The Web3/Ethereum community is currently divided by a culture war. Here's an easy-to-understand recap.

Since last weekend, the Ethereum community has been torn apart by an unprecedented culture war. Two camps have formed, and there is no indication that they will find common ground anytime soon. I will not take side with this post, as I only want to inform people of this issue.

So... What exactly is going on?

One of the pillars of the Web3 movement is the Ethereum Naming Service (ENS). This is a way to associate a public address with an easy-to-remember address; rather than telling your friend to send ether to you at 0x1234abcd..., for example, you tell them to send that to "yourname.eth". It may not matter much today, but this protocol is a part of the foundation on which much of Web3 is built.

One of ENS's most influential developers, Brantly Millegan, has made some very controversial tweets about homosexuality, trans people, masturbation and pornography. Brantly is a practicing Catholic, and he has stated that all of these things are "evil".

People in the community asked him to withdraw his words and apologize, which he refused.

Why did the situation escalate?

Soon, two camps were formed.

On the one hand, those who believe that Brantly can say whatever he wants, since it is his freedom of speech. These people do not necessarily endorse his positions, but they defend his right to express them. They argue that the essence of Web3 is permissionless. In their view, nobody should be cancelled for their personnal beliefs.

On the other hand, there are those who believe that Brantly views are dangerous and hurtful to members of the community who are gay, transgender, or who use pornography. They are afraid that, as a public figure in the Web3 community, Brantly will scare away a lot of people with his opinions.

We have all the ingredients for a good old-fashioned "wokeness versus free speech" conflict.

What are the consequences of the dispute?

Brantly was removed from his position by the organization that manages ENS. Some of the "free speech" fringe reacted by selling their ENS tokens, and some even gave up their .eth domain entirely.

On its side, the "woke" fringe hopes that such incidents will not happen again. They are gathered under the name "ENS is for everyone", and they militate for Web3 to be a safe space for everyone.

What's next?

I don't know, and nobody knows. But this first culture war is a great test to determine the values of Web3. Do we want it to be a bastion of free speech, or do we want it to be a welcoming place for everyone? The next few weeks are gonna be interesting, that's for sure.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you learned something from me today! What do you think about all this?

EDIT : Please be respectful in your comments, the discussion will be of better quality that way.