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Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#441

Post by toupeira »

archi42 wrote: post #291
sytse wrote: post #143

Someone at GitLab just made a suggestion to change the wording of the policy that I merged https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/merge_requests/...

This still leaves the "talking about politics is banned"-point-of-criticism. Since you're the CEO: How did problems discussing politics manifest at GitLab that you feel this step is necessary? Or is this a "preemptive strike"?

We don't really have a "ban" as such, see my recent handbook change here with more discussion: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/merge_requests/...

But even before that it just seemed like a "guideline" to me rather than a strict "rule" that was actively enforced, and it was introduced years ago before we had a proper Code of Conduct in place.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#442

Post by Vaslo »

I know many of you work in tech in areas of the country that lean very far one way. I go back and forth on this: is this guideline more important in state like Virginia where you will start to see a more diverse and potentially time wasting or is it more important in Silicon Valley where some minority opinions should be protected if only unpopular? And if unpopular they would respect users views more?

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#443

Post by midnighttoker4 »

sytse wrote: post #143

Someone at GitLab just made a suggestion to change the wording of the policy that I merged https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/merge_requests/...

Does that in any way change the meaning?

Would you still do business with say, turkey as they move in the kurds?

India as they continue to oppress kashmir?

Or gab?

stormfront?

do you have a line beyond legal minimums?

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#444

Post by midnighttoker4 »

sytse wrote: post #380
archi42 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This still leaves the "talking about politics is banned"-point-of-criticism. Since you're the CEO: How did problems discussing politics manifest at GitLab that you feel this step is necessary? Or is this a "preemptive strike"?

For example I was deeply moved by Executive Order 13769 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13769 and posted so in our Slack. The first comment was 'F* Trump', written out. At the same time many people in our company probably voted for Trump.

You should fire those people, they are not good people.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#445

Post by vlunkr »

brnt wrote: post #378
anm89 wrote: post #129

I personally think this is awesome. I don't wan't some git hosting startup to be the arbiter of morality for society. The engineers, designers, and PMs shouldn't have an outsized voice in society because they have a specialized useful skillset and ended up on a successful product. If these users are breaking laws, then put them out of business via the courts and sieze the assets (the repos in this case) via legal mea…

'Arbiters of morality of society' is only possible because American capitalism is rigged to favor gravitation towards one or a few consolidated entities. This need not be. When Americans ask, where's Europe's Google, I smile, because the landscape, for now, seems to prevent consolidation into a handful of olicharch, and therefore no one company can arbit anything. There's always loads of choice, or there should be. N…

> where's Europe's Google

Europe's Google is Google. Everyone there uses it, so why would you need your own?

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#447

Post by anarchodev »

madrox wrote: post #385
anarchodev wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't wan't some git hosting startup to be the arbiter of morality for society. The engineers, designers, and PMs shouldn't have an outsized voice in society because they have a specialized useful skillset and ended up on a successful product Refusing to serve a customer when you disagree with that customer's goal is pretty far from being a "moral arbiter for society." Keep in mind that anyone is free to use othe…

> Refusing to serve a customer when you disagree with that customer's goal is pretty far from being a "moral arbiter for society." This sounds really good until someone refuses to bake a wedding cake for a couple because they're gay. The supreme court ruled in favor of the baker. You're advocating for a world where that's ok. Is that the world you want to live in?

I'm not so worried about the supreme court ruling -- businesses don't usually succeed or fail based on the justices ruling that their business model isn't technically illegal. I want to live in a world where the community embraces good things, and actively rejects fascists and bigots whether or not it's legal to do so.

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#448

Post by graeme »

clairity wrote: post #424
graeme wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be surprised at what is "not illegal". Every community moderates. You can make an argument that some sites have moderated too much, or been too overtly political. But every community moderates, and has to. This can be demonstrated with a simple example. Guess what isn't illegal? Spam! It should be obvious that FB and Twitter etc have to take spam down though. Then there's abusive behaviour. Stalking, harassment…

good point, but from a tactical perspective, not moderating might have made sense, to force lawmakers' hands in passing stronger laws about spam, harrassment, propaganda, etc. they'd have a regulatory shield and probably retain carrier status, rather than sticking their necks out by selectively moderating content. a moderate amount of moderation is my preference, but i see the value in freer speech zones on the inter…

They do have a regulatory shield though. Section 230 allows platforms to moderate their sites, while leaving them not liable for any content they do leave up. It's considered speech of the user.

This has come to a head as plarforms have grown larger. Note that even if some platforms were strictly neutral, they'd still be affected by the changes the government is proposing. It would have been very unlikely that none of the major platforms would have moderated beyond legal minimums.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communica...

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#449

Post by sonotathrowaway »

buboard wrote: post #350
sonotathrowaway wrote: post #98

"If your values aren't used to inform who you're doing business with, why do you bother pretending to have values at all? This [merge request] demonstrates that you don't have any values except 'we want to make money, and it doesn't matter who gets hurt.'" It sounds a lot like GitLab has a set of values that it doesn’t feel comfortable openly championing, so it just lies.

that black or white thinking sounds fallacious

Which part is black/white thinking - the belief that values need to inform your actions?

Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work

#450

Post by pseudalopex »

djsumdog wrote: post #236
sytse wrote: post #143

Someone at GitLab just made a suggestion to change the wording of the policy that I merged https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/merge_requests/...

> we encourage diversity of ideas. We respect the uniqueness and autonomy of others, even if we do not always agree with them. I like this. I like this a lot. I've never been a fan of the way the Contributors Code of Conduct does explicitly allow for people to have opinions of their own outside the projects so long as they don't try to represent those opinions as being a representative of the project. If it had, and…

No one with any power asked Elia Schito to leave Opal. He kept his position and still mentions it in his Twitter profile.[1]

[1] https://twitter.com/elia

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