
Can we talk about GitHub's recent censorship instead of flagging it here on HN? - aarongray
Yesterday I posted a link to a tweet with evidence that GitHub was censoring repos critical of the Microsoft acquisition. I think this is relevant news because just two days ago, the new CEO of GitHub, Nat Friedman said, &quot;I’m not asking for your trust, but I’m committed to earning it.&quot; and that &quot;We will always support developers in their choice of any language, license, tool, platform, or cloud.&quot;<p>Source: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;natfriedman.github.io&#x2F;hello&#x2F;<p>And then yesterday GitHub started cracking down on free speech and censoring people who are critical of the Microsoft acquisition. So, I thought this was worth sharing.<p>It made it into the top 20 on HN rapidly, but then it disappeared suddenly because some people flagged it.<p>Proof: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;KyQjvWM.jpg<p>So now we have HN readers censoring a story about GitHub censoring people who are protesting the Microsoft acquisition. So I just wanted to share this story and see if a more productive, open discussion could come of it instead of people censoring each other all over the place. If you have any thoughts, I&#x27;d love to hear them.
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dang
Your problem is that you're trying to promote a story that the community just
doesn't agree with you about. This is clear from the comments at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17245018](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17245018)
as well as the other threads you guys have posted about this. The comments are
nearly unanimous, and now users are starting to react against your over-
promotion of the story (e.g.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17245116](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17245116)).

When people post things that HN users consider off topic or against the site
guidelines
([https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)),
users flag the posts. You can call this censorship if you like—one person's
flagging is another's censorship, depending on how they feel about the
topic—but HN has had this flagging system for many years and it's a core part
of how the community functions.

The flags are not coming from some sort of Microsoft or Github brigade. How do
I know that? First because stories like this, where some users are trying to
drum up drama but most who look at the issue don't agree with them, always get
flagged. And second because I checked the accounts of the flaggers and they
are longstanding community members with no history of activity around this
issue.

If the community felt you had a case that this was a MS/GH censorship scandal,
the story would be all over the HN front page and there would be nothing that
flaggers or moderators could do about it. Your problem is not that there's a
gang of flaggers censoring you. You just don't have the community on your
side.

(Also, no moderators touched any of these stories, except to unkill them so
they could re-open for comments.)

~~~
aarongray
Hey Daniel, thanks for chiming in, and for unflagging this.

I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but my desire in sharing these
stories was to start a respectful conversation based upon open dialogue - to
help this community - not tear it apart. I also don't want to start a flamewar
or delve into conspiracy theories.

Its too bad that these posts have been buried now due to how the algorithm
works, but I appreciate you taking the time to talk about it and to unflag it.

So anyway, just wanted to say thanks.

~~~
geoah
It really isn't because of how the algorithm works, it's as dang said; people
don't agree with what you are promoting.

------
Assossa
I have not heard of any censorship happening on GitHub. Can you provide some
more details and proof?

~~~
firloop
A repo critical of the acquisition was removed from the Github “trending”
page.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17251255](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17251255)

This doesn’t bother me that much, as the repo itself was unaffected and I
expect a trending page to have some sort of bias/editorship.

~~~
lostmsu
IMO, the statement is far from being trusted, not the least because it is
unclear if the trend dried up on its own.

The title in both cases is clickbait'y.

~~~
hmyr0
It didn't. I witnessed the repository (previously #1) suddenly disappear,
despite it still gaining stars significantly faster than the other trending
repositories. Another repository, 'deno', had been on Trending for a
significantly longer time, so it's unlikely that the anti-Microsoft repository
was automatically removed to make room for other repositories.

------
hmyr0
Thank for for posting this. I posted a similar link which gained 70+ upvotes
within minutes before being deleted with no explanation.

~~~
dang
Your post was flagged by users, as is explained by the annotation [flagged].

~~~
falcon620
That flagging scheme of yours allows a subgroup, in this case likely C# devs
whose careers are aligned with the success of Microsoft to very efficiently
silence any dissent. I don't think this is something that has caught you by
surprise, so why do you allow it?

~~~
dang
You've simply imagined this: "likely C# devs whose careers are aligned with
the success of Microsoft". Once you frame it that way, it sounds terrible, but
there's no evidence for it and the data I looked at doesn't support it. Your
question "why do you allow it" has a similar framing. The answer is that we
don't allow it.

The much more common case is that users don't want to see things that are
clearly off topic for HN, such as teacup internet dramas. As I explained
above, the overwhelming verdict of HN users is that there's nothing serious in
this story. If they thought otherwise, it would certainly be on HN's front
page. That's the flagging system working as intended.

~~~
falcon620
I disagree. I think lots of valuable stories are being buried by organized
niche interests. I hope to be able expose some of this.

