
GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard' - necessity
https://github.com/nixxquality/WebMConverter/commit/c1ac0baac06fa7175677a4a1bf65860a84708d67
======
CoryG89
For people who don't see what's wrong here. The issue is not about whether the
word 'retard' is or is not offensive to anyone. You need to consider that
GitHub currently hosts a large percentage of the web's open source
repositories. This is censorship plain and simple, something that IMO has no
place in open source. The issue is that there are plenty of things some people
might find offensive on GitHub but you dont see them threatening everyone with
takedown notices. It is the selective censorship of certain reasonable uses of
free speech that is concerning here. Retarded is off limits, but cursing is
okay (maybe?). Who decides what is and is not appropriate?

~~~
thedz
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 "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.

~~~
Animats
_" This isn't censorship of the type that is illegal or not allowed. It is a
private company deciding a word was inappropriate."_

As a Github user, that kind of thinking worries me. Google Code went away, and
Sourceforge started packaging adware and spyware with other people's projects.
They could do this because "they were a private company". Now Github's
management is starting to throw their weight around. We now need to think
about a backup plan in case Github management gets out of line. All their
value, after all, is created by others.

~~~
jamie_ca
You mean like [https://gitlab.com/](https://gitlab.com/) or
[http://gogs.io/](http://gogs.io/) or
[http://getgitorious.com/](http://getgitorious.com/) or any of the other open
source git servers that you can install on your own machine?

Not to say that Github couldn't close down some of their API endpoints in the
future (like reading issues/comments), but they're one of the web services I
use that I _don't_ actually fear lock-in on.

~~~
tomjen3
If I want to migrate to any of platforms, how difficult is it to get
everything of of github (including tickets, etc) and set up a redirect on
github?

~~~
Tiksi
I know gitlab has an option to log into your github account and I believe you
can copy everything down.

I use gitlab pretty much exclusively and I prefer it to github by a large
margin.

I do maintain a "public"(you likely won't come across it unless you know about
it) gitlab server and host a few people's repos including my own. I mean you
have to trust me instead of github, but the server is always up to date, and I
won't take down anything that isn't illegal. If anyone is interested, feel
free to shoot me an email.

~~~
sytse
Glad to hear you like the import function. It works pretty reliably although
it can struggle when someone imports 400 repo's (10GB+) with one click of the
button, but we're working on that too.

------
cmiles74
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 make a point to express my distaste for the term and I encourage
others to stop using it. I've gone through these motions with countless co-
workers and two people higher up on the management chain, including my direct
supervisor. But where I live, it's practically a regional colliquialism.

In this case, perhaps removal or correction is reasonable and Github is acting
responsibly; I've already established that I have problems with these terms
and do find them offensive. Still, I am uncomfortable with the whole episode
and I don't feel at all confident that the next time this happens, it will
seem as reasonable. On the contrary, I expect that the next time this happens,
it will end up being more about ideology as it seems more and more people
conflate "I am offended" with "I disagree".

~~~
kefka
What's going on at Github is rather perverse. And it happens to be around the
word "Meritocracy".

Because of the "feels", the word meritocracy is a 'disempowering word'. It
makes people with less skill feel 'less valuable'. So the impetus is to raise
your skill? No. It's to devalue others who call you on it, or disregard your
uninformed opinion.

What this accumulates to is the Github rug in the headquarters. "The United
Meritocracy Of GitHub".

As quoted,

"GitHub's Julie Ann Horvath, a designer who also founded the company's all-
female lecture series Passion Projects, said the rug first became a problem
when photos of it made their way into feminist discussions online.

The tech industry isn’t still predominantly white and male because white men
are better at their jobs than everyone else, it’s because many white men have
had more opportunities to succeed than their minority and female
counterparts."

Yep. Because of patriarchy, meritocracy really isn't. Oh, and throw in a bash
to Paul Graham. Because 'patriarchy'.

And of course, there are also allegations that the Feminist Hackerspace
DoubleUnion denied a GH employee because of the rug. Some equality, huh?

So, the same cancer that hit Reddit (free speech -> 'safe space') is coming to
other companies, unsurprisingly. And we have feminism to blame.

~~~
pekk
This isn't the real problem. Github's earlier obsession with the word
"meritocracy" isn't even relevant. Horvath isn't relevant here either.
Feminism isn't relevant here. Paul Graham isn't relevant here. Reddit isn't
relevant here. You're all over the place with stuff that isn't relevant.

The issue is that Github's content policing has been turned up to 11 so that
it's not just harassment or even seriously offensive content anymore, it's
repos with words for "dumb" or "stupid" in the code that are getting
ultimatums. This is not really different from banning repos for taking the
Lord's name in vain, or writing offensive words like fuck and shit. So Github
has become an unsafe space for average programmers, who sometimes cuss or call
something stupid or even take the Lord's name in vain. And that is no good,
because Github's whole purpose is to host code for people.

That's important and should be addressed. But you are only screwing us over by
associating us with GamerGate, anti-feminism and all that crap.

~~~
kefka
> The issue is that Github's content policing has been turned up to 11 so that
> it's not just harassment or even seriously offensive content anymore, it's
> repos with words for "dumb" or "stupid" in the code that are getting
> ultimatums.

And that's the effect in "cause and effect".

The cause is feminism's creep into the boardroom as a group to appease. And
the policies are as inane as arguing that "meritocracy" is an evil male word.
Meritocracy is also considered a 'micro-agression' by similar said feminists
because it "makes them feel bad".

So, youre right that the problem right now is Github content policing. Why? My
comment explains it.

------
cheald
GitHub making value judgments on the political correctness of speech in the
repositories they host makes me extremely hesitant to continue to use them. I
want my service platforms to be neutral to content, so long as it's legal.
This isn't some complaint about "freedom of speech" or some whine about how
GitHub can't do this, but their doing so has substantially harmed my faith in
them as a platform and as a company that I want to be dependent on.

I'm voting with my wallet, and I've just deleted my private repos and
downgraded from my paid plan. I don't wish to support these kinds of actions
with my dollars.

~~~
shkkmo
I agree completely. Why the hell should Github care about this? These sorts of
decisions reduce my confidence that Github won't make even worse decisions
that actually materially effect me. Without confidence in them, I'll start
hosting my code elsewhere.

------
BetaMechazawa
This obsession with making every single website a hugbox these days is
moronic. The word retard/retarded is seldom associated with actual retardation
instead it's just a synonym for moron.

Even if you dissagree with that you should still be able to see that even if
we did s/retard/moron/ or replaced it with git, idiot etc it would still
violate the TOS.

~~~
lazzlazzlazz
Even the words "moron", "idiot", etc. all have an etymological root in
referring to the mentally handicapped.

I, for one, will think twice about relying on Github in the future if they try
to police what is and isn't appropriate language.

~~~
the8472
> Even the words "moron", "idiot", etc. all have an etymological root in
> referring to the mentally handicapped.

The euphemism treadmill in action.

And I like to think of it as the prisoner-as-powersource kind of treadmill,
not the fitness exercise one.

------
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.

