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“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”

#231

Post by Grue3 »

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…

>It seems like the US has become what the USSR was

What a ridiculous overreaction. You're basically arguing that companies should be able to profit from other countries annexing foreign territories without any regard for international law.

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

#232

Post by efdee »

n4r9 wrote: post #229
alacombe wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> arresting people for saying something the powers don't like You just described what's happening in the UK or Canada. Yet, I give it, neither have "free speech", but moral point remain that what happened in the USSR is happening today in the western world.

We have hate crime laws in the UK under which you can get arrested for making statements which are grossly offensive towards someone's ethnicity, creed etc... . That's vastly different from arresting people for criticising the government.

#lockherup #sendthemback

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

#233

Post by maxheadroom »

colechristensen wrote: post #123
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).

They would be doing that to prevent money laundering, trying to stop people going to sanctioned places and transferring money around for the locals at hefty profit. (in other words, not the opposite of the intent of the law)

>They would be doing that to prevent money laundering, trying to stop people going to sanctioned places and transferring money around for the locals at a hefty profit. (in other words, not the opposite of the intent of the law)

Did they forget we have modern inventions, like VPN and airplanes? Localising it to Ukraine (in this context) sounds like they're generally just after the low-hanging fruit (read: the poor who can't afford such things).

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

#234

Post by Dayshine »

lazyjones wrote: post #228
dragonwriter wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 th…

> 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 First democracy: ca. 500 BC First political parties: ca. 1800 AD We could discuss in detail whether the EU system or the US system enforces more artificial limits, in the end the EC remains much less democratic due to its relative power…

>in the end the EC remains much less democratic due to its relative power and independence from the electorate.

Isn't the European Commission elected by the European Council, and formed of commissioners nominated by the democratically elected leaders of each member state?

Democracy doesn't have to equal direct election.

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

#235

Post by sneak »

elliekelly wrote: post #73
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.

It was done as a requirement to comply with the laws of the United States[1] and insisting it's a free speech issue does not make it so. The United States government has no obligation to care about the collateral silencing of non-citizen speech in a foreign country subject to economic sanctions. The government also has a mechanism where someone inadvertently impacted by sanctions can appeal to the Treasury Department…

Human rights to free association and free expression have nothing to do with citizenship.

> The United States government has no obligation to care about the collateral silencing of non-citizen speech in a foreign country subject to economic sanctions.

You have inverted the “care about”: if they simply did not care, it would be fine, as they wouldn’t be interfering with anyone’s rights. However, they are caring quite a lot, in the sense that they are willing to use violence to enforce these prohibitions.

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

#236

Post by d33 »

rimliu wrote: post #224
nournia wrote: post #213

Thank you GitHub, thank you Microsoft and thank you U.S. for all the love you bestow upon people.

Not thanks to Russia for the occupation?

How is that relevant?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

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

#237

Post by wahern »

elliekelly wrote: post #73
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.

It was done as a requirement to comply with the laws of the United States[1] and insisting it's a free speech issue does not make it so. The United States government has no obligation to care about the collateral silencing of non-citizen speech in a foreign country subject to economic sanctions. The government also has a mechanism where someone inadvertently impacted by sanctions can appeal to the Treasury Department…

I agree people lean too heavily on Free Speech when criticizing the government, but there's actually a long running debate going back decades regarding the extent to which OFAC specifically and the U.S. government's sanctions regime generally can restrict various communication and publication platforms and activities. Just a few months ago I think there was a story on HN about the IEEE tweaking their participation rules, and IIRC their lawyers were pushing back on the OFAC.

Here's a 2012 law review article (which I haven't read, yet), "Information Wants to be Free (of Sanctions): Why the President Cannot Prohibit Foreign Access to Social Media Under U.S. Export Regulations", https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3...

Arguably, Microsoft and Github are simply choosing to participate more strictly than what is legally required--including what's constitutionally permissible for OFAC to enforce. And of course that's the problem with these large, centralized, free services. They can kick people off whenever they want whether it was legally required by law or not, and they will because they're going to be very risk averse in situations where they're not directly deriving revenue. There are many other areas where corporations, in the pursuit of profits, play fast & loose with the law in the face of far greater potential fines and liability.

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

#238

Post by n4r9 »

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.

By "EC" I'm guessing you mean European Commission? This is appointed by the European Council and requires approval from the European Parliament. If the make-up of the Commission is a point of serious public interest then the public can democratically enforce their interest via their choice of heads of states and MEPs.

More concerning is the inability of the European Parliament to repeal legislation, but things are gradually moving to change this.

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

#239

Post by dingoegret »

Grue3 wrote: post #231
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…

>It seems like the US has become what the USSR was What a ridiculous overreaction. You're basically arguing that companies should be able to profit from other countries annexing foreign territories without any regard for international law.

Wow look at this guy, he was able to come up with a rationalization to justify bad deeds. No one has ever done that before.

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

#240

Post by Noos »

dngray wrote: post #26

I'm from a US-friendly nation but I get terribly sad when I hear things like this. Contribution 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…

The issue would be what happens if russia declares some manner of war on us. Your contributors and maintainers are now citizens of a hostile country who might actually believe in their aims.

I think people have a naive cosmopolitanism that assumes knowledge work transcends state loyalty, but there are reasons that it may not do so nor is it safe to rely on the current model of peace to persist.

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