This situation seems like itās gone a bit off the rails. Currently weāre looking at a DAO vote on Brantlyās job, which is risking becoming an index on whether voters agree with, or find abhorrent, his opinions on certain very sensitive subjects. Either way that vote goes, ENS loses big time, because such a vote would be pretty obviously partisan, and would destroy ENSās neutrality in the ecosystem. We do not want a reputation (whether deserved or not) as either a community and project that supports homophobia, transphobia, and bigoted hate generally, or as a community and project that supports religious or cultural persecution via ācancel cultureā or āthought policeā. We must remain a neutral protocol that everyone can feel equally supported and advantaged in using.
What is the actual problem here, from my perspective?
Brantly, in his role as project representative, essentially the āface of ENSā, has not maintained suitable neutrality in his communications. Via his Twitter account, he posted frequent official ENS updates, mixed with various personal updates. A very early tweet espousing various exclusionary ideas may or may not be relevant, given its age dating back to 2016. But in the past 24 hours, he released several tweets and at least one Twitter Spaces, again conducted with the same Twitter account that many associated directly with ENS as a protocol, which doubled down on that early tweet.
Essentially, Brantly, in his role as Director of Operations for ENS Domains, posted his divisive and very non-neutral opinions in a manner that very directly linked those opinions to ENS itself. They could very easily have been construed to originate from ENS itself, since they were stated by an official ENS representative, using the same social media account normally used by that representative for various semi-official news and postings.
This action risks destroying ENSās extremely valuable legitimacy in the web3 space as a neutral protocol. It risks alienating a substantial subset of the ENS community. It risks politicizing ENS. Perhaps itās already too late.
To me, this is the crux of the issue. The Director of Operations chose to risk everything he has extremely adeptly and capably built, along with many others, over the years, by surfacing and re-emphasizing his personal opinions while in a role which requires strict, fastidious neutrality.
Where do we go from here?
ENS must respond in an official capacity. To do otherwise invalidates and disregards the very real concerns expressed by the LGBTQ+ community, women, and the other all-too-often-targeted demographics impacted. They form a crucial and invaluable component of the global web3 and ENS community, and deserve a real, thoughtful, non-trivializing, efficacious response.
ENS must not respond in a way that commits the opposite error: alienating the enormous global audience of people with belief systems that produce the kinds of ideas at the center of this situation. This audience also forms a crucial and invaluable component of the global web3 and ENS community, and deserves to be treated thoughtfully and even-handedly as well. These belief systems may seem incompatible with an inclusive and accepting web3 and ENS community, but rejecting them on that basis is also excluding.
The only path forward, to me, seems to be one that returns as directly and diplomatically and firmly as possible to a position of clear neutrality on ENSās part.
Evicting Brantly on the basis of his beliefs would completely fail in that. Ignoring the issue would completely fail in that.
I believe Brantly must apologize. Not for his beliefs, because I donāt think he would be willing to do that, nor should he be required to, because a personās beliefs are their own business, no matter how much many of us may vehemently disagree with them personally. I think he must apologize for discussing those beliefs while serving in an official ENS role, and from a social media account that often promulgates official ENS information. I think the apology should address the inappropriateness of those actions, and the impacts and risks that they present for the ENS protocol and web3 as a whole. I think it would be much better if this message explicitly apologized for dehumanizing and invalidating the impacted groups, but such an apology would need to be sincere, and Iām not convinced it would be in this case.
I also think that ENS itself, either the DAO or core team members, should issue an official statement on the matter. This statement should formally and clearly disavow any affiliation with the personal ideas and opinions shared by Brantly. It should be clear that ENS is a neutral protocol where all participants have equal access. It should be clear that those ideas and opinions are antithetical to this principle of equal access, but that persecuting Brantly or anyone else on the basis of holding those opinions would also be antithetical to the protocolās neutrality and principle of equal access. Lastly, it should apologize for allowing the public and private messaging of its team members to become entangled to the point where this became an issue. Official statements going forward should not be given from any individual team member social media accounts where any non-official ENS business is also discussed. To do otherwise, again, puts its status as a neutral protocol in grave danger.
I think that ENS might pursue additional disciplinary action against Brantly for these lapses in judgement, up to and including removing him from his position, but also think that this could prove too controversial and damaging and must be handled with great care if at all.
Overall, I think this is a very serious matter that must be carefully addressed by ENS if it is to maintain its legitimacy with certain large subsets of the web3 community. I would encourage the DAO to act as swiftly as it can while still achieving all due deliberation.
Thanks.