------
Yver
They didn't just threaten to shut it down, according to their email
([https://imgur.com/QC51FZz](https://imgur.com/QC51FZz)) they _did_ disable it
at the same time they disabled the parent repository a few days ago.
([https://archive.is/XiTS9](https://archive.is/XiTS9))

------
Randgalt
github is within their rights to do this but it's horrendous that they are
doing it. The corpus of offensive speech (or code in this case) is getting out
of hand. The code is clearly humor. Not everyone appreciates the same humor
but humor is _meant_ to be offensive. So, the policy will proceed to be no
humor in code that isn't bland. But, then, all of silicon valley is moving
toward this. A github founder got into a lot of trouble for "objectionable"
humor. I'm certain I'll get lots of downvotes for this. But remember the old
tale that "first they came for the Christians and I didn't complain because I
wasn't a Christian..."

~~~
jonah
Martin Niemöller's quote[1] is an important one, possibly even more so today
than when he first said it. We're so caught up in our own selfish bubbles,
we're failing to consider those around us.

There are many variations of the saying - several from himself, but the best
known version goes:

    
    
      First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
      Because I was not a Socialist.
    
      Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
      Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
    
      Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
      Because I was not a Jew.
    
      Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
    

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_..](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_..).

[Edit 1] Removed editorialization.

[Edit 2] Reverted it. Isn't that what this whole discussion is about? Being
able to say unpopular things?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Ah yes, the famous quote about Nazi Germany.

So, do people use the same quote about how the German government banned Nazi
symbols in the aftermath of that?

Oh wait, no they don't. I wonder why that might be.

~~~
Fishman343
There's an enormous difference between banning things with direct links to the
murder of more than 6 million people, in the hope that no-one gets hurt in the
years immediately after the event, and the banning of a word which hurt tens
of people's feelings over the internet.

------
userbinator
It's particularly ironic to see this coming from a site named _Git_ Hub:

[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/git#Etymology_1](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/git#Etymology_1)

IMHO as far as offensiveness is concerned, 'retard' is pretty far down the
scale... and regardless of whether they have the right to do this, I think
this whole "politically correct" movement is a pretty disturbing trend. It's
basically encouraging people to become offended more easily, and turns
straightforward easy-to-understand conversations into watered-down vague
doublespeak-ish verbiage. (If you've worked in any large organisations with
similar policies, you'll know what I mean. I left that culture behind years
ago and don't regret it one bit.)

Are there any GitHub equivalents that support the ideas of free speech and
expression (within what the law allows)?

~~~
hhandoko
I agree that the word may be down on the offensiveness scale, but it is still
offensive to some people.

Large organisations have such policies because they are aware that they are
composed of people from diverse set of backgrounds. Unless you know exactly
who the message is intended to, the delivery will always sounds vague /
generic.

Before coming to Australia, I never knew that showing picture(s) of a deceased
Aboriginal person is a cause of offense. If, say for example, a fatality
occurred and the last group photo with the deceased Aboriginal was circulated
(e.g. in memoriam memo), they would regard it as an offense even with the best
of intentions.

TL,DR; Let's just be respectful and not call each other names.

~~~
hueving
>I agree that the word may be down on the offensiveness scale, but it is still
offensive to some people.

Who gives a shit? 'fuck' is offensive to some people and it's all over github.
This enforcement is completely arbitrary and this is what is causing the
backlash.

~~~
hhandoko
It does seem arbitrary...

But, as I mentioned in some other comments, GitHub is made up by many
individuals that holds different values (just like you and me), thus it is
nearly impossible for them to be 100% consistent.

I think the backlash happened mainly because there is a disagreement on the
conduct. Just so happened, someone who stumbled upon the repo thought it was
inappropriate, reported it, and the reviewer agreed (my speculation).

------
avolcano
Fine with me. It's an offensive term and GitHub has every right to police
their service and ban content like this.

Am I supposed to be concerned by this, and if so, why?

~~~
kentonv
Is it offensive? Yes.

Does Github have the right to take it down? Yes.

Is it unethical for Github to take it down? Not at all.

But _should_ they? I don't know, I don't think I would have. It's kind of
scary to use cloud services where it's hard to tell if your content might be
judged in violation of some rule and might suddenly disappear as a result. If
the offensiveness were more extreme (say, a repo dedicated to making fun of
the mentally disabled), then yes, remove it... but the actual case here looks
pretty benign to me. A poor choice of words, but with no intended malice.
Coming down hard in this case looks arbitrary and unexpected, and arbitrary
and unexpected rule enforcement is scary.

Certainly, though, it's Github's choice what kind of rules they want to
enforce and whether or not they care if this scares users.

~~~
thedz
Your first three questions/answers, summarized, is that "Github ethically and
legally removed an offensive word"

Should they? Yes.

I feel slippery slope arguments get brought up way too much sometimes. Every
issue is turning into a binary all-or-nothing ordeal, with no room for nuance
or context.

As long as what Github did is 1. ethical (removing a generally accepted as
offensive word), 2. legal, then I see no problem with it.

If, IF Github starts making more arbitrary calls, then I think its the time to
be angry or worried.

~~~
kentonv
I'm not making any slippery slope argument. I'm saying that if it's hard to
predict what minor infractions might result in 24-hour ultimatums, then that's
going to make users uncomfortable, and that a lot of users wouldn't have
predicted that this particular case would lead to a 24-hour ultimatum.

If the ultimatum were, say, 30 days, then I think it's in the realm that I
consider sensible. That's long enough to get back from vacation without
finding all your stuff is gone. The file had been there over a year, so surely
it wasn't that urgent.

Maybe they could have sent an auto-generated pull request to make things
easier.

~~~
lsaferite
It was worse than a 24 hours ultimatum. The original got the notice and
apparently never replied (due to abandonment?) which caused GH to disable the
repo AND THE FORKS. The Fork owners were NOT notified. In fact, the problem
was only resolved when a fork owner contacted GH and got the repo enabled 3
days later.

------
ThrustVectoring
I'm rather concerned by this. Removing content for using the word 'retard'
invites those who want to police behavior to try to do so by taking highly
vocal offense. Furthermore, GitHub can't defend user content by falling back
to free speech principles, since the obvious follow-up is to ask what the
difference is between the next topic of contention and this one.

This should be concerning to anyone who enjoys things that are at risk of
social sanction. Here's a short list of vaguely-plausible examples from both
sides of the political spectrum:

Violent video games

Pornography

Privacy tools

Penetration testing tools

Abortion services

LGBT+ rights

Religious commentary

Political activism

------
mukyu
Aaron Swartz's last interview is really apropos. [1] He discusses how speech
has changed and why we should be concerned over private companies' suppressive
actions now rather than just governments.

Also, those arguing that governmental assertions of free speech rights only
apply to government actions are not familiar with the relevant case law in the
US. [2]

Similarly, those claiming that censorship can only be done by state actors are
using an incredibly idiosyncratic definition that basically anyone other than
a hardcore libertarian would disagree with. [3][4][5] Say it is the 1980s and
a college newspaper prints something that upsets someone. They then steal and
destroy all copies of that issue once they are printed. How is this action by
a non-state actor different enough to be put in another category?

Scott Alexander also has a good read on these issues. [6]

[1] [http://www.wired.com/2013/04/aaron-swartz-
interview/](http://www.wired.com/2013/04/aaron-swartz-interview/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._R...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._Robins)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship)

[4] [https://www.aclu.org/what-censorship](https://www.aclu.org/what-
censorship)

[5]
[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Censorship](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Censorship)

[6] [http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/22/freedom-on-the-
centrali...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/22/freedom-on-the-centralized-
web/)

~~~
johncolanduoni
> Also, those arguing that governmental assertions of free speech rights only
> apply to government actions are not familiar with the relevant case law in
> the US.

Note that that ruling does _not_ establish that the first amendment provides
the protection of free speech from a private company. It ruled that the
_California_ constitution did so, and was in fact allowed to expand upon the
rights provided by the US constitution.

