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After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

latimes.com

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Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#401

Post by rattray »

mchanson wrote: post #60
rattray wrote: post #14

What a bummer that workers are publicly demanding this, and (presumably) seeking press attention on it. I'm no fan of ICE – a very large percentage of my friends in the US are immigrants, and I generally want my country to be a welcoming one. ICE has certainly committed unethical and probably illegal acts (probably true of most federal agencies). But to expect that a _federal agency_ will be denied service from a pri…

Civility has already broken down because of the US government’s actions. Schools and other parts of the government are ending their contracts with police. People all over the country and looking hard at their actions and the actions of those companies or other entities they associate with. When the government is acting this badly the social contract gets weaker and begins to fall apart. This is just a reaction to tho…

That's a good point.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#402

Post by dastbe »

duxup wrote: post #322
dastbe wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're conflating the end result and the means. I wouldn't cheer on any company doing that, just like I don't cheer on companies when they donate to campaigns for racists or people who vote for racists. The government also doesn't have to compromise. Maybe there's a competitor who is less particular about who they do business with or in fact thinks the cruelty is actually cool and good. gitlab is 100% neutral on who…

>I wouldn't cheer on any company doing that, You would cheer on Boeing for asking that ICE be more cruel?

You said

> If Boeing decided that ICE should behave even worse, would we cheer on ICE for compromising?

I said

> I wouldn't cheer on any company doing that,

emphasis on the "n't" in "wouldn't". And to be specific, I would not (If you want to compel private companies to do work for an unprotected class like a federal law enforcement agency, then yes at that point you should probably go and vote to make sure that happens.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#403

Post by cmdshiftf4 »

unnouinceput wrote: post #309

Quote: "What I’ve learned from her is that keeping technology from ICE actively harms those vulnerable populations,” he wrote." Let's assume Microsoft in general, and GitHub in particular will get their way and severe ties with ICE. Guess what's going to happen next? a- Suddenly ICE is going to become a nice entity and everything going to be peachy or b- Chinese will supply the software instead, or worse, is going to…

Added to that:

If Github/Microsoft start picking and choosing which agencies to host, I would say it's somewhat likely and understandable that they be blacklisted from future government contracts and contract renewals.

It's also somewhat likely that in such a case, as we have seen with the Huawei moves recently, the US government could halt sale/export of tooling to any other government.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#404

Post by joshuamorton »

salmon30salmon wrote: post #218
joshuamorton wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, Microsoft is influencing policy at ICE by refusing to provide them facial recognition software, which prevents them from having facial recognition software. In general, if the idea is that a tool makes you more efficient/effective, denying that tool does the opposite. Making ICE less effective seems laudable, so why not throw roadblocks, even small ones, in the way?

Because ICE as an organization isn't purely bad, nor is it purely good. As it is made up of people, there are good and bad. ICE also fights sex trafficking, which to me is akin to modern day slavery. I want ICE to have every tool at their disposal to fight sex trafficking. If we stop ICE from using these tools, are you saying that sex trafficking victims are less worthy of help than detained immigrants? How do you dr…

No, but there are other organizations that I can donate time, money, and resources to to combat human trafficking. So any negative impact by defunding ICE's human trafficking response can be offset.

> I want ICE to have every tool at their disposal to fight sex trafficking.

I want a different organization to fight sex trafficking. If it's an important enough issue, it can be split from the organization that imprisons children, which is....not too far from what you're lauding ICE from preventing.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#405

Post by pingpongproduct »

The problem is that it's never enough for these people. It's ICE now, some other organisation tomorrow, and eventually every mention of Churchill must be scrubbed from the site. This is, unfortunately, not a hyperbole.

On the bright side of this all, I think now is a great opportunity for daring entrepreneurs to start actual utility SaaS companies that make it clear they'll do business with anyone and only interfere if and only if the law requires it.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#406

Post by newman8r »

zentiggr wrote: post #359
newman8r wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think OP meant it's lunacy because of any legal obligations private companies have to a federal organization, but rather due to the message it would send to current and future customers.

I think that message could be extremely productive, if refusing a government contract means not assisting questionable or immoral or even unsupported actions by _any_ agency.

True - I'm not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with it. It will send a good message to some people and a bad one to others.

To other government agencies, they may see github as a liability and end up leaving github altogether - I think that's the 'lunacy' part from a business perspective.

