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Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

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Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#441

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

GenericsMotors wrote: post #351
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, targeting Chinese people on Green Cards is xenophobia. I'm not interested in whatever rationalizations are given for this sort of discriminatory behavior. The US is sadly headed down a path towards socially acceptable racial discrimination, justified by the new bogeyman - China.

The ban applies to people living in China or Russia, not on chinese or russians. Any american or european living in either country would similarly be affected by the ban. Untwist your knickers please.

It very quickly escalates to discrimination against Chinese people in the US, as evidenced by the highly upvoted comment I originally responded to. I'm sorry if I get my knickers twisted about people proposing an entire race of people pose a national security threat, but this sort of xenophobia has rarely gone well in history.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#442

Post by el_cujo »

netok wrote: post #288
mb_72 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious as the way I see it it's very often China who is the 'initiator', eg internment of Muslims, stealing of territory in South China sea, debt-trap diplomacy, and so forth. Presuming that you are aware of these occurrences, do you agree with your government's positions and actions, and - if not - what actions, if any, do you take to make it clear your opposition? The Chinese government is, IMO, massively over sen…

As a chinese, this kind of comment makes me hate the west even more. I have no control over my government. Zero. 0. Do you understand the concept of 0? Thats the amount of influence I have over any government matter. And you people being racist pos because there is nothing I can do about my gov. Wtf do you want?

>I have no control over my government. Zero. 0. Do you understand the concept of 0? Thats the amount of influence I have over any government matter.

Then you should be more pissed off at your own government and screwed up system than the people who are pointing how that the system you live under is screwed up.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#443

Post by iiertiosas »

munmaek wrote: post #331
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you in USA? Should other countries refuse to employ USA citizens because of actions of the government - things like pulling out of Syria to enable the Turkish murder of the Kurds to continue. >China has been using our money ... The best way is to vote with your money then?

Well, the US government wont make my family disappear if I don’t cooperate, for starters. I find it intellectually dishonest to compare the USA’s foreign policy with a dictatorship government that forces compliance through threats on local relatives, etc.

How do you reconcile this with drone strikes that take out entire weddings just to get one individual?

Or the infamous “signature strikes” that target individuals based on metadata? [1]

1. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-...

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#444

Post by celeritascelery »

rqs wrote: post #427
computerex wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nationalism has always been high in China ever since the CCP took control. Not being a nationalist would be a good way to suddenly disappear off the face of the Earth. China has always had double standards. They make it hell for U.S companies to do business there. The only thing that has changed is that the U.S has started pushing back somewhat as of late, but things are still currently in favor of China. When China…

> China has always had double standards. They make it hell for U.S companies to do business there Here we go. "CCP is bad and China is bad, so every Chinese is bad". This kind of logic is not very healthy, it just like saying "Google(Or insert any company here) is bad, let's punish their employees", it will hurt those employees (way) more than it hurt Google. Put the story into context, if Chinese engineers cannot fi…

> I bet CCP is also counting on the rising nationalism in the US as well, to drive Chinese engineers back home

OP even mentioned that moves restricting hiring in China from US will help their Chinese based company.

> CCP is bad and China is bad, so every Chinese is bad

This is a very unfair summarization of the parent comment. They never implied that conclusion. Yes, the CCP is bad; And they control China and the Chinese people. But that does not say anything about the people themselves other then they are subject to the communist rules. It is a resistance to the CCP privacy practices that brings this change.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#445

Post by el_cujo »

490d0aff0ee8 wrote: post #185

It's immoral to discriminate on the basis of fear, prejudice, and rumor. One client can demand that Gitlab get rid of Chinese and Russian nationals today. Tomorrow, a different client can make similar demands - aimed at the nationals of different countries. This makes no sense whatsoever, and will blow out of control quickly. Sanction programs are the established legal frameworks for such things: https://www.treasury…

I think you're being a bit disingenuous. It seems you're almost implying Chinese and Russians are being randomly discriminated against for no reason, as if the kind of thing Gitlab is worried about has never happened before. Specifically with people loyal to those two countries. Yes, it is discrimination, whether it is baseless discrimination is much more debatable.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#446

Post by dlgeek »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #19

I'm shocked (in a positive way) about the amount of transparency Gitlab provides. Even as a reader, it almost feels as if someone misconfigured the ACLs or I'm reading leaked internal documents, not an intentional decision to make this open. Some of the discussions seem highly sensitive, and yet it seems to work for them. Thank you, Gitlab, for being so open! I've learned a lot about compliance from just reading this…

I'm shocked that they'd extend it to their lawyers. This thread (and the one the other day about telemetry and the GDPR) are a plaintiff and/or prosecutor's dream.