------
Vozze
That means Chromium could not be hosted on GitHub anymore. The source contains
42 instances of "retard". So do probably many massive codebases.

Example: predictor.h line 537: "The queue is a priority queue that will
accelerate sub-resource speculation, and retard resolutions suggested by page
scans."

[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/c...](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/chrome/browser/net/predictor.h&q=retard&sq=package:chromium&type=cs&l=537)

~~~
jat850
Completely different definition of the word. Not applicable or comparable.

~~~
chillacy
This one, however, does seem to be relevant:

# assertTrue is retarded, use the normal assert statement assert L

[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/t...](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/third_party/cython/src/Cython/Compiler/Tests/TestParseTreeTransforms.py&q=retard&sq=package:chromium&type=cs&l=227)

Along with:

// TODO(darin): Fix this retardation! return buf_->RemainingCapacity() <= (2 *
net::kMaxBytesToSniff);

    
    
          // HACK: I'm at a loss about how to get the syntax checker to get
          // whether a template is externed or not. For the first pass here,
          // just do retarded string comparisons.
          if (TemplateDecl* decl = name.getAsTemplateDecl()) {
            std::string base_name = decl->getNameAsString();
            if (base_name == "basic_string")
              whitelisted_template = true;
          }
    
    

And a bunch of french language files

~~~
jat850
Those examples you have picked fit the same problem as the initial argument,
yes. "retard" in French means "slow" or "late".

~~~
deft
So hilarious that someone actually searched the codebase for 'retard' and then
assumes it's a slur in french too.

------
j-pb
As somebody who has multiple sclerosis and thus the prospect of disability
(both physically and mentally), I find this trend worrying.

I have other things to worry about than "bad words", I could spontaneously
loose my vision, my ability to walk, type, speak, swallow or to breath, in
addition to a variety of cognitive impairments. What keeps me up at night is
wether that tingling in my hand is just because I lay on it or because my
immune system destroys my brain again, not wether or not somebody used
"retard" or "spastic" online.

It makes me sad and angry that people can act and feel as if they've done
something for the handicapped by being offended at some word, while they have
literally done nothing to improve the lives of those affected. I wish more
people would put their time and energy into improving medicine, wheelchairs &
exoskeletons, and social-programs.

~~~
noir_lord
I have a spinal condition and there is a distinct possibility I'll end up in a
wheelchair at worst and crutches at best.

I also couldn't give a fuck about retard/cripple or anything else anyone else
says, It offends me more that someone would get offended on my behalf as if I
need protecting.

This mob justice shit is getting ridiculous really fast.

------
peterwaller
Github has seriously harmed their reputation for me. Who is to define what's
offensive? I'm reminded of someone who found the method "Hijack" offensive in
the HTTP golang package, and the amount of animosity this created:

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/golang-
nuts/hijac...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/golang-
nuts/hijacker/golang-nuts/sN6BFoli5GE/u-hWZzV_mfQJ)

~~~
maxerickson
Per their TOS for years and years now, Github gets to define what content they
will publish and/or take down.

I guess they haven't really tried to paint themselves as brave defenders of
speech either.

Which I don't think really says much about how people should interpret actions
like this, it just means they probably shouldn't be so surprised.

------
sytse
It is so hard to decide where to draw the line. At GitLab.com we face
decisions like this too and it is impossible to please everyone. We have a
code of conduct [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-
ce/blob/master/CONTRIBU...](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-
ce/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#code-of-conduct) for contributing to GitLab but
not for the SaaS service. You can't allow everything and you can't ban
everything, so everything always is a judgement call. It would be nice to vote
on these things, but a community vote might generate more problems that it
solves. Maybe leave it up to the core team [https://about.gitlab.com/core-
team/](https://about.gitlab.com/core-team/) but this group is more concerned
with technical decisions. Having a committee for these things seems heavy
handed too. In summary, no ideal solutions and I don't have a strong opinion
about what GitHub is doing here. The advantage of GitLab is that people that
don't fit in can always run their own server
[https://git.popcorntime.io/groups/popcorntime](https://git.popcorntime.io/groups/popcorntime)

~~~
savage884
Wow. Good to know. I actually _just_ created an account at gitlab.com earlier
today because of this. Now I know that was a waste of my time.

You want to know where to draw the line? Draw it at __staying out of other
peoples ' business. __

~~~
sytse
I'm sorry to hear you feel this way. Staying out of other peoples' business
was not an option with GamerGate, and I'm afraid it will not be an option in
the future. I would love a clear choice in these matters but I don't see one.

------
grkvlt
So, why on earth are similarly 'offensive' repositories like
[https://github.com/meh/retarded](https://github.com/meh/retarded) (may be
NSFW based on language) still available? This seems either a _very_ selective
policy, or there is something else going on beyond the mere use of the word
'Retard' here.

I found the example above with a simple Google search, and I'm sure there are
many more that can be picked out, depending on the choice of obscenity or
slur; so it seems like GitHub could be policing this fairly easily and
automatically if desired (modulo obvious issues with false positives). Is it
perhaps more likely that this is in response to a third party notifying them
about the repo?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Like every site, GitHub acts under safe harbour. It can't and doesn't police
every piece of content uploaded. But it _can_ respond to reports. That's
what's happened here.

~~~
protomyth
"GitHub acts under safe harbour."

This has nothing to do with a copyright or trademark violation so has nothing
to do with any safe harbor provisions.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Legally-speaking, yes, but it's the same principle.

------
Nyetan
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 although I like parts of the
predicted conclusion (more people for me to share my hobby with!) others
frighten me (genericization to the point of losing meaningful cultural
identity).

[1]
[https://github.com/bmuller/gender_detector/pull/14](https://github.com/bmuller/gender_detector/pull/14)

~~~
ebola1717
The parts of the "distinctiveness" and "cultural identity" we'd lose are
exactly the ones we don't want in the first place.

~~~
MrDosu
Who decides what part of my "distinctiveness" and "cultural identity" is
acceptable? You? The majority? Some higher authority?

This is a slippery slope...

------
Tinyyy
A honest question, why are most people here okay with this, but they’re not
okay with for example Facebook censoring certain content?

~~~
KirinDave
Probably because facebook is by design a mechanism of human communication.
Github is a mechanism for sharing code. The words used and then rejected were
useless, and substituting them did not affect the communication in any
meaningful way.

Calling vocabulary subs like this "censorship" greatly glorifies the users of
said language, as unless they're deliberately trying to be offensive there is
always an equally useful word at hand.

~~~
Tinyyy
I personally feel that offensive language should be censored because they’re
intended to be offensive and hurtful to people, while OTOH if its obviously
not purposely offensive but just a method of expression, it should be given a
pass. Leave that to self-censorship / the readers / users.

Also, given the semi-monopoly that these sites have, I think that they have
some sort of responsibility to not exploit network effects and alienate users
just because they can.

~~~
KirinDave
There is no right answer to this question, nor no clear line. We all have to
decide where we draws the line between accommodation and self-determination.

And the line moves over time, not always for the better.

------
learnstats2
The insult used as a replacement here - 'git' \- is also problematic.

'git' itself literally means 'bastard' i.e. a person born of unmarried
parents.

We can claim to be an enlightened society which does not discriminate on the
basis of parentage, but that doesn't bear out on so many levels, not least
that single parents do not receive effective support.

You can say I could make the same argument about 'dummies' as an insult, and I
won't really complain. The brand name '...for dummies' was originally a bit
shocking: that's part of its marketing strategy. This is not a strategy that I
particularly like.

