Mahbod Moghadam, the co-founder of Rap Genius who posted offensive comments on alleged mass murderer Elliot Rodger's 141-page manifesto Sunday, has left the company, according to Recode's Kara Swisher.
Valleywag reported Sunday that Moghadam had used the site, which allows people to leave public commentary on things like rap lyrics and news items, to annotate an autobiography written by Rodger, a 22-year-old man who allegedly killed six people in a shooting Friday night in Santa Barbara, California.
In a statement to Valleywag, Moghadam said he was drawn to the manifesto because Rodger was talking about "my neighborhood growing up."
"I got carried away with making the annotations and making any comment about his sister was in horrible taste, thankfully the rap genius community edits out my poor judgement, I am very sorry for writing it," he wrote.
According to screenshots of comments published in multiple outlets, Moghadam allegedly theorized that Rodger's sister is "smokin hot," and wrote that some of his sentences were "beautifully written" or "artful." As of Monday, many of Moghadam's most egregious annotations have been removed or edited on the site.
Tom Lehman, co-founder and CEO of Rap Genius, announced in a statement published on Rap Genius Monday that Moghadam had resigned.
"[Moghadam] 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, he wrote. "All of which is contrary to everything we’re trying to accomplish at Rap Genius."
But according to Recode, Moghadam was asked to leave the company.
Rap Genius did not immediately respond to The Huffington Post's request for comment, but here's the full statement from Lehman, the company's CEO:
Yesterday the Rap Genius community annotated Elliot Rodger’s manifesto on News Genius. Because this tragedy is still so raw, there was internal debate as to whether this document belonged on the site at all. Ultimately we decided that it was worthy of close reading – understanding the psychology of people who do horrible things can help us to better understand our society and ourselves.
The current version of the annotated document is far from great, but the hope is that the annotations will improve over time as the story unfolds and it will eventually be a good resource for people looking to understand this tragedy.
Almost all the annotations were at least attempting a close reading – they were genuinely, though imperfectly, trying to add context to the text and make it easier to understand.
However, 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.
Tom Lehman
Co-Founder & CEO