Rap Genius: Mitgründer tritt wegen Amoklauf-Kommentaren zurück

Rap Genius Mitgründer Mahbod Moghadam ist zurückgetreten und arbeitet nicht länger mit der Webseite zusammen.

Grund für seinen Rücktritt sind unangebrachte Kommentare die er über den kürzlich geschehen Amoklauf in Kalifornien gemacht hatte. Sechs Menschen haben bei dieser Tragödie ihr Leben verloren. Der Amokläufer schrieb ein 141-seitiges Manifest, welches die Webseite Rap Genius gepostet hatte.

Moghadam fügte dem Post noch einige Anmerkungen hinzu in denen er das Manifest als "kunstvoll" und "schön geschrieben" bezeichnete. Außerdem bezeichnete er die Schwester des Schützen als "smokin' hot".  Sein Mitgründer-Kollege Tom Lehman postete daraufhin ein Statement. Er sprach sich deutlich gegen Moghadams Anmerkungen aus und berichtete, dass Moghadam nicht länger Teil der Firma sei.

Hier ist Lehmans Statement:

Mahbod Moghadam, one of my co-founders, annotated the piece with annotations that not only didn’t attempt to enhance anyone’s understanding of the text, but went beyond that into gleeful insensitivity and misogyny. All of which is contrary to everything we’re trying to accomplish at Rap Genius.

Were Mahbod’s annotations posted by a new Rap Genius user, it would be up to our community leaders, who set the tone of the site and our approach to annotation, to delete them and explain to the new user why they were unacceptable.

Were Mahbod’s annotations posted by a Rap Genius moderator, that person would cease to be an effective community leader and would have to step down.

And Mahbod, our original community leader, is no exception. In light of this, Mahbod has resigned – both in his capacity as an employee of the company, and as a member of our board of directors, effective immediately.

Mahbod is my friend. He’s a brilliant, creative, complicated person with a ton of love in his heart. Without Mahbod Rap Genius would not exist, and I am grateful for all he has done to help Rap Genius succeed. But I cannot let him compromise the Rap Genius mission – a mission that remains almost as delicate and inchoate as it was when we three founders decided to devote our lives to it almost 5 years ago.

Groove Attack by Hiphop.de