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GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

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Re: GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

#201

Post by JungleGymSam »

brandonmenc wrote: post #157
Zikes wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in the literal sense it is censorship, being the suppression of materials deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds. A bit like a (likely American) TV censor might "bleep" a word they don't want to expose people's delicate sensibilities to. I mean, that doesn't make it "evil", but a lot of people might say that censorship of any sort is a bit of a grey area. That whole "I disagree wit…

> "I disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it" When it comes down to it, no one would really do this.

What the...? What the.. what... I ... WHAT? You.. I can't even.

What?

Re: GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

#202

Post by kentonv »

thedz wrote: post #86
kentonv wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it offensive? Yes. Does Github have the right to take it down? Yes. Is it unethical for Github to take it down? Not at all. But should they? I don't know, I don't think I would have. It's kind of scary to use cloud services where it's hard to tell if your content might be judged in violation of some rule and might suddenly disappear as a result. If the offensiveness were more extreme (say, a repo dedicated to maki…

Your first three questions/answers, summarized, is that "Github ethically and legally removed an offensive word" Should they? Yes. I feel slippery slope arguments get brought up way too much sometimes. Every issue is turning into a binary all-or-nothing ordeal, with no room for nuance or context. As long as what Github did is 1. ethical (removing a generally accepted as offensive word), 2. legal, then I see no proble…

I'm not making any slippery slope argument. I'm saying that if it's hard to predict what minor infractions might result in 24-hour ultimatums, then that's going to make users uncomfortable, and that a lot of users wouldn't have predicted that this particular case would lead to a 24-hour ultimatum.

If the ultimatum were, say, 30 days, then I think it's in the realm that I consider sensible. That's long enough to get back from vacation without finding all your stuff is gone. The file had been there over a year, so surely it wasn't that urgent.

Maybe they could have sent an auto-generated pull request to make things easier.

Re: GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

#203

Post by jat850 »

chillacy wrote: post #174
jat850 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely different definition of the word. Not applicable or comparable.

This one, however, does seem to be relevant: # assertTrue is retarded, use the normal assert statement assert L https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/t... Along with: // TODO(darin): Fix this retardation! return buf_->RemainingCapacity() // HACK: I'm at a loss about how to get the syntax checker to get // whether a template is externed or not. For the first pass here, // just do retarded string c…

Those examples you have picked fit the same problem as the initial argument, yes. "retard" in French means "slow" or "late".

Re: GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

#204

Post by hhandoko »

seivan wrote: post #183

It's kind of scary how many people here consider the word retard offensive. I assume words like "fucker" or "dicks" would also trigger you? I get that Github as a private corporation gets to decide what they want or don't want but that's driven on how many people genuinely get offended so I'm assuming a large portion of people genuinely got bothered by this compared to all the other shit happening in the world.

We're not discussing about private conversation between two friends. I would be offended if a stranger said that to me. Wouldn't you?

Of course, I can see that this is done for laughs, but not everyone sees that.

Re: GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

#206

Post by ectoplasm »

aerovistae wrote: post #100
ectoplasm wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is the selective censorship of certain reasonable uses of free speech that is concerning here. Free speech laws don't apply to corporate or private censorship. > Who decides what is and is not appropriate? The owners of the property. Can I come over to your place and say offensive things?

Depends, is his place a known haven for sharing information, specifically designed to encourage and promote openness?

Unlike your ISP, GitHub is not a common carrier.

Re: GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

#207

Post by hhandoko »

prasanthv wrote: post #61

Good job GH. It's sad this is shocking to some people. Perhaps they haven't dealt with anyone with mental disabilities or seen what their families deal with, and that's not their fault, nor is it an excuse. It's called empathy.

Not sure why you are downvoted, but I thought it's relevant.

Re: GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

#209

Post by PopeOfNope »

Lazare wrote: post #105
CoryG89 wrote: post #40

For people who don't see what's wrong here. The issue is not about whether the word 'retard' is or is not offensive to anyone. You need to consider that GitHub currently hosts a large percentage of the web's open source repositories. This is censorship plain and simple, something that IMO has no place in open source. The issue is that there are plenty of things some people might find offensive on GitHub but you dont…

Github is not a public service; they're a private company. > Who decides what is and is not appropriate? Github does. That's how that works. If you prefer you could try and lobby your government to set up some sort of national source code repo. Maybe you'd find the rules on such a thing more to your liking. (Note: You really, really wouldn't.) Alternatively, you could host your own source code repos, and then you can…

Github is not a public service; they're a private company.

They're both. They're a private company that offers a public service. As such, they can't do whatever they want. For example, if they wanted to ban all repos written by black men, that would be illegal.

Nobody is suggesting that banning a repo for using a bad word is illegal. A breach of trust, a breach of ethics and a breach of reliability[0], but not illegal.

[0]: if I were a company, I would be thinking twice about trusting any of my business to Github. If a British employee commits a word that is commonplace in Britain but very offensive in America (like 'fag'), does that mean my repo goes away? Could I mess with another company by purposefully taking one of their commits out of context and creating an internet controversy over it on twitter?

Re: GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

#210

Post by iwwr »

thedz wrote: post #199
Animats wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This isn't censorship of the type that is illegal or not allowed. It is a private company deciding a word was inappropriate." As a Github user, that kind of thinking worries me. Google Code went away, and Sourceforge started packaging adware and spyware with other people's projects. They could do this because "they were a private company". Now Github's management is starting to throw their weight around. We now need…

> We now need to think about a backup plan in case Github management gets out of line. This is a distributed source control system. Keep a clone of the repo somewhere. Your source code is now no longer bound to Github.

That's not the only reason people use Github. It's the Facebook of programmers in some sense and it's got a critical mass that switching to something else is not practicable (not without some serious momentum).
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