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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'

#571

Post by DanBC »

sklogic wrote: post #504
DanBC wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Words do cause harm. It's a failure of imagination to think otherwise. When you use the word retard you dehumanise people with LD. You contribute to a culture where it's okay to deny those people work; to segregate them in specialist housing; to deny them medical treatment; to kill them with lack of medical treatment. It's a slippery slope to eugenics and genocide to think otherwise.

> When you use the word retard you dehumanise people with LD. No. When I use the word "retard" I'm pointing out on a lack of mental ability demonstrated by a particular person. And I do not even want to discuss anything that contains the SJW newspeak like "dehumanise", "empower", "exclude" and all that crap. > You contribute to a culture where it's okay to deny those people work; to segregate them in specialist housi…

People with learning disability have been the target of eugenics in various forms. They've been subjected to sterilisation sometimes without their knowledge and sometimes against their will. They've been interned in segregated care homes. They've been murdered - either directly killed because they have LD or allowed to die by doctors refusing to provide medical care or placing DNR notices without the patient's (or their family's) knowledge and consent. They've been shot and killed by police who lack skills to work woth people with LD. People with LD were used as subjects of medical experimentation against their will and without their knowledge. They were told they were being innoculated against hepititus when they were being infected with hepititus. (This was in the 1970s, a long time after Nürnburg Code and after Helsinki agreement). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willowbrook_State_School

Hundreds of thousands of learning disabled people have been killed purely because they have a learning disability. I stand by the genocide claim.

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

#572

Post by im3w1l »

drdaeman wrote: post #436
im3w1l wrote: post #205

Is there a code hosting solution that a) lets me self host code b) has identity system (common to all self hosted instances) c) has pull requests whose origin can be verified with the identity system?

You mean... git? You can self-host git repo. It's quite storage- and transport-agnostic - you can host it over HTTP, SSH, NFS, SMB/CIFS and even FTP if you're into perverse things. Every commit has your name and email address, and if you want authentication you can sign those with your public key. And, well, you can send and receive patches using any means you want. The patch is just a text (usually) file.

>And, well, you can send and receive patches using any means you want.

I would prefer an built-in interface, which is why I asked for it.

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

#574

Post by mangeletti »

smrtinsert wrote: post #567
cmiles74 wrote: post #551

I don't understand how censoring something because "it's offensive to someone" came to be acceptable in the first place. Nearly everything is offensive to someone, it's simply too low a bar. I'm certainly not campaigning for more use of the terms "retard" and "retarded". On the other hand, I've experienced first hand the very common, reflexive and thoughtless use of these words. Whenever it's used in my presence I ma…

I think that's not giving Github enough credit. They are clearly thinking very deeply about professionalism in a social coding frame, and I really doubt they will begin addressing every single complaint they receive. If they do, again, there are existing alternatives or the people are free to build their own. The alarmism over this "incident" is mind boggling. That people don't simple let Github conduct their busines…

Nobody is running into anywhere and "yelling 'retard'", the equivalent of which would be more akin to posting "RETARD" on comment threads all over GitHub. If that's what was happening, most would regard it as spam and would probably agree that the user should be banned (at least temporarily). That's not what happened.

So, while I agree that using "retard" in a lighthearted manner is offensive, and I wouldn't do it myself, I don't decide what others are allowed to say, because I don't want others to decide what I'm allowed to say[1]? Instead, I'll make a choice about who I want to be friends with.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule

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

#575

Post by babygoat »

JungleGymSam wrote: post #195
thedz wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. This isn't censorship of the type that is illegal or not allowed. It is a private company deciding a word was inappropriate. 2. It seems like most in this comment thread agree that this action, as a singular act, is a good thing. The word was offensive. Github asked the repo to change it. They did. The end. 3. As for the larger context, the problem with the frequent use of slippery slope arguments and cries of "ce…

> 3. As for the larger context, the problem with the frequent use of slippery slope arguments and cries of "censorship" is that people are choosing to die on some pretty ridiculous hills. > 4. If or when Github actually does something truly abusive of their power to censor, then I'll worry. This is bizarre. Your thinking goes directly against our human nature: recognize future danger and try to avoid it. The danger i…

> The danger is that you seem to be choosing to not recognize the growing trend towards what are seen as appropriate responses to being offended: shaming, ostracizing, and the forced silence of the "offender".

