321–330 of 845 posts
Time for GitHub follow their own rules and change their name to something that's not offensive.
> Git is a mild pejorative with origins in British English for a silly, incompetent, stupid, annoying, senile, elderly or childish person. It is usually an insult, more severe than twit or idiot but less severe than wanker, arsehole or twat.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_%28slang%29
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/golang-nuts/hijac...
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Free speech isn't just a legality. It's a valuable principal that's stood the test of time of being one of the few core features of functional societies. Free speech is a value that we should all uphold regardless whether it legally applies or not. So stop making excuses for bad corporate behaviour.
"Free Speech" isn't a blank check to say and do whatever you want. Even SCOTUS says that direct threats of violence aren't protected by the first amendment. I'm tired of reading people nebulously defining "free speech philosophies" online to act as a shield to justify nefarious behavior on private property. Free speech exists as a protection from government censorship, and it doesn't protect you for acting like a dic…
So what happens when the line between government and corporation is blurred? The common justification why that corporations aren't beholden to free speech is that you can just choose another corporation to spend your time/money on.
What if you can't choose? What if it's prohibitively expensive to just setup an alternative (perhaps due to regulatory capture)?
What if there's no competition because corporations have subtly merged with government?
Maybe it's simply just not right anymore to assume that if it's a private organisation that they're exempt from societal/governmental principals.
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OP used the term "free speech" which is a legal term that in the US refers to 1st amendment protections around expression. Well, free speech laws don't apply to me on your property. It is legal for you to tell me to shut up or get out.
Free speech as a concept isn't just about the first amendment and isn't just about the law. Free speech can be defended on any number of grounds, and many of them apply equally to privately enforced speech restrictions. For example, consider John Stuart Mill, one of the founding figures of modern liberal thought. In On Liberty, his spirited defense of free speech, he argued that shunning or widespread ostracism for e…
This brings up a point that's been nagging at me for a while: does making a community more inclusive necessarily mean making it less distinctive? GenderDetector (formerly SexMachine [1]) is another example of this process, wherein what was formerly considered within the norm of politeness is now sufficiently far outside to cause outcry. I'm curious what other people think -- this has been on my mind for a while, and…
Not yelling "NIGGERS NIGGERS NIGGERS" doesn't mean your project turns into homogenous gray sludge, indistinguishable from all the other projects. If anything the projects that fling slurs are less distinctive - they're all so stupid that they limit themselves to English slurs so they end up with a very limited set of insulting terms. If they want to be hrave they could see all the stuff that's illegal in various countries and include those concepts. They should start insulting the ruling family of Kuwait, for example.
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OP used the term "free speech" which is a legal term that in the US refers to 1st amendment protections around expression. Well, free speech laws don't apply to me on your property. It is legal for you to tell me to shut up or get out.
Free speech as a concept isn't just about the first amendment and isn't just about the law. Free speech can be defended on any number of grounds, and many of them apply equally to privately enforced speech restrictions. For example, consider John Stuart Mill, one of the founding figures of modern liberal thought. In On Liberty, his spirited defense of free speech, he argued that shunning or widespread ostracism for e…
He also says that the offense principal should not trump freedom of speech, but acknowledges that there are cases of offense that cause psychological and social harm that still qualify for the harm principal.
Was the repo code change harmful? Maybe, depending on the definition of property. Mill saw freedom of speech as a path to the truth, and he also understood that principals and rules change over time. I think he might be in favor of Github censoring their repo since it was their property and not a crucial debate towards finding the truth.
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"Free Speech" isn't a blank check to say and do whatever you want. Even SCOTUS says that direct threats of violence aren't protected by the first amendment. I'm tired of reading people nebulously defining "free speech philosophies" online to act as a shield to justify nefarious behavior on private property. Free speech exists as a protection from government censorship, and it doesn't protect you for acting like a dic…
"Free speech exists as a protection from government censorship" So what happens when the line between government and corporation is blurred? The common justification why that corporations aren't beholden to free speech is that you can just choose another corporation to spend your time/money on. What if you can't choose? What if it's prohibitively expensive to just setup an alternative (perhaps due to regulatory captu…
Github isn't even remotely "blurred" with a government organization. This is some pretty out-there FUD.
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Are you really trying to make this about "a very significant chunk of your independence and freedom"? Yes, when you host with people who have standards of conduct and civility, you have to respect those standards. Get over it, or host derogatory content on your own dime.
In the case of github, they can and have taken down/blocked repos that foreign govt have found objectionable. So its not the odd offensive word here and there. Luckily, git makes it easy to have multiple copies of a repo lying around all over the place.
What should Github do? Ignore rule of law? Not offer service in countries with oppressive regimes? Provide tools to avoid censorship?
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That's willful ignorance of the real issue. This is not an isolated incident. Society is increasingly rejecting any and all "offensive" language and behavior. Should we all be nice and respectful to each other? Yes, of course. Are people that way? No. Can we police ourselves fairly and achieve a society that is not offensive? Absolutely not.
> Can we police ourselves fairly and achieve a society that is not offensive? Absolutely not. Hacker News is a pretty nice place.
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It is not a "kind of thinking", it is a simple statement. The word "censorship" doesn't work here. You may still argue that you don't like that Github behaves like that: the statement that you quoted doesn't oppose that view.
Censorship does not require an act of Congress. Private entities are perfectly capable of censorship. How else could the term "self-censorship" have any semantic value?