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

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

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 845 posts

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

#471

Post by DanBC »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #462
huu wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you're a parent who happens upon a repo that uses the word "retard" as a replacement for "stupid person" or "idiot". You also happen to have a mentally disabled child. Perhaps you would have contributed to that repository and now you won't. That seems materially harmful to me, to reduce the sum total of people contributing to open source. Compare that to the potential of falling down a slippery slope to "tota…

You do know "stupid person" and "idiot" are equally offensive, right? I mean the three are pretty much synonymous with each other.

Bit tricky if you include "dyslexic" (higher incidence of high IQ) in your definition of LD.

See how your ignorance of the topic misled you?

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

#472

Post by Cthulhu_ »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #443
BetaMechazawa wrote: post #47

This obsession with making every single website a hugbox these days is moronic. The word retard/retarded is seldom associated with actual retardation instead it's just a synonym for moron. Even if you dissagree with that you should still be able to see that even if we did s/retard/moron/ or replaced it with git, idiot etc it would still violate the TOS.

It's not about meaning, it's about usage and impact . Slurs like "r@t$rd" are used against people with mental health issues and make it hard for them to participate in such spaces.

r-at-t-dollar-rd? how do you even pronounce that?

Anyway as a git I am offended by the use of the word git and it makes it hard for me to participate in such spaces.

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

#473

Post by maxerickson »

peterwaller wrote: post #322

Github has seriously harmed their reputation for me. Who is to define what's offensive? I'm reminded of someone who found the method "Hijack" offensive in the HTTP golang package, and the amount of animosity this created: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/golang-nuts/hijac...

Per their TOS for years and years now, Github gets to define what content they will publish and/or take down.

I guess they haven't really tried to paint themselves as brave defenders of speech either.

Which I don't think really says much about how people should interpret actions like this, it just means they probably shouldn't be so surprised.

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

#474

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

protomyth wrote: post #465
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like every site, GitHub acts under safe harbour. It can't and doesn't police every piece of content uploaded. But it can respond to reports. That's what's happened here.

"GitHub acts under safe harbour." This has nothing to do with a copyright or trademark violation so has nothing to do with any safe harbor provisions.

Legally-speaking, yes, but it's the same principle.

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

#475

Post by jessaustin »

huu wrote: post #445
sklogic wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's about using a word that causes harm Words do not cause harm. It's a slippery slope to total censorship and thought policing to think otherwise.

Imagine you're a parent who happens upon a repo that uses the word "retard" as a replacement for "stupid person" or "idiot". You also happen to have a mentally disabled child. Perhaps you would have contributed to that repository and now you won't. That seems materially harmful to me, to reduce the sum total of people contributing to open source. Compare that to the potential of falling down a slippery slope to "tota…

Perhaps you would have contributed to that repository and now you won't.

This is concern-trolling. Any project might have committers who are assholes. In that case maybe the project will be less successful than others, if it doesn't have other good qualities to compensate. Why should we care? You've arbitrarily picked out one specific flavor of asshole on which to concentrate, but the "it's for your own good" argument in favor of censorship is wrong in general.

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

#476

Post by DanBC »

retrogradeorbit wrote: post #432
DanBC wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't that reassure you? Assuming this letter is true: they're not stopping you from using offensive words, they're stopping you from using a very small set of words because those words contribute to a culture that cause actual harm. TV is a poor example: it's fine to make jokes about male rape on TV, but everyone loses their shit when an obscured nipple is shown.

> because those words contribute to a culture that cause actual harm. No it doesn't. Where's your proof? Plenty of people have said plenty of nasty things throughout the years, and no one died. Yet our empire uses remote control drones to bomb small children, and that's totally OK. (Now there's a real "culture that causes actual harm") What is really harmful, and what isn't? Take a good, hard look around. Sticks and…

There are cases of people who have completed suicide because of bullying based on their LD. There are cases of people who have attempted suicide because of bullying based on their LD. These are significant because people with LD are under-represented in suicide statistics.

> Try it. Go on. Call me whatever you want. And watch me not give two fucks what you think.

Next time you need medical treatment to keep you alive I'll tell the doctor that you have a severe and profound learning disability, and that will limit the length of your life and severely impairs the quality of your life. I'll argue that we should avoid resuscitation, and maybe even stop food and water.

Then I'll see if your corpse gives two fucks.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19570364

http://www.learningdisabilities.org.uk/our-news/blog/120919/

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

#478

Post by Cthulhu_ »

lfowles wrote: post #115
rtpg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious? Maintaining things is hard. Even for relatively simple stuff, things fall over all the time and suddenly your job is "make sure your mail server is up" instead of "accomplish your core business task". I don't have that sort of free time anymore.

Case in point: Ran update && upgrade on my server that runs a mailinabox container. Whoops, something broke and now the container doesn't recognize any of the owners or groups. Your family mail server is down while your wife is waiting on replies to job applications. Thankfully, it was fixed within a day, but I've had stressful weeks where I've considered just moving to fastmail instead of spending my limited time at…

Same here, Ubuntu dist-upgrade updated Apache, now none of my configuration works anymore and I need to figure out how to make the LAMP stack work again.

The old shared / virtual hosting was easier and a bit cheaper in that respect, but at the same time it was horribly limited (CPU limits).

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

#479

Post by jessaustin »

DanBC wrote: post #471
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do know "stupid person" and "idiot" are equally offensive, right? I mean the three are pretty much synonymous with each other.

Bit tricky if you include "dyslexic" (higher incidence of high IQ) in your definition of LD. See how your ignorance of the topic misled you?

"LD" is your term, which apparently is too general to be useful. As problematic as "retard" may be, no English speaker would hear it and ask herself, "are they talking about a dyslexic?"

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

#480

Post by Cthulhu_ »

DanBC wrote: post #328
rohit89 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Github asks users to obey local law. Some local law is set by oppressive regimes and is thus unacceptable to decent people. What should Github do? Ignore rule of law? Not offer service in countries with oppressive regimes? Provide tools to avoid censorship?

And yet they're hypocrites about that: they have instructions about how to circumvent the Chinese firewall on their site, which is clearly intended to have the Chinese break Chinese laws. It's not the fact they do censorship, it's the fact they measure with two measures (?) - yes to git and fuck, no to retard, yes to removing illegal stuff, no to respecting Chinese content laws, etc.

If you're enforcing a policy, do it right.

Post reply on HN