I would not bother to censor here, I will continue just to privately think
less well of this and other projects.

------
golemotron
I think GitHub should stop policing language and the reason why is simple: it
never ends. This is our future, people. Endless discussions about particular
words, what they mean to particular people and particular groups of people,
second guessing, and endless discussion threads.

This is our future and it's not software development.

------
fiatmoney
Not only did they ask them to change the name / verbiage; in a particularly
Stalinist twist they asked them to delete it from the entire history.

~~~
bsimpson
Isn't "never alter the history of a shared codebase" the first rule of Git?

~~~
fiatmoney
Yes. The entire notion of the hash tree is designed to prevent it.

------
general_failure
Is there a list of objectionable words/language that one is not supposed to
use? A quick search on the f-work gives thousands of hits on github.

~~~
shawnps
Interestingly, a search for "retard" in code on GitHub yields over 200,000
results:

[https://github.com/search?q=retard&type=Code&utf8=%E2%9C%93](https://github.com/search?q=retard&type=Code&utf8=%E2%9C%93)

Not sure what made this particular case different.

~~~
barsonme
Or, decidedly even more offensive:
[https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=nigger&type=Code&...](https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=nigger&type=Code&ref=searchresults)

~~~
forthwall
Most of those are badwordlists.

~~~
barsonme
On the first couple pages, yeah. Skip 10+ pages and you get stuff like "nigger
stole my bike" etc.

As a side question, shouldn't it be fairly easy to flag those repositories and
then sort through those who have it as an offensive word list and those who
are just being derogatory?

------
clessg
Relevant image: [https://imgur.com/QC51FZz](https://imgur.com/QC51FZz)

Took me a while to notice it.

------
dpc_pw
Idiocy of political correctness taking it's toll. Always relevant George
Carlin:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o25I2fzFGoY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o25I2fzFGoY)

In 20 years, next Github will be taking down projects that have "cognitively
impaired" in it, because that's what we're going to be using to insult each
other.

------
MrDosu
Goodbye GitHub

A repository provider has ZERO say in what I write in my codebase. There are
enough alternatives.

------
golergka
Github is a private company and they have the right to do that. However, as
their customer (I pay them a little every month myself and I also work for a
company that pays them a lot), I don't like that behaviour and I would start
think about switching to other company's services if they continue to do that.

------
deciplex
For those defending Github by pointing out that threatening to shut down this
repository was not an act of Congress, and therefore not illegal: you would
need many km/s of delta-V to miss the point any more than you already have.
Your argument sucks.

------
betteringred
Time for GitHub follow their own rules and change their name to something
that's not offensive.

~~~
mirimir
> Git is a mild pejorative with origins in British English for a silly,
> incompetent, stupid, annoying, senile, elderly or childish person. It is
> usually an insult, more severe than twit or idiot but less severe than
> wanker, arsehole or twat.[0]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_%28slang%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_%28slang%29)

~~~
return0
So by naming itself as a "hub of gits", github has preemptively insulted all
of us. Outrage!

------
samch
There has, for several years, been a campaign[1] promoted by the Special
Olympics to end the r-word. I have signed on, and I encourage others to do so
as well. I've known a lot of awesome people with intellectual disabilities who
have had this label applied to them in the past. It's amazingly hurtful. No
matter how you feel about Github's decision, I encourage all of us to consider
how the r-word lingers in daily usage and pledge to stop using it ourselves.

Thanks!

1\. [http://www.r-word.org/](http://www.r-word.org/)

~~~
rlidwka
> I've known a lot of awesome people with intellectual disabilities who have
> had this label applied to them in the past. It's amazingly hurtful.

Applying it to someone is hurtful. Using this word is not.

It doesn't matter if you substitute "retard" with "r-word" everywhere, nothing
will change. Even if you change the name of the condition, you don't change
the condition.

If someone wants to be offensive, I'd bet saying "Hey, you're r-word" will do
the job just fine. If it was said with an intention to be offensive, it is
offensive. And trying to censor certain words doesn't change it. Because words
aren't the problem, people are.

I'll quote George Carlin here:

"They're only words. It's the context that counts. It's the user. It's the
intention behind the words that makes them good or bad. The words are
completely neutral. {...} For instance, you take the word 'nigger.' There is
absolutely nothing wrong with the word 'nigger' in and of itself. It's the
racist asshole who's using it that you ought to be concerned about." [1]

1\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUvdXxhLPa8#t=50s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUvdXxhLPa8#t=50s)

~~~
samch
I'll just have to admit to a difference of opinion with you on this. I believe
there is something inherently wrong with the n-word. I took the time to seek
out its etymological roots via the Oxford English Dictionary, and the earliest
evidence of its use is entirely negative and demeaning to those being
described as such.

You don't need any additional context when the word itself was contrived as a
convenient brush to disparage a people. It is, to its very roots, a bad word.

I also think you missed the point of the r-word campaign. They are not trying
to get people to say "r-word" instead of the r-word. They want people to be
more thoughtful and stop using the term altogether. Most people in polite
society have stopped using the n-word, and they didn't substitute the literal
phrase "n-word" for it as you suggest might be done. I would like to see these
same people do this for the r-word. For example, I've heard a few of my
coworkers use the r-word on numerous occasions when I know they would never
dare use the n-word. The r-word campaign is simply asking for the same type of
consideration.

~~~
rlidwka
> It is, to its very roots, a bad word.

Even if every single human being using it was meant to be insulting, it still
wouldn't make it a bad word.

Because there are no bad words. Just like there are no bad numbers or bad
colors or bad images. Information can't be good or bad. It has no such
property.

A message becomes offensive only when its sender said it with the intention to
be offensive. And the same message could be offensive in one case and not be
offensive in others. Context matters.

> They are not trying to get people to say "r-word" instead of the r-word.
> They want people to be more thoughtful and stop using the term altogether.

It doesn't work like that. There will always be a word for mentally ill
people. And there always will be some asshole who will try to use it against
anybody who he doesn't like. Then it becomes derogatory. And it starts all
over again.

They ("r-word campaign") will just change one word with another word (and burn
a bunch of books containing the old word in the process). They will never
change how people think.

Well, actually... you can remove all negative words from the language like it
was suggested by George Orwell in 1984 novel [1]. Then "bad people" will have
no words to express what they're thinking. But I really hope you aren't
intending to go that way.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak)

~~~
samch
Wow, I'm hoping you misspoke here, but I'm a bit concerned by the way you
confused people who are "mentally ill" with those who have intellectual
disabilities.

Also, this line is dangerously incorrect: "A message becomes offensive only
when its sender said it with the intention to be offensive."

If you've ever taken respectful workplace training in the US, you've likely
learned the difference between intent and impact. What matters, in the US at
least, is the impact of the message, not the intent of the person speaking
[1].

