What's the difference between a Chinese company and a US company? None. Both work for the state, although US ones operate under the guise of democracy.
This sort of union between tech and politics is not going to take us anywhere.
GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
11–20 of 515 posts
Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is GitHub supposed to do?
> What is GitHub supposed to do? Disobey the law, make a public statement about it, and deal with the consequences. This is not a new problem, it was treated by Kant a few centuries ago.
Are you really suggesting that companies should willfully break laws? We already have this in reality I guess, but don't think we should suggest them to do it further. Right way to get change would be for companies to get together and lobby for the change they wanna see, not just break the law.
Although I agree the export embargo is fucking stupid, especially when it comes to online technology, I really want to see less criminal behavior from companies, not more.
Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What is GitHub supposed to do? Disobey the law, make a public statement about it, and deal with the consequences. This is not a new problem, it was treated by Kant a few centuries ago.
Are you really suggesting that companies should willfully break laws? We already have this in reality I guess, but don't think we should suggest them to do it further. Right way to get change would be for companies to get together and lobby for the change they wanna see, not just break the law. Although I agree the export embargo is fucking stupid, especially when it comes to online technology, I really want to see l…
> Although I agree the export embargo is fucking stupid, especially when it comes to online technology, I really want to see less criminal behavior from companies, not more.
The law is not stupid, it's criminal. By following it, companies are precisely engaging in criminal behavior.
Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also not fair to blame people (well, companies...) for obeying the law. Personally, I'd rather a world where companies obey the law than one where they pick and choose what laws they would like to obey.
I agree with you. It's alright to blame them, but it's unfair at the same time. The world is not fair. EDIT: concerning hypothetical worlds, I pretty much not want to live in a world were companies blindly follow the law regardless of how harmful it is. We have tried these worlds in the past and they were not pretty.
> EDIT: concerning hypothetical worlds, I pretty much not want to live in a world were companies blindly follow the law regardless of how harmful it is. We have tried these worlds in the past and they were not pretty.
Personally, I think a distinction is necessary. Companies IMO should absolutely obey the laws regardless of if they like them or not. It's entirely unfair to blame them for obeying the law.
They (as well as individual people) are free to oppose those laws in an attempt to change them, however until they are changed, they should follow the laws or cease trading in the country who's laws they disagree with. It's entirely fair to blame them for not fighting stupid/wrong/harmful laws.
Allowing companies to choose which laws they are going to obey is never going to end well.
Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
#15Github refused to help me regain access to an 11 year old account when I changed jobs so lost access to 2FA and email account at the same time.
We lost access to tens of thousands of dollars worth of project code which we had to rewrite.
The customer service support was Google style brick wall.
I wish this guy luck in getting access.
Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
#16Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you. It's alright to blame them, but it's unfair at the same time. The world is not fair. EDIT: concerning hypothetical worlds, I pretty much not want to live in a world were companies blindly follow the law regardless of how harmful it is. We have tried these worlds in the past and they were not pretty.
> EDIT: concerning hypothetical worlds, I pretty much not want to live in a world were companies blindly follow the law regardless of how harmful it is. We have tried these worlds in the past and they were not pretty. Personally, I think a distinction is necessary. Companies IMO should absolutely obey the laws regardless of if they like them or not. It's entirely unfair to blame them for obeying the law. They (as wel…
I'm sorry, I cannot reply to your post without triggering Godwin's law.
Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you really suggesting that companies should willfully break laws? We already have this in reality I guess, but don't think we should suggest them to do it further. Right way to get change would be for companies to get together and lobby for the change they wanna see, not just break the law. Although I agree the export embargo is fucking stupid, especially when it comes to online technology, I really want to see l…
> Although I agree the export embargo is fucking stupid, especially when it comes to online technology, I really want to see less criminal behavior from companies, not more. The law is not stupid, it's criminal. By following it, companies are precisely engaging in criminal behavior.
You seem confused why GitHub did what they did. In the US there is something called "US Export Law", the law includes declarations that makes companies unable to sell services/goods to certain countries (which spoiler, Iran is part of that list).
The law itself is not illegal, as the lawmakers have created and enacted that law. It's the opposite, the law is declaring what's illegal.
So, if GitHub doesn't ban users from Iran, they are breaking the law in the US.
Hope this clears up any misunderstanding on how things work.
Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
#19Can't really blame GitHub here... US laws are badly written.
US laws follow US geo-politics, which is where the problem lies.
Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
#20Can't really blame GitHub here... US laws are badly written.
It's alright to blame people for lawfully following harmful laws.
> It's alright to blame people for lawfully following harmful laws.
It's also alright to blame people for interpreting laws too widely and too abusively. The legal and security departments are much at fault for this where they'll prefer to abuse people than to take up any kind of risk.