Because if you read the apology, he's actually backing her up. The "apology" is a lot better written than the terrible thing that was posted a day or so ago, but it is STILL essentially "We're sorry that you are upset."

It's not an apology. AFAICT the facts of the matter haven't changed here at all.

I see firing in such a case as a cop-out, a cowardly way to appease mob-mentality.

In this case if the employee responsible for firing the moderator did such acts repeatedly despite management warnings than perhaps it's a good idea to fire that person. However this doesn't seem to be the case, the CTO correctly assumed responsibility in his apology of green-lighting the moderator's firing.

He does the right thing, in my opinion, by promising a better process that wouldn't lead to such a hurtful (and seemingly unfair) dismissal.

You don't fire an employee for mistakenly deleting your production database, you update your process so this cannot happen (at least not by accident).

In some cases, that is true. In other cases, it is an important part of removing a toxic element from your organization.

There are some people who refuse to behave in the best interests of the group, no matter how much direction you give them.

...but you are correct that they are often only one part of the problem. Then again, often firing them will motivate some of their supporters to quit.

I imagine that was the impetus behind firing Monica, so perhaps turnabout is fair play.

> if the employee responsible for firing the moderator did such acts repeatedly despite management warnings than perhaps it's a good idea to fire that person

> There are some people who refuse to behave in the best interests of the group, no matter how much direction you give them

I think we agree on this.

If an employee refuses to change behaviour despite multiple warnings he/her is fair game for dismissal. However I think firing someone without prior warnings is abusive unless it's for something criminal or malicious. You can probably guess that I don't care much for at-will employment...

because she has 46k Twitter followers and the company fears Twitter above all else

Not sure I understand - who is she that you're referring to?

Sara Chipps.

Because the person responsible for firing Monica is "just doing their job", which is aligned with the political agenda.

Deciding to fire someone in such a questionable and unusual manner is never "just doing their job". Someone made a really poor call here, and is trying to excuse it with accusations and events that never seem to have happened.

That combination, and the fact that it resulted in a major scandal for SE, makes it absolutely justifiable to fire the person responsible.

It's only because the events got out of hand, not because of the action per se. The same person has been doing this for many more cases where it was just fine and this is perfectly clear by the tone of the CTO.