Corporations know there's always a chance that they'll get an internet pitchfork mob going after them for some (justified or unjustified) reason, and the last thing they want is for their cloud providers to pile on and further add to the fire.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#407

Post by ryanar »

Aaronstotle wrote: post #138
lurknn wrote: post #99

If working with ICE is so reprehensible, why are none of these employees taking advantage of their in-demand skillset and moving on to companies that better respect their values? I'm sympathetic with those who point out that corporations typically have more leverage than individual employees, and that changing jobs is not so easy for those who are less privileged. That category, though, of "less privileged" with rega…

I wholeheartedly agree with you. I think a lot of these tech workers want to justify their stance and feel like they did something to help. Anyone working for Facebook, Google, Amazon and now Github needs to reconcile that they are working for companies that throw morals out the door for money (which is what business usually comes down too) and deal with that in a certain way, or leave. Walkouts are worthless if you…

Github is not making money on its ICE contract though. They took that money to donate it to causes to support immigrants and policy change. I actually think they doubled the amount.

Github from a political standpoint cant drop one govt agency because they stand to lose all their other govt contracts. And any other buyer who now has to now consider they will be dropped if they come down on the wrong side of Github employees' moral compass. Github as a business, especially one now owned by Microsoft cannot do that.

I think Github has tried to do as much as it can to support policy reform without irreparably damaging their business. If that is still not enough employees need to leave at this point. There are many others who would love to work at Github and can reconcile with the situation that Github is in and accept that they are trying to change policy rather than drop the agency and hurt their business.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#408

Post by code_sloth »

jobeirne wrote: post #187
the-dude wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are carefully tiptoeing around race & gender here.

Nope - in free societies you should be able to refuse service on any grounds, including those things. Otherwise you're permitting the government to forcibly compel you to allocate your time and resources to ends they define. In free societies, governments should only be able to forcibly compel people not to do things (murder, threaten, steal, etc.) - see the concept of "negative rights."

In a your version of a free society, what happens when everyone refuses you EVERY single service because random-reason? They sure as heck aren't murdering, stealing, nor threatening you. They're just refusing to sell you anything because of random-reason, forever. Those services include sales of any food, water, shelter.

Taking it further, what if a majority of businesses gradually decide to be racist and refuse all services just because they can? Not serving minorities wouldn't really impact their bottom line all that much. The minorities would literally die off.

It's easy to talk about "rights" as if they exist in a vacuum i.e. my rights are mine and they do not affect anyone else, ergo my rights should be absolute. They are not, and should not.

Reality is usually a tenuous balance of rights (usually tilted towards the majority) that people participating in civil society share.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#409

Post by roenxi »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #305
kuzimoto wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are completely right. In a free society you should have the liberty to do business with whomever you want (no matter how politically in-correct your reasoning is). The great thing about this, is that someone else will realize there is now an under-served market, and create a business to fulfill that need. The same case can be made for hiring practices.

> is that someone else will realize there is now an under-served market, and create a business to fulfill that need. That is a childishly simplistic understanding of how free markets work. There is no way a retail business would be established to service the needs of 2% of the population who are wheelchair users for example, when they could easily make their stores considerably more efficient by making the aisles a l…

> There is no way a retail business would be established to service the needs of 2% of the population

Slow down there, you're going to need more evidence than that to claim that an underserved segment of the population isn't an attractive commercial target.

I agree that wheelchair users might be comparatively expensive customers, but if that 2% stat is correct they would be profitable to someone. A business with 2% of the market as a captive audience is going to be profitable.

Re: After GitHub CEO backs Black Lives Matter, workers demand an end to ICE contract

#410

Post by shaggyfrog »

haberman wrote: post #289
shaggyfrog wrote: post #77

There are a few comments in here already decrying “politicization”. Guess what? Politics are interwoven in every aspect of our lives. You cannot choose to “avoid” them; even suggesting you can be politically neutral is a political stance that comes from a place of privilege, because only the privileged can avoid experiencing negative political consequences inside their bubble. Collaboration with ICE is collaboration…

> only the privileged can avoid experiencing negative political consequences inside their bubble. > Nat Friedman is on the wrong side of history here. These empty words are no longer sufficient. Hopefully he figures that out before his tenure at GitHub comes to an end. These statements seem at odds. If privileged people are insulated from negative political consequences, then why is he at risk of losing his job for t…

A few things:

There are many ways how his tenure can come to an end. I am expressing a hope that he figures it out while he is still in a position to change things with his power as CEO.

As for people who lose their job for doing the wrong thing, the media is currently awash in those stories.

Even he if loses his job, he’ll still be quite privileged given his wealth and status.

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