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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'

#821

Post by vacri »

Houshalter wrote: post #818
vacri wrote: post #784

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't say fuck on TV, but it's ok on Github. 'Fuck' is frequently used on TV.

No it's not. It's one of the "seven dirty words": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_dirty_words You can get fined a lot of money if you say it over the air. The FCC doesn't regulate cable, however. But those companies set their own standards, as do advertisers, and do limit or ban cuss words. Typically cuss words will be bleeped if it is used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleep_censor . However people are so used…

'Seven Dirty Words' is from 1972, and includes 'piss' and 'shit'. It's hardly a canonical reference for 2015. I recall Grampa Simpson using 'piss' in the mid-90s, for example...

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

#822

Post by Houshalter »

vacri wrote: post #821
Houshalter wrote: post #818

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not. It's one of the "seven dirty words": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_dirty_words You can get fined a lot of money if you say it over the air. The FCC doesn't regulate cable, however. But those companies set their own standards, as do advertisers, and do limit or ban cuss words. Typically cuss words will be bleeped if it is used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleep_censor . However people are so used…

'Seven Dirty Words' is from 1972, and includes 'piss' and 'shit'. It's hardly a canonical reference for 2015. I recall Grampa Simpson using 'piss' in the mid-90s, for example...

That's true, but I can't find an official list of bad words. Fuck is still forbidden as far as I know.

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

#823

Post by ossreality »

dang wrote: post #779
dmansen wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good. Let us have genocide, then, for people with learning disabilities, starting with you. uh > Call me hitler, but okay. you're hitler

Please don't feed trolls.

Respectfully, I don't think you know what a troll is.

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

#824

Post by marrs »

DanBC wrote: post #571
sklogic wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 th…

And you think this is because people described them as retards?

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

#825

Post by marrs »

DanBC wrote: post #750
sklogic wrote: post #743

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leanr a bit of logic. This is nowhere near a proof that a use of a certain language is a direct or indirect cause of a genocide and not just a symptom, and that censoring this language would have stopped the genocide. Not to mention that now it seems to be a priviledge of the self-righteous SJWs to proclaim which words should be counted as offensive this week. It never comes from the minorities in question.

> Not to mention that now it seems to be a priviledge of the self-righteous SJWs to proclaim which words should be counted as offensive this week. It never comes from the minorities in question. You're wrong. Use of the word retard has been strongly rejected by people with a learning disability in the UK. The word disability has also been rejected, which is why I use LD for learning difficulties, or I use specific di…

Any thoughts on what you'll replace "learning difficulties" with when it too gets rejected?

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

#826

Post by marrs »

Perseids wrote: post #517
marrs wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a private company, alright, but it is also becoming a critical company for the internet as a whole Hardly. OSS was in a very healthy state before Github and it will manage just fine without it. I'm not saying Github doesn't add value - it absolutely does - but if it died tomorrow, I'd simply create an account at a different vendor, push my repos to it, and pick up the pieces from there.

Distributed VCS are uniquely great in allowing one to switch hosters without much of a hiccup, yes. I was referring, though, to all the surrounding aspects of GitHub, e.g. issue tracking / discussions and discoverability. Quite a lot of projects have no online presence except GitHub pages. Let me again draw an analogy with Facebook: Of course there are many ways to contact people - (e)mail, phone, instant messenger -…

I get it, I just don't think it would be very hard to migrate those things. You'd probably even be able to download an OSS tools from whatever GitHub replacement you'd be about to migrate to.

I'm not sure I'm with you on the second point. I think I understand where you're coming from, but I think it's a reach to their from this incident. Being required to use civil language on a public site seems like a reasonable requirement to me.

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

#827

Post by DanBC »

marrs wrote: post #824
DanBC wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

And you think this is because people described them as retards?

Yes, that's certainly part of it.

The word retard was used to describe these people as sub-human, as other, as not having any worth. That started in the Eugenics material from the UK and US in late 19th / early 20th century, was put into full effect in Nazi Germany (who tested their mass murder techniques on people with LD before movig onto killing Jews) and even though it slowed after WWII the attitude is still prevelant. You will still find doctors who do not treat medical problems in people with LD with the same vigour they'd treat people without LD. You find doctors placing DNR orders on patients with LD without talking to that patient or their family first.

The word retard is frequntly used during the commission of hate crime. Disability hate incidents (which aren't always crime and are not always about LD) are more common than homophobic hate incidents or religion based hate incidents.

https://www.mencap.org.uk/blog/four-things-you-probably-didn...

Disability hate crime starts with verbal abuse. It doesn't end there. http://www.theguardian.com/society/joepublic/2011/sep/13/gem...

People with learning disability live their life being bullied. A survey for UK charity MENCAP called "Living in Fear" shows how frequent this bullying is.

https://www.mencap.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/2009...

> A survey by Mencap of people with a learning disability has found that nearly nine out of ten respondents have experienced bullying in the last year. Two-thirds are bullied on a regular basis and almost one-third are suffering from bullying on a daily or weekly basis. People with a learning disability face prejudice and widespread discrimination that often makes them feel like outcasts and prevents them from taking a full part in society. Public attitudes in the United Kingdom towards people with a learning disability remain discriminatory. The Mencap survey suggests that the bullying of people with a learning disability is institutionalised throughout society.

If you want to cause fear, alarm, upset, distress in people who have a learning disability then please do feel free to continue to use the word retard as an insult. It's not much of an insult if the person you're speaking to doesn't have an LD; they probably don't care. To them it's just a word, like "that's so gay" or "hey my nigga" are just words.

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

#828

Post by kordless »

bduerst wrote: post #297
kordless wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm imagining a nightmare scenario where, by some vauge unwritten and immature consensus mechanism, we rationalize even a slight amount of censorship as being OK.

So now graffiti removal is a nightmare scenario.

Actually, mature consensus on some graffiti is that it is art and should be treasured in the moment it exits. Banksy, for example. People are totally OK with removal for aesthetics, instead of the previously mentioned censorship.

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

#829

Post by [deleted] »

bduerst wrote: post #297
kordless wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm imagining a nightmare scenario where, by some vauge unwritten and immature consensus mechanism, we rationalize even a slight amount of censorship as being OK.

So now graffiti removal is a nightmare scenario.

[deleted]

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

#830

Post by saw-lau »

seivan wrote: post #606
saw-lau wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Sweden. Not UK. You don't get to impose words that trigger you without historical contortions on the rest of us. Please understand that. Comparison 'retard' to hate crime and racism is just obnoxiously weak and reeks of modern privilege.

I'm based in the UK, and was assuming - perhaps incorrectly - that many of the commenters that weren't bothered by the word 'retard' were based in the US, where I believe that word has less of a stigma.

I honestly don't understand your comment regarding historical contortions, I'm afraid. However, I'll stand by the argument that the word 'retard' is used as an insulting term for a section of society - at least here in the UK - and, from that point-of-view, does echo words used in a racist context, or the context of hate crime (while acknowledging that using the word is clearly not a crime in itself).

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