantime, OKC is just grasping at the chance for some free publicity sponsored by the LGBT community who won’t bother to look further into Firefox’s company policies.

  5. Is he using the Company to discriminate. Or creating a hostile workplace? Showing evidence of plans to do either of those things?

    If the answer to those questions is “no,” this seems petty to me.

  6. Eh Don’t really use FireFox so this doesn’t really apply to me. I really like Safari better anyway

  7. Nell, Laura, Kate and Michelle, you don’t even know what you are talking about! He was using his money to discriminate against gay people. That is the biggest crime in this modern world. All of you are ignorant homophobes!!!!!!!!!!

    • This is a ridiculous comment. You do realise you calling non-hetero (I assume!) people homophobes?

      He *is* to be castigated for his intolerance.

      But if he is keeping that personal and keeping that separate from business – not letting it interfere with the company’s policies (which as have been mentioned are LGBT-supportive) – then there is no reason I can see to boycott the company.

    • This comment is not legitimate debate, it’s just a lame attempt at trolling. There are arguments to be made on both sides here. I think that a boycott is over-reactoon to a small donation, but the I bloc criticism is a good thing.

    • haha you got me. I read autostraddle because I’m a homophobe.
      I’m so glad I get to read intelligent counter-arguments that consist of nothing but name calling. and really? the biggest crime in the world? LGBT rights are very important to me(as I’m sure they are to everyone here), but I would not claim that discriminating against gay people would be more serious than lack of drinking water for people in third world countries or genocide of innocents.
      So if you feel so strongly, enjoy never using javascript on any webpage again. The internet will be so great for you.
      (^first snarky internet comment ever posted in my life)

  8. Yeah I guess I’m just getting skeptical at this point, my first thought was that OKCupid was going for free marketing. Right-minded and all, of course, but everyone knows which way the wind is blowing now and setting your sails is risk-free support-gathering.

    Not that I’m ungrateful in a broad sense, it is absolutely amazing that public opinion is going our way finally, but this sort of move wasn’t happening when it was dangerous and mattered so much more to us, and most companies aren’t really making bold, socially responsible decisions unless they are guaranteed to profit by them. .

    For my part: Not deleting firefox, not rushing to sign up for OKC, glad homophobe got some negative press and hope he learns to be sorry, but also hope he doesn’t become convinced he was right through over-the-top bullying.

  9. It’s not about how little the donation was. It’s about taking a stand and fighting for what you think is right. Exactly what brenden had done. He knew $1,000 is a small amount but he wanted to make a statement about his beliefs and he did. Wrong or Right, He took a stand.

    I know i only have one voice and i’m not an influential celebrity but that is not the point here. I’m taking a stand by uninstalling firefox. Immaturity on my part? Maybe, Maybe not, but i want my one little voice to be counted.

    • I just saw that! This process was incredibly quick, so kudos to everyone who played a part in it.

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