So wait, do you have a problem with using language against people or not?

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

#576

Post by saw-lau »

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.

I actually find it slightly depressing how many people here don't find it offensive, and are comfortable with it. Maybe it's a US vs. UK thing?

Many people in the sixties said 'coon' or 'spade,' and many people in the seventies said 'paki' or 'poof;' and you could argue that those words weren't directly offensive insults, but - to me - there is still some undercurrent of the different and qualities of 'I'm superior and this is my mocking little word for those different to me.'

I don't know. Everybody has their own opinions, of course, but were I running a service and somebody reported that to me, I would have done the same thing.

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

#578

Post by MrDosu »

Nyetan wrote: post #63

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…

All i thought when reading the linked thread was "What a horrendous waste of so many developer hours".

Tolerance is a two way street. It also means accepting minor things you necessarily don't agree with. These topics are blown so far out of proportion that they are actually hurtful to workplace and gender equality.

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

#579

Post by michaelbehan »

FROM THE PAGE:

nixxquality commented on c1ac0ba 4 hours ago

    They are not alone. I know many people who would find this offensive. It isn't like they shadowbanned them or deleted the repo outright. The maintainers were given 24hrs and instructions to fix it.
    -- @ybur-yug
No, what actually happened is that somebody reported the original upstream of this fork (WebMBro/WebMConverter) but since @WebMBro himself left a while ago (which prompted me to make this fork in the first place), GitHub couldn't get a response from him, so they shut down that repo along with all forks, with seemingly no communication towards other fork developers.

I had to contact GitHub myself in order to even get a notification of what was going on, and it took them about 3 days to restore any kind of access to my fork of the project.

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

#580

Post by grovulent »

smrtinsert wrote: post #567
cmiles74 wrote: post #551

I don't understand how censoring something because "it's offensive to someone" came to be acceptable in the first place. Nearly everything is offensive to someone, it's simply too low a bar. I'm certainly not campaigning for more use of the terms "retard" and "retarded". On the other hand, I've experienced first hand the very common, reflexive and thoughtless use of these words. Whenever it's used in my presence I ma…

I think that's not giving Github enough credit. They are clearly thinking very deeply about professionalism in a social coding frame, and I really doubt they will begin addressing every single complaint they receive. If they do, again, there are existing alternatives or the people are free to build their own. The alarmism over this "incident" is mind boggling. That people don't simple let Github conduct their busines…

Github's actions are entirely understandable - I agree. They are just trying to survive as a business.

But I don't agree that the resultant alarmism is mind boggling. Folks are becoming increasingly anxious at the ever increasing signalling costs being applied to innocent discourse; applied by people who have little to no institutional authority, and who certainly aren't recognised by folk AS authorities.

In response - folk are responding instinctively by upping their own application of signalling costs in retaliation. So you see folks saying things like: I'll never use GitHub again if they do this, instead of just remarking to themselves privately - gee, that was a bit harsh of Github, and moving along with their day.

What I personally find interesting is that I'm not seeing much discussion about what the real causes of these rising signalling costs are. I kind of expected Hacker News to be interested in that sort of thing - but here, as everywhere else, everyone is just getting caught up in the fever. We are all human I suppose.

My favourite explanation is one predicted by various game theoretic models about punishment in human groups. Game theory predicts that as human group sizes increases more people become "punishers" and apply higher signalling costs. I can link to research papers if people request.

With the internet - of course - group sizes have increased massively. Furthermore - the economic costs of signalling have dropped dramatically. So we are collectively applying much higher social signalling costs to compensate.

I haven't been able to find research that specifically tries to confirm this hypothesis - but various related hypotheses, as well as the game theoretic models that generated them, have obtained significant confirmation. Hence I set high credence for this particular hypothesis of mine (though it does need a much more rigorous formulation).

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