1\.
[https://www.google.com/search?q=sexual+harrassment+law+inent...](https://www.google.com/search?q=sexual+harrassment+law+inent&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=sexual+harassment+law+intent+vs+impact)

~~~
samch
Any thoughts on why this was down voted? Just curious about what violated the
HN policy.

------
overpaidgoogler
For me the main issue is not that github removed offensive content, but the
politicization of the concept.

The most glaring discrepancy to me is that even though the word "nerd" is used
to incite physical violence, that word is not considered inappropriate. The
reason is that progressive political ideology asserts that violence that is
perpetrated by "powerful" groups against "powerless" groups has an additional
significance and importance, and violence against nerds falls weakly into this
category, if at all.

------
mdup
What worries me the most in this thread is the quantity of GIFs, memes, and
blatantly useless "me too, lol" comments. Can you relate how A MESSAGE WRITTEN
IN CAPS makes you feel the author is shouting? Well, in the exact same way,
those ridiculous pictures and messages feel to me like teenagers joining a
conversation with childish jokes adding nothing to the debate, except noise.

Honestly, this looks more like a YouTube comment thread than a community of
professionals discussing grown-ups issues.

------
dognotdog
For those people (like myself) not wanting to be dependent on github and
similar hosting services, there are alternatives to git+github that can do
distributed bugtracking and are easily self-hosted, such as Fossil (
[http://www.fossil-scm.org](http://www.fossil-scm.org) ).

------
jlarocco
Is there any evidence that this is even real? The repo in question is a fork
of a repo that's still up, with the word "retard" still in it. There's tons of
foul language on GitHub, why would they single out this one relatively minor
instance?

Anybody could fake that imgur picture in about 30 seconds. Does anybody know
for sure that the repo was actually unavailable? Has anybody from GitHub
responded?

This does remind me I wanted to clone my repos somewhere else, though.

~~~
makomk
The parent repo was taken down by Github too:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20150725130839/https://github.co...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150725130839/https://github.com/WebMBro/WebMConverter)

------
mdekkers
Yeah, when you host all your code with a 3rd party, and you run all your
services with a 3rd party, and you depend on another 3rd party for significant
chunks of your functionality, you will find that starting up is a lot easier,
as long as you don't mind giving up a very significant chunk of your
independence and freedom to do as you wish.

I don't understand the obsession with github, google, amazon and the like.
Well, I understand it, but I don't understand why people fall for it. Hosting
is dirt cheap these days, really very easy, and you can set up pretty much any
environment you need in less than a day, for very little money.

~~~
rtpg
Are you serious?

Maintaining things is hard. Even for relatively simple stuff, things fall over
all the time and suddenly your job is "make sure your mail server is up"
instead of "accomplish your core business task". I don't have that sort of
free time anymore.

~~~
lfowles
Case in point: Ran update && upgrade on my server that runs a mailinabox
container. Whoops, something broke and now the container doesn't recognize any
of the owners or groups. Your family mail server is down while your wife is
waiting on replies to job applications. Thankfully, it was fixed within a day,
but I've had stressful weeks where I've considered just moving to fastmail
instead of spending my limited time at home pounding on config files.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Same here, Ubuntu dist-upgrade updated Apache, now none of my configuration
works anymore and I need to figure out how to make the LAMP stack work again.

The old shared / virtual hosting was easier and a bit cheaper in that respect,
but at the same time it was horribly limited (CPU limits).

------
bratsche
heh, with some clever social engineering and timing this could actually become
a new form of attack. A lot of scripts (and Gemfiles and other things) point
directly to projects on Github. Imagine an attacker managing to sneak a subtle
offensive thing into a PR and get it merged in, then later complain to Github
at a time when the repo owner is busy/unresponsive/on holiday. Then all the
scripts or Gemfiles trying to pull down the repo fail.

------
Zikes
I disagree with this in principle, however as a private company Github has the
right to do as they please. Just make the rules clear and apply them fairly
and consistently and you'll hear no complaints from me.

------
prezjordan
Where do they threaten to shut it down?

EDIT: The commit message is an imgur link of the original email:
[https://imgur.com/QC51FZz](https://imgur.com/QC51FZz)

------
michaelbuddy
This kind of thinking will retard the development of web communities.

Did that sentence above offend anyone because it contained the word retard?
certainly the appearance of a word could offend someone. So what. doesn't mean
the word doesn't work, doesn't mean the word was even directed at them,
doesn't mean the word was used with the same vibrancy or harshness as another
time in their past that same word was used by someone else in some other
context.

Frankly with words and being human you have to just deal with them. You have
to develop muscles, use some fresh mental gymnastics to get on with your life.
If this personal ritual of being offended is hurting you, look at where that
comes from internally the core mechanism. Get some counseling, don't force
thousands of other people to try to relate or modify just because of your
narrow experience.

People who get offended need to grow up and engage with a society with a
personal strength. Focusing on real problems not imaginary ones helps a lot.
Lately you see more coddling over supposed hurtful words than any victim of a
real aggression gets from the public. "Oh a word hurt you?" let's put it on
national TV. "Oh you were assaulted and blugeoned and put in the hospital?"
well sorry we can't fit you in on the local news unless there's a real story
here.

don't let society continue to turn this direction. Solve real problems and
ignore imaginary subjective ones.

------
geowwy
Someone uploaded a repo with language Github found objectionable.

Github asked them to remove the offending words.

Person complied.

I don't see the issue.

------
kefka
This debacle is what happens when feminism gets in the way.

Meritocracy is now a "bad word" according to feminists. The start of this
change began at GitHub 2 years ago, with getting rid of a rug. The rug said,

"United Meritocracy of GitHub"

source:[http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-
rug](http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug)

This goes down the social justice warrior, feminism, and racism avenues, so it
of course had to change.

Now, why is Meritocracy bad?

"By discarding the difficulties inherent in being both objective and
humanistic, leaders in the open source community ignore the moral impact of
their value system and focus solely on the potential value of their creations.
The comfortable elite benefit from the status quo and never have to question
the circumstances that keep them in positions of power."

The Dehumanizing Myth of the Meritocracy , by Coraline Ada Ehmke
[https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/the-dehumanizing-myth-
of...](https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/the-dehumanizing-myth-of-the-
meritocracy)

Should I interpret the article as content based upon its merit, or should I
take the fact a white (-3 points), female (+5 points), lesbian (+2 points),
computer programmer (-4 points) wrote this article? Look at the bright side,
if she can claim black (+10 points), then we have to view her content even
more positively.

My answer is that I should evaluate the points and content on its merit. I'm
sure she would be appalled that I would want to give her "fake minority
points" to falsely increase/decrease her perceived score... Then again, I may
be wrong.

But this, fellow programmer, is what we are having to fight against. I may be
male. I may be female. I may be transgender. I may even be a
nullo(just.dont.ask.). Or White. Or black. Or Asian. Or have a disability. Or
be intellectually superior. Or completely average. But what I do have is my
words, and how others read and interpret the content and worth of my words. It
reminds me a document I read long ago...

"We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias...
and you call us criminals...

...Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of
judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime
is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for."

\/\The Conscience of a Hacker/\/

------
euske
It's sad that they had to "ban" them instead of having the community
boycott/ridicule/shun the repo. The latter would be a healthier approach.

~~~
Asbostos
Are you saying that bullying and shunning people who don't behave according to
social norms is healthy? Isn't that essentially the root of all racism,
bigotry, sexism, etc? That's what already happens with large scale trolling of
celebrities who become disliked and it can be quite harmful.

~~~
euske
These people were saying silly things publicly and they should expect some
backlash. Of course any extreme behavior is bad, but I don't know how this is
the root of all racism, bigotry, sexism, etc. In this case they are judged by
their action, not by their looks/belief.

edit: judged by what they said -> judged by their action

------
return0
There's BitBucket, with even far better free plans.

------
ackim
Everyone is offended by something; every snowflake has a trigger. If we start
censoring because someone might be offended, ultimately everyone will be
silent.

The irony here is that GIT is British english for idiot. Github is therefore
the network of idiocy.

------
ljk
I wonder where github is going; from a month ago:
[https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941](https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941)

------
msoad
Meanwhile the guy with Hitler profile picture is still enjoying GitHub despite
multiple reports!

