Sam Sethi, publisher of TechCrunchUK, has just Twittered to say that he’s been fired by Michael Arrington:
“I have been fired by Arrington for not removing the post comments from Loic. I will be looking for work and writing on www.vecosys.com“
Sam is referring to a stunning ‘Deja Vu‘ comment left by Six Apart’s Loic Le Meur on the TechCrunchUK blog in which he calls out Sethi as ‘an asshole’. It all seems rather reminiscent of LesBlogs 2005…
Sam went on to follow up Loic’s critical comment by making another post on the TechCrunchUK blog entitled “Putting my money where my mouth is” (UPDATE: this has since been pulled from TechCrunch UK).
In it he announced that TechCrunchUK, which was a sponsor of the LeWeb3 event, would be hosting it’s own round of industry events and workshops during the forthcoming year.
I’m not entirely clear the exact reason for Sethi’s departure. I don’t believe this is simply a moderation issue – especially as Loic’s comment hardly used the most ‘profane’ choice of language at his disposal. One can only speculate that Arrington simply didn’t agree with Sethi’s take on the event, and for that Sethi has had the chop.
No doubt Sam will post more about what has happened over on his personal blog.