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Tech

Mozilla CEO Does Not Tolerate Online Harassment

Mozilla will fire an employee for Reddit posts about female employees at the company.

Tech company Mozilla said this week it plans to find and fire an employee suspected of posting hateful and sexist comments online.

Mozilla CEO Chris Beard said yesterday if a Reddit user who made a series of posts about women at the company is confirmed to actually be an employee, he will be fired. The commenter made a post celebrating the departure of community organizer Christie Koehler, which came after she posted a series of tweets decrying the lack of diversity at the company.

"Frankly everyone was glad to see the back of Christie Koehler," user aioyama wrote. "She was batshit insane and permanently offended at everything. When she and the rest of her blue-haired nose-pierced asshole feminists are gone, the tech industry will breathe a sigh of relief."

Beard said the comments constitute hate speech and would not be tolerated at Mozilla. "When I talk about crossing the line from criticism to hate speech, I'm talking about when you start saying 'someone's kind doesn't belong here, and we'll all be happy when they're gone,'" he said.

The same user had previously posted to /r/MensRights whining about an invitation to Google's I/O tech conference that was only extended to women employees in an attempt to foster diversity. Recent numbers show women only hold 11 percent of executive positions in Silicon Valley.