[https://github.com/followtheart](https://github.com/followtheart)

~~~
lazzlazzlazz
Who cares about this? If you felt the need to "report" an image of Hitler, you
should feel very silly.

~~~
DanBC
Anyone related to a person with LD probably somewhat cares about it,
especially if their relative has been the victim of hate crime or life-risking
stigma.

"Hate incidents" (not necessarily crime) are very common. In the UK a person
with LD is more likely to experience a hate incident than someone who is gay,
or someone who is a member of a religion.

~~~
ersii
Could you please elaborate on what LD means in this context? I'm not finding
any suitable definition or explanation by searching.

~~~
shawabawa3
I think Learning Disabilities

Not sure how that relates to an image of Hilter

------
ersii
It might be worth mentioning here that Launchpad.net (Owned, Operated by
Canonical Ltd of Ubuntu fame) recently launched (rudimentary) Git support [1].
They obviously need to integrate it better, but that is on it's way.

Launchpad.net might be a (more?) suitable option to consider if you're mainly
developing Free and Open Source Software.

[1] [http://blog.launchpad.net/general/git-code-hosting-
beta](http://blog.launchpad.net/general/git-code-hosting-beta)

------
totony
Why didn't the maintainer just take it down? Why comply to such a stupid
request?

Github profits from people going to their service because it makes them more
popular. Complying to the request is encouraging them (even if it's the switch
between retard and git).

I'd just have deleted the repo saying "We moved to __* (ex. GitLab) with a
screenshot of the email as a reason. If they don 't want your content on their
servers, fine, too bad for them

------
zkanda
Oh no, what would happen to
[https://github.com/nvbn/thefuck](https://github.com/nvbn/thefuck)?

~~~
scarlson
Go one step farther, is Github going to self censor?

[https://github.com/search?q=language%3ABrainfuck](https://github.com/search?q=language%3ABrainfuck)

------
asadotzler
GitHub is not a public benefit organization. They are not public
infrastructure. They are a for-profit company that does what's best for
Github. Just because they have free (as in beer) hosting doesn't make them
trust-able public infrastructure. It's worrying that so much of today's free
and open source software development community doesn't seem to understand
that.

------
ndesaulniers
If someone was interested in moving their content off of GitHub, how would
they go about doing so? Doesn't popcorn time use something else? Asking for a
friend, of course... :3

Edit: Looks like they're running GitLab Community Edition
[https://about.gitlab.com/downloads/](https://about.gitlab.com/downloads/)

~~~
gizmo686
Which content?

If you are only interested in the repository itself, then you are already
done, as everyone who cloned it would have a local copy of it. If you want to
use a similar workflow (as in, an always available publicly addressable git
server to push and pull to), you can do that with "git remote set-url origin
<new repository url>".

If you want to move the wiki, you can also 'git clone' that, although I
believe github uses a slightly nonstandard markdown language.

I do not believe their is a good way to migrate your issue tracker.

------
pmalynin
Buy a $5 DO box and host it yourself. Use any language that you desire.

~~~
dchest
Pretty much every hosting provider has this in their TOS.

[https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/terms/](https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/terms/)

 _3.2 You agree that you will not transmit, distribute, post, store, link, or
otherwise traffic in Content, information, software, or materials on or
through the Service that (i) is unlawful, threatening, abusive, harassing,
defamatory, libelous, deceptive, fraudulent, invasive of another 's privacy,
tortious, offensive, profane, contains or depicts pornography that is
unlawful, or is otherwise inappropriate as determined by us in our sole
discretion, (ii) you know is false, misleading, untruthful or inaccurate,
(iii) constitutes unauthorized or unsolicited advertising, (iv) impersonates
any person or entity, including any of our employees or representatives, or
(v) includes anyone’s identification documents or sensitive financial
information. DigitalOcean may permit, in its sole discretion, adult websites
that abide by state and federal law and regulation._

~~~
pmalynin
There are things like Liberty VPS etc which "fight" for free speech.

Or Tor hidden service.

------
systemz
Political correctnes, it's never fun.

------
grkvlt
There's something odd about this. The repo in question is
'nixxquality/WebMConverter' which is where the GitHub notice was sent.
However, this is a _fork_ of another repo -
[https://github.com/WebMBro/WebMConverter](https://github.com/WebMBro/WebMConverter)
\- and that parent repo seems alive and well (that is, not disabled, and
unchanged, so still titled 'WebM for retards') so why the discrepancy? Did the
WebMBro account get suspended initially, and then reinstated, and only the
fork felt the need to change the text? If so, this seems like a lot of
overreaction based on what may well have been a (well intentioned) mistake on
GitHub's part?

~~~
ersii
According to the link in the commit message, this repository
(nixxquality/WebMConverter) was disabled as a consequence of the parent
repository (WebMBro/WebMConverter) getting disabled by GitHub. Presumably the
parent repository owners also got a message like this when their repository
was disabled.

Also, as you've observed: Neither repository is currently disabled.

------
kiproping
1\. Fork the repo 2\. Revert SJW bullshit 3\. ??? 4\. Profit

~~~
renata
Done and done. Let's see if they want to make this a policy.
[https://github.com/renataskyfire/WebMConverter](https://github.com/renataskyfire/WebMConverter)

------
forthwall
Didn't they read the TOS? I guess not, because otherwise they wouldn't realize
that they can do this.

They're a private entity and it's up to the customers to react. If more people
are in favor of this action (which it seems so), why would they not keep doing
this.

------
Panino
Lots of misuse of the word "censorship" here and any time this subject comes
up generally, not just on this site but anywhere the topic is discussed.

What is/are the root issue(s) of this mistaken belief? I typed a few
possibilities but they sounded preposterous so I just deleted all that.

Could someone who thinks this is censorship please explain why Github doesn't
have the right to control its own privately owned website, and how one single
website monitoring the language used there is equivalent to a government
"universally" (well, within its borders) coercively prohibiting all such
content, such that the person in question is prevented from publishing it
anywhere else, even by themselves?

~~~
otherusername2
Personally I think this is censorship because Github holds power in the
development world. Basically every developer is on Github. I switched from
Bitbucket to github not because Github is better, but because it's basically
open source suicide NOT to be on Github.

Disabling a repo because they don't agree with a word in it seems like an
abuse of that power to me.

So basically, I feel it's censorship because Github holds enough power over
its users.

~~~
KirinDave
Why is the word "censorship" the problem here? Of course it is. Github is
censoring what it is willing to host. This is roughly akin to you or I
selecting which papers we'll read tonight, or which speakers we'd like to hear
in a conference, or which links we'd like to include as related work on a blog
post. Or which book we'd give to a friend.

The western world has a lot of implicit censorship going on that we think is
unfairly applied en masse, and that's where we start to see a problem. Women,
for example, are consistently and provably discriminated against in a variety
of ways in these subtle decisions. This creates a general vacuum of their
input in our field (and many others!).

Actions like this help to remove said implicit bias and apply the censorship
principles we use in our daily lives more fairly, giving us a more accurate
picture of the world without having to listen to every single voice.

------
chuckreynolds
hmm... isn't "git" an offensive term in UK and/or Europe? Idk - I try not to
use the word myself but interesting call here.

------
seanhandley
The word itself isn't the problem. It's the context in which a word is used
which makes it offensive.

If it's being directed at someone intentionally then you have a case for
offensive behaviour. In the context here, it looks passive enough to me.

------
thedz
Can I take a moment to just point out the silliness of worrying about the
censoring or suppression of content in a distributed source control system?

