Do impose sanctions on individuals who are associated with the rules of undemocratic regimes. But punishing whole populations (especially if they don’t have a democratic voice in the matter) is dumb and immoral.
“My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”
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Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”
#22During the Cold War, the primary thing that distinguished the US side from the USSR side was that, while speech by USSR people and people sympathetic to the USSR (like, say, CPUSA) was published in the US, publishing speech sympathetic to the US in the USSR would get you arrested. It seems like the US has become what the USSR was: companies who publish speech from people in Iran or Crimea are now violating the law by…
For example in that speach he clearly states that USSR was a a flawed totalitarian system from the start https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06-XcAiswY4
(he has in fact also stated many times that his political views were indeed censored in the US)
Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”
#23During the Cold War, the primary thing that distinguished the US side from the USSR side was that, while speech by USSR people and people sympathetic to the USSR (like, say, CPUSA) was published in the US, publishing speech sympathetic to the US in the USSR would get you arrested. It seems like the US has become what the USSR was: companies who publish speech from people in Iran or Crimea are now violating the law by…
Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”
#24I'm sure HN will try throwing some shade here, but just about everyone has sanctioned Crimea, including Canada[1], the EU[2], and Ukraine itself. MasterCard, Visa, Discover, PayPal, etc., etc. also don't work in Crimea. [1] https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_re... [2] https://europa.eu/newsroom/highlights/special-coverage/eu-sa...
Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”
#25During the Cold War, the primary thing that distinguished the US side from the USSR side was that, while speech by USSR people and people sympathetic to the USSR (like, say, CPUSA) was published in the US, publishing speech sympathetic to the US in the USSR would get you arrested. It seems like the US has become what the USSR was: companies who publish speech from people in Iran or Crimea are now violating the law by…
Meanwhile for decades I remember many software EULAs saying things vaguely equivalent to "don't use this software in Cuba", etc. That is what I would compare this to.
Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”
#26Contribution to the free software world should transcend where someone is from whether it be China, Russia, Iran or whatever new "enemy" our leaders decide.
As much as I dislike Facebook for privacy related reasons, maybe it's time that more tech companies setup a Tor Hidden Service and not ask where people are from.
Could this be used to protect them against having to implement sanctions against various countries if they don't actually know where their users are from?
It would also make blocking those websites difficult by repressive regimes too. They could implement the ability to upload a private PGP key so email notifications can be encrypted end-to-end, Facebook also allows for this.
The impending bifurcation of the Internet is something that I hate to think of, but it seems something a lot of governments are hell bent on, particularly with their insistence on "backdoors in encryption". One country's back door will be another country's vulnerability.
Now I think I will go and and donate to Tor Project to make myself feel better.
Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does that make it better?
No, it just makes it a geopolitical reality that you have to somehow punish Russia when it mobilizes ground forces and forcibly annexes pieces of land. Don't forget that Russian-backed insurgents literally shot a passenger plane out of the sky[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does that make it better?
No, it just makes it a geopolitical reality that you have to somehow punish Russia when it mobilizes ground forces and forcibly annexes pieces of land. Don't forget that Russian-backed insurgents literally shot a passenger plane out of the sky[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”
#29That's exactly the reason why we need to decentralise Github, that's way too much power for a corporation.
This restriction is from the U.S. Government, not a "corporation."
Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”
#30During the Cold War, the primary thing that distinguished the US side from the USSR side was that, while speech by USSR people and people sympathetic to the USSR (like, say, CPUSA) was published in the US, publishing speech sympathetic to the US in the USSR would get you arrested. It seems like the US has become what the USSR was: companies who publish speech from people in Iran or Crimea are now violating the law by…
This is a bit off topic, so choose not to answer if you want, but can you link me evidence of Chomsky being a USSR sympathizer? From what I've read, he's a Libertarian Socialist primarily, which seems to be the opposite of the totalitarian regime that the Russians ran under the Soviet Union.