Sebastian Sinclair

<div id="highlights-block_6226d5f13a010" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The vote follows a month of debate and consideration by the community over whether to boot Brantley Millegan for comments made in 2015</li>
 <li>ENS founder Nick Johnson abstained from the vote</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Ethereum Name Service (ENS) director of operations Brantly Millegan has been reinstated at the DAO following a month of debating by the community over controversial comments he made in 2015.



According to a snapshot vote by delegate members ended Sunday, Millegan has won the right to retain his seat as head of operations by a margin of 5.88%. The vote to remove Millegan saw 1.4 million votes cast to retain the director versus 1.2 million in favor of his departure.



The DAO vote was based on one vote per token and not one vote per individual. Millegan, who holds the majority of the DAO&#8217;s native token ENS, was able to vote against his ousting while ENS founder Nick Johnson abstained from the vote.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">&#8220;Through this Social Proposal, the DAO shall decide whether Brantly Millegan is deemed capable, or otherwise, of continuing his role as the Director of the Foundation Company, and to appoint a suitable replacement if he is deemed incapable,&#8221; a section of the Snapshot vote reads.</blockquote>



Johnson initially took to Twitter to <a href="https://twitter.com/nicksdjohnson/status/1490196337463533569?s=20&amp;t=ftQVnZYj_BUjPMV85-L6LQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">defend</a> Millegan and assisted the director in <a href="https://twitter.com/nicksdjohnson/status/1490398146077540352?s=20&amp;t=lLVew3GWY8JJITPJWaW09Q" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">getting his message across</a> to his audience following a ban against him by the social media platform.



The ENS founder eventually conceded to public outcry and moved to <a href="https://twitter.com/nicksdjohnson/status/1490581937375027202?s=20&amp;t=cD-9pxrMqI3DXI-jrZ87Og" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">terminate the contract</a> of Millegan at True Names Limited — the nonprofit that funds and organizes development on ENS.



Last month, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/ens-community-reconsiders-directors-role/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">controversy erupted</a> within ENS&#8217; community after a more than 5-year-old tweet by Millegan resurfaced. Millegan was removed from his role as community steward shortly after, though the vote over his directorship had hung over his head for more than a month.



Blockworks attempted to contact Millegan but did not receive a response by press time.



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ENS Foundation Retains Director Following DAO Vote Over Controversial Tweet

<div id="highlights-block_62006d613415f" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Delegates and members of the Ethereum Name Service foundation are weighing a draft proposal to terminate Millegan</li>
 <li>The development is dividing ENS&#8217; community, with some defending the director&#8217;s right to religious views, while others decry discrimination</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Controversy has erupted within the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) community after a more than 5-year-old tweet by the foundation&#8217;s director of operations, Brantly Millegan, resurfaced on Friday.



Delegate members from the Decentralized Autonomous Organization protocol are weighing up whether to terminate Millegan&#8217;s directorship for comments made in 2016 about his views regarding homosexuality, transgender people and abortions, among other topics.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="358" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/tweet-1024x358.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-16819" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/tweet-1024x358.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/tweet-1024x358.jpg?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/tweet-1024x358.jpg?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/tweet-1024x358.jpg?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/tweet-1024x358.jpg?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/tweet-1024x358.jpg?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/tweet-1024x358.jpg?w=80 80w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/tweet-1024x358.jpg?w=50 50w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/tweet-1024x358.jpg?w=1184 1184w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption>Brantly Millegan&#8217;s tweet from 2016</figcaption></figure>



A <a href="https://discuss.ens.domains/t/draft-proposal-dao-wide-proposal-to-terminate-directorship-of-brantly-millegan-at-the-ens-foundation/10277?u=viaeth" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">draft proposal</a> has been put forth to DAO delegates — those with voting rights making decisions affecting the protocol — to weigh in. The draft is not an active proposal, but a consideration for delegates to bring forward a vote on whether he should remain in a director role.



ENS is a domain name service designed to turn Ethereum machine-readable addresses into human-readable ones.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">not really anything to address? i adhere to the world&#39;s largest religion and apparently that&#39;s not allowed in web3?&mdash; brantly.eth (@BrantlyMillegan) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrantlyMillegan/status/1490181411004952576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



The controversy has called into question the nature of DAOs and the relationships they possess with voting delegates. Millegan is ENS&#8217; largest and most powerful delegate with <a href="https://www.withtally.com/governance/eip155:1:0x323A76393544d5ecca80cd6ef2A560C6a395b7E3" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">377.68K votes</a>. Coinbase comes in at number two, only slightly behind Millegan with 333K of the DAO&#8217;s total voting share, after the director&#8217;s power gap narrowed following the resurfaced tweet.



Millegan has since been removed from his role as community steward following a &#8220;simple indicative majority vote&#8221; on Sunday, after the director defended his views in a Twitter Space discussion on Friday.



&#8220;After listening carefully to the concerns of the stewards, delegates, and many other community members, I believe it is in the best interest of ENS and the communality to remove Brantly from his role as a Community Steward,&#8221; said community steward member <a href="https://discuss.ens.domains/t/removing-brantly-eth-as-a-community-steward/10408/11" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Kevin</a> &#8220;validator.eth&#8221; on Sunday.



While the 2016 <a href="https://twitter.com/brantlymillegan/status/731075016691994624?s=21" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweet</a> has since been removed for violating Twitter&#8217;s rules, a debate has opened up within social circles as to how the director&#8217;s views should be dealt with, if at all.



&#8220;You are accusing Brantly of misconduct but failed to produce evidence of such actions in this proposal. Right now, I see that the DAO has power to remov[e] him, but that’s all,&#8221; said one delegate going by the name &#8220;irreverent.&#8221;



&#8220;I would suggest clearly stating the relevant information (ie, the tweets, spaces, etc.) as well as any guidelines or specific clauses that he has violated. If the current proposal is submitted, I will vote NO because I see no clear misconduct being displayed&nbsp;given the current information within the draft&nbsp;and it feels like an angry mob vote.&#8221;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">&#8220;This vibe is definitely something I do not want the DAO to give off.&#8221;</blockquote>



Those within the community defending Millegan&#8217;s right to free speech point to examples that the director has not acted upon his beliefs to de-platform minorities within the protocol. Others still call into question his public views and their effect on the protocol&#8217;s market health.



&#8220;He is bad for ENS because he creates segregation of users by his words and actions, said &#8220;Healing Visions,&#8221; another ENS delegate weighing in on the draft proposal. &#8220;Many have removed their .eth name, the price is down and will abandon the platform. If you can’t get behind it from a human perspective, which would be very sad, then from a business perspective it doesn’t make sense to keep him.&#8221;



The lead developer of ENS, Nick Johnson, announced Monday morning that Millegan would no longer be working with True Names Limited, the nonprofit company that funds ENS development.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">True Names Limited (TNL), the nonprofit that funds and organises development on <a href="https://twitter.com/ensdomains?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ensdomains</a>, has terminated the contract of Brantly Millegan effective today.&mdash; nick.eth (@nicksdjohnson) <a href="https://twitter.com/nicksdjohnson/status/1490581937375027202?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 7, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Blockworks attempted to contact Millegan to discuss the draft proposal but did not receive a reply by press time.



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