The very nature of git means you can just clone the repo and do whatever you
want to it.

~~~
njharman
You are confusing and commingling git with Github. Even though one uses the
other they are very much not the same thing conceptually or practically.

------
jgrowl
I would never use the word retard as an insult to someone with disabilities. I
would use the word to describe things I find stupid. Even if I did find the
word retard offensive, I wouldn't like what github did here.

Yes, they have the right to remove words they don't like. Yes, I have the
right to not use their platform.

Github's time as a central source for code is limited anyway. If you don't
like what they do contribute to projects that make the web more decentralized.

------
shawnps
It's in GitHub's TOS that they maintain the ability to remove content they
find offensive. So they asked a user to remove something that GitHub found
offensive.

~~~
brianpgordon
Literally nobody is claiming that this is illegal or against the GitHub ToS.
The question is whether what they did was reasonable, and how this action
impacts people's perception of them.

------
schneidmaster
I am perfectly alright with this.

~~~
aerovistae
Can't say I am. People should be free to use the language they wish.

The words that were offensive 200 years ago are laughable today. It's just
such a superficial thing, almost arbitrarily deciding which words are
'sensitive' and which ones aren't, I cannot stand behind efforts to censor the
world.

Once upon a time 'idiot' was the more common word for the mentally disabled.
Has GitHub banned 'idiot,' too? Good long while ago people would've been
pretty offended by that.

I get that we're more concerned with what people are offended by TODAY rather
than 200 years ago; my point is that we SHOULDN'T be concerned.

~~~
spdustin
Yes, the developer had every right to say retard. 100% correct. And if they
said it in front of me, I'd have every right to kick them, hard. Both of us
will have paid a price, sure, but hey, freedom of speech wasn't violated.

You're free to call me a retard. I'm free to kick you for doing it. Everybody
wins. But your calling me a retard isn't a divinely bestowed right to get away
with it without a response just because you had the right to say it. GitHub
chose to respond. The author chose to comply with the request. Done and done.

~~~
gizmo686
>And if they said it in front of me, I'd have every right to kick them, hard.

Where do you live? In most countries, that would be assault, and is considered
a crime.

~~~
scruple
Just to nitpick... Battery is the physical act. Assault is telling someone
that you're going to kick them, hard, and giving them the impression that you
intend to actually do so. Both of these things are criminal, obviously.

But apparently saying $BAD_WORD is, too. /s

------
wrexsoule
The funny thing is that words differ based on context. So if Github wishes to
get into the game of automatically banning repos based on "bad words", they'd
need to consider it in the context of each language. For example "retard" in
French means "late", so should a repo from a French dev be banned because he
used "retard"?

------
probe_drone
They did shut down a project /and all of its fork/ just for that word.

[https://github.com/nixxquality/WebMConverter/commit/c1ac0baa...](https://github.com/nixxquality/WebMConverter/commit/c1ac0baac06fa7175677a4a1bf65860a84708d67#commitcomment-12417836)

------
vortico
I assume this project is 90% for 4chan, 8chan, etc. posters, so the name is
nothing out of the ordinary for its users.

~~~
ebola1717
Actually though. The repo owner is part of a company that boasts 4chan as a
client.

------
plonh
Link goes to s/retard/git/ commit

Where is the issue mentioned in the title "threatens tonshut down"?

------
tempodox
As a non-“git”, I personally find the association of “git” with “retard”
appropriate, correct, and a fair use of free speech.

However, as a private company, GitHub has every right to define their own
house rules and enforce them. It might even be mentioned in the Terms of
Service somewhere.

------
agnes49
I am also faced this same problem .How to solve it.
[http://www.trainingintambaram.in/php-training-in-
chennai.htm...](http://www.trainingintambaram.in/php-training-in-chennai.html)

------
jasonkester
... As is their prerogative.

It's their garden, so they get to decide which weeds to pull. The weeds have
no say:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3586667](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3586667)

------
renata
Forked and reverted, let's see if they're willing to make this a policy.

------
rza
Should we start banning repos with "master" and "slave" too?

------
kuanlnaie
every git subscriber should create a retard-ish repository. problem solved!

~~~
arbatherkras
Heh, I'm way ahead of you there:

[http://morph.is/commit-9d25bf77a8a9240d4c74e63f4731b65cb137c...](http://morph.is/commit-9d25bf77a8a9240d4c74e63f4731b65cb137c489.txt)

------
im3w1l
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?

~~~
drdaeman
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.

~~~
im3w1l
>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.

------
kyberias
Let's monitor this
[https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=retard](https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=retard)

------
talles
People swear on GitHub all the time:
[http://commitlogsfromlastnight.com](http://commitlogsfromlastnight.com)

That was really silly by GH folks.

------
return0
Good call. I would like Youtube to follow with something similar. I mean, have
you even seen their videos? it's gross (no offense to fat peeps).

------
hartator
The most ironic part is "git" is in fact a synonym of retard. GitHub name can
be seen as an offensive name by itself. (RetardHub)

------
rsingla
At least update your copyright at the same time!

------
jmsmistral
Boycott Github, use Bitbucket!

------
wldcordeiro
More internet drama over trite things, hooray. This kind of stuff just reminds
me of Steve Hughes' comedy bit on being offended.[1]

[1][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHMoDt3nSHs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHMoDt3nSHs)

------
prasanthv
Good job GH. It's sad this is shocking to some people. Perhaps they haven't
dealt with anyone with mental disabilities or seen what their families deal
with, and that's not their fault, nor is it an excuse. It's called empathy.

~~~
hhandoko
Not sure why you are downvoted, but I thought it's relevant.

~~~
hhandoko
For the downvoters: some developers may think it is funny, but for others with
relatives with intellectual disability, it will make them really
uncomfortable.

My point is, the language is unnecessary. Especially for a public repo that
might get thousands and / or tens of thousands of views.

------
flippinburgers
1) A person uses an "offensive" word (without intent or without directing it
at a particular person) but only to highlight a dislike of an idea or way of
doing things.

2) A person uses an "offensive" word to make somebody else feel bad by
directing their language at their victim.

I feel these two are in fact different uses of the word and I don't have
sympathy for the "victim" in the first scenario. In the second scenario there
is clear intent to hurt an individual. In the first scenario something like
"Library for retards" is doing what exactly? The retarded reader sees the word
retarded, remembers that they are retarded, and then feels sad because they
are in fact retarded? Insulted by proxy. It, unfortunately, clearly implies
that being retarded is bad. Lets be honest though. How many people here would
switch their current level of cognitive abilities for that of somebody who is
mentally disabled? Nobody. It is a terrible state of human suffering (I would
say). But then again I am biased in thinking that life is "better" on the
right end of most bell curves.

\- If somebody is actively trying to hurt another person physically this needs
to stop. Full stop.

\- If somebody is trying to emotionally hurt another person because of who
they are that should stop. So calling somebody retarded to their face? Not a
good thing.

\- If somebody is trying to emotionally hurt another person by calling them
names arbitrary names ("you fag" when the person is in fact hetero etc) is not
a good thing.

The above are based on intent and are targeted towards a victim.

\- If somebody tries to insult another persons beliefs or ideas? Perfectly ok.
This, of course, isn't what is happening in this case on github, but since
this thread seems to be talking a bit about slippery slopes, I would rather
not see our society fall so far at to make criticism a punishable "offense".

At the end of the day changing one single word is just fine, but I wish it had
happened in a more positive way rather than github using the heavy hand of
their "policy" (an undefinable totally subjective ambiguity that isn't applied
uniformly to the whole site).

