Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

“My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 406 posts

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#201

Post by olivierduval »

solidasparagus wrote: post #184
olivierduval wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like "open source" alternatives, you mean ? ;-) On my toy android app, I'm trying to avoid anything Google-licensed: replacing Maps by OSM for example. Just a small step... but a new mindset. Problem is: today the US sanctionned some well-known "bad" actors (under UN scrutiny) but will sanction EU too... just because of business or strategical interest (and without any UN consensus).

You think the US is going to sanction the EU?

I'm affraid that the current US administration has a really wide interpretation of what "US national security" is, far wider than any other administration, including not only the political or geostrategical scope but the business scope too. And technology is a core part of business.

Before this US administration, EU was considered a "friend" or "allied" of the US, meaning sharing common values, like human rights, universality, or that it's better to have win/win trade than win/loose trade. There was competition AND cooperation.

But now, it seem that the US administration sees the EU only as a competitor and as a foe. This US administration is only restricted to bully the EU because the EU is strong enough to not let it be that way and may retaliate.

So yeah, sadly, I think that US will try to sanction the EU in some or other way (and in fact already started). The more the US is centered on itself, the less it cares about the rest of the world and the more it think that it DOESN4T NEED allies and friends, and it can treat EU like a servant.

And more sadly, I think that EU will have to stand for itself, to not depend nor a Russia or China... but not on US too.

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#202

Post by dragonwriter »

olivierduval wrote: post #201
solidasparagus wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think the US is going to sanction the EU?

I'm affraid that the current US administration has a really wide interpretation of what "US national security" is, far wider than any other administration, including not only the political or geostrategical scope but the business scope too. And technology is a core part of business. Before this US administration, EU was considered a "friend" or "allied" of the US, meaning sharing common values, like human rights, uni…

> I'm affraid that the current US administration has a really wide interpretation of what "US national security" is, far wider than any other administration, including not only the political or geostrategical scope but the business scope too.

It's not actually wider than recent Administrations, which have had similarly expansive definitions and in at least on case expressly included environmental concerns that this Administration rejects as even real, much less matters of national security.

What does differentiate the current Administration’s view of national security from prior ones is that it is utterly unmoored from reality.

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#203

Post by SpaceRaccoon »

my_first_acct wrote: post #103
option wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with what you said. But this means that US/West sanctions people for their democratic choice. We should instead sanction people associated with Russia’s totalitarian government.

The US has in fact sanctioned Russian officials associated with the annexation of Crimea. [1] You might also spare some sympathy for those residents of Crimea who did not wish to join the Russian Federation, for example, many Crimean Tatars. Not only have they suffered the loss of access to github, they also have to contend with a campaign of political repression. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_…

So whose will should trump the other? The majority or the minority?

Perhaps you should spare some sympathy for the majority of the Crimean populace who wished to rejoin Russia- I notice you have none.

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#204

Post by dragonwriter »

lazyjones wrote: post #200
_u5xo wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious? EU citizen here. US has a two party state (where one is deadpan centrist and the other right wing). EU has a whole host of political parties from far right to far left. It's the most diverse political landscape. That could potentially mean it's much more democratic than the US. I wish more US citizens cared more about the outside world than they did about their selves.

> It's the most diverse political landscape. That could potentially mean it's much more democratic than the US. Democracy doesn't require a lot of parties, it requires that the people actually have the power to elect someone in charge. The EP is powerless and none of the EC members are elected or can be removed by a public vote.

> Democracy doesn't require a lot of parties, it requires that the people actually have the power to elect someone in charge.

No, this problem has been studied and democracy (that is, rule by the people) empirically requires an electoral system that had the capacity to support multiple competitive parties; to the extent systems artificially limit the option space they produce results that are not representative of the will of the people.

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#205

Post by golergka »

I'm glad that US is pressing in this. Five years since Crimea happened, it's still cut off Russia in terms of business – all the major companies won't touch it with a ten-feet pole exactly because of sanctions. It's a sad state of affairs for people who still live there, but a good precedent for the world peace, showing that this annexation will not be normalized.

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#206

Post by SpaceRaccoon »

rcfox wrote: post #47
dvt wrote: post #3

I'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...

FYI: It's just "Ukraine", not "the Ukraine". "The Ukraine" referred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the Soviet Union.

> "The Ukraine" referred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the Soviet Union.

This is misinformation. "The Ukraine" precedes the USSR. It comes from the fact that "Ukraine" is derived from "borderland". Hence, "the Ukraine" - "the borderland".

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#207

Post by edwinyzh »

rdl wrote: post #114

A (very bad) US bank of mine froze my account in a way which was exceptionally difficult to fix because I tried to use the mobile app to check my balance while physically in Ukraine (not anywhere near Crimea; they chose to fucking sanction the entire country because Ukraine got invaded, which was the opposite of the intent of the law).

Can you name the bank?

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#208

Post by philpem »

kragen wrote: post #6

During 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…

> The US doesn't yet have massive prison camp systems full of political dissidents

No, but they have several full of people who were trying to escape from countries which were falling to pieces...

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#209

Post by edejong »

wongarsu wrote: post #37
asveikau wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you can see the difference between blocking someone from publishing Chomsky and forbidding US companies from "doing business" in those places. 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.

Github is essentially a public library for computer code, but they happen to make money. I'm not sure I can see the difference between publishing and "doing business" in this case.

I find it intriguing how people keep making these mistakes. Something is not 'public' because it is shared by many people and used as if it is public. It is a wolf in sheep's clothes and it isn't even lying about it.

Github, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Sourceforge, HN, Slashdot... These free services are not public. You might treat them as such, but you are foolish believing they are.

If you cannot see the difference, I suggest to read the excellent Wikipedia article. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_service

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#210

Post by pyrale »

smsm42 wrote: post #179
jMyles wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their Github Pages page was censored. They are unable to participate in the maintenance of an open source repository. This was done, according to Github, as a requirement to comply with the laws of its state. If that's not a free speech issue, there are no free speech issues.

You confuse trade war with censorship. I'll explain the difference. Censorship is based on content: if you can say "long live Communist Party" but can't say "long live Republican Party", that's censorship. Trade war is based on origin: if you are not allowed to do trade (business) or provide services to residents of certain place, regardless of the content or purpose, that's embargo. > If that's not a free speech iss…

> Censorship is based on content: if you can say "long live Communist Party" but can't say "long live Republican Party", that's censorship.

Using that definition, censoring all publications of a given group (say, black people) would not be censorship. That's a big hole in the definition.

Post reply on HN