One of the hardest parts of most white collar prosecutions is proving that an action was taken "knowingly and willfully". Unlike other areas of criminal law, most white collar offenses require prosecutors to prove that not only did the person know they were doing the things they were doing, they had to know they were illegal.

Having the party's own lawyer offering legal advice outside the scope of privileged communication is normally windfall enough. Having them do it publicly and in the media's eye is just insane.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#447

Post by Aunche »

munmaek wrote: post #381
lentil_soup wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nobody here has a problem with Chinese people in general" The link this whole discussion is about is about banning Chinese people. Not the government, not even people that work for the government, just "Chinese people in general"

...because of the PRC. This whole discussion is because of the PRC, and having ties to family members living under the PRC.

"I'm not against hiring black people, just those who live in areas controlled by gangs or have family members who live in these areas."

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#448

Post by el_cujo »

nscalf wrote: post #405
peterkelly wrote: post #376

I wrote another comment arguing that this proposal was both racist and discriminatory, which got flagged and deleted without explanation, presumably because I worded it in such a way as to give an example that might resonate more with Americans by using examples of specific groups of people that have experienced oppression in the US. In the interests of quality discussion on HN, I'm going to make another attempt but…

The fact that you’re in one of these countries makes you easy to access by enemies on the global scale. Assuming the individuals are good, that doesn’t mean they’re not a security risk. The reality is, countries like Russia and China do not respect intellectual property, and are know to perform cyber espionage and attacks. This seems very reasonable to me. Furthermore, the whole point of anti-discrimination laws are…

>Furthermore, the whole point of anti-discrimination laws are to prevent judgement based off traits that cannot be changed. Where you live is not the same thing as your skin color.

This is very true. People are getting very caught up on discrimination without taking into account all of the "acceptable" forms that happen all the time. If you're a violent felon, you are likely going to be discriminated against when looking for a job in child-care. Yeah, this is an extreme example, but it's a form of job discrimination most people see as reasonable. Like-wise, people are discriminated against all the time in jobs for things like lack of qualification or lack of relevant degrees, etc., and again most see this kind of discrimination as reasonable. The kinds of discrimination that aren't reasonable are things like no hiring somebody because of their race because there isn't any reasonable connection between that fact and their ability to do job.

The question here isn't whether it is discrimination to not hire those who live in Russia or China, the question is if the underlying premise that those people are more of a data liability than other people. I haven't read the entire thread, but so far I haven't really seen much discussion on this point, just lots of people saying the policy is outright racist (even though I believe the policy only affects people who currently live in those countries regardless of race rather than not hiring people of Chinese/Russian descent who live elsewhere).

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#449

Post by SimbaOnSteroids »

iiertiosas wrote: post #443
munmaek wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the US government wont make my family disappear if I don’t cooperate, for starters. I find it intellectually dishonest to compare the USA’s foreign policy with a dictatorship government that forces compliance through threats on local relatives, etc.

How do you reconcile this with drone strikes that take out entire weddings just to get one individual? Or the infamous “signature strikes” that target individuals based on metadata? [1] 1. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-...

Just because my kitchen's on fire doesn't mean I shouldn't report the murder occurring at my neighbor's house. I can be concerned with both, and should be. So while I'm trying to put out my kitchen fire, I should also probably be on the line with emergency response. I am not my government, nor is my government going to disappear me for loudly criticizing it and supporting politicians that would work to stop our moral failings.

Re: Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

#450

Post by habnds »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #400
munmaek wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the US government wont make my family disappear if I don’t cooperate, for starters. I find it intellectually dishonest to compare the USA’s foreign policy with a dictatorship government that forces compliance through threats on local relatives, etc.

> Well, the US government wont make my family disappear if I don’t cooperate, for starters. Right, if you're a U.S citizen maybe not, otherwise they'll do that and worse, read on "enhanced integrations", kidnappings etc. So the U.S is better domestically, (still employs prisoners as effectively slave labor, treats minorities harshly, lets people die due to lack of healthcare...), but it is worse in terms of foreign p…

a free press and free elections make it not so much of a wash
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