By the way, I am looking forward to the day when an "offensive word" registry
is kept that bans language from use on the internet. If a word is found to be
offensive by 10,000 or more individuals anywhere in the world, we have to be
sure to purge it from everyday usage (good luck keeping up with malicious
grade school kids) /s ...It is a stupid idea.

"Sticks and stones will break my bones and words will most certainly kill me."
The new mantra.

~~~
flippinburgers
Also this sort of "drive-by looking to be insulted" scanning of online repos
etc is pathetic in my mind.

For instance:

[https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941](https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941)

The individuals who threw their childish temper tantrums and caused the
explosive issue will:

1) Never be back other than to "report" the original offender if they ever
catch him violating the COC that they so proudly forced on an otherwise
harmless community.

2) Never have and never will contribute _anything_ to the code base. Ever!
Talk about entitlement.

It is the worst type of third-party drive-by policing ever.

------
adad95
So..... Can i have a list of block words in my repo?

------
ttaylorr
I don't see what's wrong here.

------
babygoat
It's delicious how many who can't or won't understand the concept of being
offended are now worrying aloud about being shamed.

------
mirimir
It's not the word that's offensive, but rather the insult. Is it offensive to
say "retard the cam by 15 degrees"?

~~~
DanBC
Obviously the word has acceptable uses (eg watch mechanisms). Equally fucking
obviously the word is not being used in that way in this project.

(Your English is very good, but maybe you don't speak English as a first
language?)

~~~
mirimir
Yes, that's so in this case. But it's still not accurate to say that GitHub is
censoring words. It's regulating behavior.

------
Enhex
You didn't get the latest edition of the Newspeak dictionary?

------
coreyp_1
I despise SJWs.

------
Frozenlock
For those arguing that they are within their rights, and free speech laws
don't apply there: that's not the point. (Like most of similar situations by
the way.)

It's about a company acting in a way that is alienating to its userbase. Now,
many people might think retard is offensive and would prefer a sanitized
environment... but many people don't. Saying "we disagree with what you did"
is a way to the users to tell the company that they might be drifting away
from what made them interesting in the first place.

You can be legal AND an asshole.

If every time your friend was being an asshole to you, he'd stop listening and
said: "Well, it's legal.", he probably wouldn't be your friend for long.

~~~
onion2k
_It 's about a company acting in a way that is alienating to its userbase._

Wouldn't that depend on the userbase? If there are more people using Github
who would prefer it was a sanitized environment than people who think anything
should be allowed then Github removing this content would be them acting _not_
to alienate its userbase. The majority of users probably don't care either
way, so we're only talking about the two extremes - and I'd hazard a guess
that there are _far_ more people who would rather Github didn't have an
"anything goes" policy than did.

~~~
bad_user
How do you know that the majority of users don't care? Did you or anybody else
run any surveys or was that thought pulled out of your ass?

I'm hearing this argument a lot on HN, yet it is never accompanied by numbers
and because it's always contrary to my experience. Would you say the same
thing about Sourceforge? Of course, there's a difference between piggybacking
on the work of others to distribute malware and censoring some words, however
there's also similarity. GitHub censoring content means they are not a neutral
platform for hosting public repositories and they are showing their potential
for becoming the next Sourceforge.

~~~
onion2k
_GitHub censoring content means they are not a neutral platform for hosting
public repositories and they are showing their potential for becoming the next
Sourceforge._

In the same way that because I punched my brother as a child I might go on to
be the next Stalin.

~~~
bad_user
Punching your brother doesn't make you Stalin, but it's still an action you
have to apologize for, otherwise you're an asshole, hence my argument.

~~~
onion2k
As you say, punching your brother doesn't make you Stalin, just as requesting
a repo changes it's name doesn't mean you'll go on to infect all the downloads
with malware.

------
Akujin
I don't like framing this debate in the prism of government versus private
company policing. Freedom of speech is not mutually exclusive to the
government.

Consider a programming club meeting once a week that is open to the public.
You get there and it's 6 dudes and they are accepting of you as a coder but
completely at odds with you on the social justice spectrum (using words like
"gay" and "retard" as examples). You have two choices at this point. Either
accept the group for who they are or leave.

This is the context in which I see Github. There's a reason why Linus can run
his mouth. It's because to the old "boys" club of programmers only results
matter and not the social context of the group.

They have no problem with Linus using their service while running his mouth.
Why are they picking on this group in particular? It's quite simple. They are
small and not important.

Let me be clear. This is very very bad for open source. Github was once
considered the automatic public place to share your code. For the most part
most projects live in the world of a few singular coders who put their code
out to the world for sharing sake and maybe to possibly intrigue others to
join their project. Many of these guys are sitting in their bedrooms or
garages hacking away and not looking to open themselves up to the SJW crowd
when publishing their code. Regardless of what you think of the people doing
the coding (which is reflected in the comments) the point of Github was to
improve the accessibility of code. I fear this move will take that mission in
the opposite direction.

Successful software is almost always filled with expletives. The device you
are browsing this very site almost certainly had at least one fuck in it's
source code somewhere in the stack.

Just look at the Linux Kernel
[http://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/](http://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/)

~~~
kefka
"Lookie here, your compiler does some absolutely insane things with the
spilling, including spilling a _constant_. For chrissake, that compiler
shouldn't have been allowed to graduate from kindergarten. We're talking
"sloth that was dropped on the head as a baby" level retardation levels here
.... Anyway, this is not a kernel bug. This is your compiler creating
completely broken code. We may need to add a warning to make sure nobody
compiles with gcc-4.9.0, and the Debian people should probably downgrate their
shiny new compiler."

Linus Torvalds,
[http://lkml.iu.edu//hypermail/linux/kernel/1407.3/00650.html](http://lkml.iu.edu//hypermail/linux/kernel/1407.3/00650.html)

------
anon3_
GH already has set a precedent for favoring people based off their political
tastes.

\- OpalGate: LGBT has been used as an excuse to harass people outside of GH
for twitter messages.

\- C+=: satirical repository called C+= mocking feminism in tech was Shut
down.

\- GGAutoBlocker: specifically targets a manifest of twitter targets users
based off political persuasion. It's alive.
([https://github.com/freebsdgirl/ggautoblocker/blob/master/sou...](https://github.com/freebsdgirl/ggautoblocker/blob/master/sourcelist.txt))
This blocker is literally based off targetting people because of their
political beliefs.

If you don't fall in line with the politics of certain people, they claim
harassment - report your to these services - and get you shutdown.

------
seivan
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.

~~~
saw-lau
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.

~~~
seivan
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.

~~~
saw-lau
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).

------
sillygeese
I wonder what it would take for people to see that political correctness is a
problem.

------
meeper16
I suppose that edges out the Airline Industry:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3HKN-
FWNq0&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3HKN-
FWNq0&feature=youtu.be&t=532)

------
pikachu_is_cool
I like how the parent repo hasn't been taken down.

[https://github.com/WebMBro/WebMConverter](https://github.com/WebMBro/WebMConverter)

------
chx
Funny how the parent repository username "WebMBro" basically tells you all you
need to know... bro.

------
ZeroGravitas
I'm puzzled sometimes that the ACLU can defend the despicable behaviour of
actual Nazis and yet still be lauded as a liberal force for good yet so many
of the people online fighting the authoritarian SJW menace so often just come
across as assholes.

Best I can come up with is that one actually fights governments and doesn't
seek to undermine people's concerns about Nazis or condone their actions,
whereas online the bile seems reserved exclusively for those who wish to
censor.

