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I wrote another comment arguing that this proposal was both racist and discriminatory, which got flagged and deleted without explanation, presumably because I w

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 in a way which is hopefully less likely to be misinterpreted. There are employment laws which prevent companies from discriminating against people based on factors such as race, sexual orientation, religion, physical appearance, age, marital status, and other things over which they either have no control or which are not relevant to their job. These laws are in place for good reason and most people (myself included) support them. It is my belief that a company policy prohibiting the hiring of people based on any of the above attributes would be wrong, and probably illegal (depending on the jurisdiction). The question then comes down to whether refusing to hire someone based on either their nationality or the country in which they live (in the case of a remote company) is wrong in the same sense as the above factors. My argument is yes. The fact that someone lives in China or Russia does not, by itself, make them an untrustworthy person, any more than someone living in the United States, Germany, Japan, or the UK. At the request of several customers, GitLab is proposing a policy which discriminates against people based on their naionality/country of residence, which I would argue is almost (if not equally) as bad as discrimination based on the other factors I've mentioned, and should be opposed for the same reasons as a policy which prohibited hires who were of a particular race or sexual orientation. If anyone wants to flag this comment, you are of course free to do so. But I would much prefer, and I think we could all benefit from, a coherent discussion of the flaws in my argument.

nscalf 7y ago
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 to prevent judgement based off traits that cannot be changed. Where you live is not the same thing as your skin color. Imagine if someone refused to change their password and only used 6 characters for it. It’s a security protocol to force a change there. I’m viewing thing more similar to that than similar to racial discrimination, given that gitlab is not saying they won’t hire Russians widely.
- EugeneOZ 7y ago
  It's much more easy to just buy some data than torture somebody. Or you think engineers from US, UK or any other country can't be bought? :)
  - nscalf 7y ago
    I agree with that, but I was thinking more along the lines of bugging your home, tracing your internet traffic through ISPs, etc.
- el_cujo 7y ago
  >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).
throwawaypolicy 7y ago
> The fact that someone lives in China or Russia does not, by itself, make them an untrustworthy person, any more than someone living in the United States, Germany, Japan, or the UK. It has nothing to do with "untrustworthy" and everything to do with "will be coerced without anyone even breaking the law". I don't know if that will change your mind, but it's an important difference, it's not a judgement of the people but of the state they are living in.
mam2 7y ago
In america it is my understanding you can be legally forced by intelligence agencies to provide confidential info about your company and legally forced to not disclose it to your company. There's no reason to believe it's different in any other countries, in particular countries that have a an obvious confrontational stance against "the west" and are at least semi authoritarian. So a person maybe a "nice/trustworthy person" but because of such laws, working with a person from a country equal granting access to your internal infos to the whole country this person is a citizen of.
- slim 7y ago
  there is no reason to believe any other country does this to it's citizen. my understanding is this kind of imperial reach has been abandoned by all other countries since the invention of the nation-state (in favor of positive law)
d1ffuz0r 7y ago
It's called Ukrainization of US politics, in short "cut off one's nose to spite one's face" principe of life
brightball 7y ago
FWIW I have seen government contracts that specifically request only US citizens have access to certain parts of systems.
- Quarrelsome 7y ago
  to elaborate: defence. They don't want people to have potential leverage (e.g. family members) within the grasp of other national powers who may not be allies.
acdha 7y ago
The factor I'd consider is the legal system of those countries: if you hire someone who lives in China, you're adding another country which can compel your employee to against against your company or customers’ interests (as an American company they're already exposed to the U.S. government's powers). Similarly, you're taking on the risk that something like, say, a future iteration of the current trade war would lead to you suddenly being forced to discontinue their employment on potentially very short notice (remember Adobe's need to comply with the Venezuelan sanctions?).
ArchReaper 7y ago
I think you're really missing the point of this entire discussion in the first place. This came up because of a client request. Your question about whether people from other countries can be considered trustworthy is completely irrelevant. The fact is, organizations exist that are at polar odds with governments that exist today. It is not unreasonable to, for example, have a 'Uyghur Oppression Awareness Group' require that all of their data be handled by NOT-CHINA. It has nothing to do with Chinese people, or their ethnicity. It has to do with the fact that if an employee is able to access their data, and the government has an incentive to take that data, the government can easily force that person to hand over that data. This exists in many countries, Russia, China, USA, Australia, UK, the list is very long. Your argument is flawed because you're arguing the wrong point. The trustworthiness of an individual is not relevant in any capacity.
Timpy 7y ago
I might be understanding this differently (perhaps incorrectly). I lived in Russia, and I left with a very strong model in my mind that Russian_people != Russian_government. I don't think this is related to trusting foreign nationals, I believe it's strictly about trusting foreign states. The threat model isn't "Russian developer who wants to support their family." The threat model is "Russian government." I agree with and support the laws prohibiting discrimination against people for race, religion, etc., but I don't think this is related to any of the criteria you cited. As far as I can tell, GitLab is enthusiastic about promoting diversity [0]. It's based on country of residence; Americans living in Russia would be blocked and Russians living in America would not. Frankly, I think they should consider putting Australia on the list too [1]. It's not an issue of discrimination based on race, sexual orientation, religion, physical appearance, age, marital status, or ethnicity. [0] https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/inclusion/ https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/inclusion/ [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-46463029 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-46463029

nscalf 7y ago

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 to prevent judgement based off traits that cannot be changed. Where you live is not the same thing as your skin color. Imagine if someone refused to change their password and only used 6 characters for it. It’s a security protocol to force a change there. I’m viewing thing more similar to that than similar to racial discrimination, given that gitlab is not saying they won’t hire Russians widely.

EugeneOZ 7y ago
It's much more easy to just buy some data than torture somebody. Or you think engineers from US, UK or any other country can't be bought? :)
- nscalf 7y ago
  I agree with that, but I was thinking more along the lines of bugging your home, tracing your internet traffic through ISPs, etc.
el_cujo 7y ago
>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).

throwawaypolicy 7y ago

> The fact that someone lives in China or Russia does not, by itself, make them an untrustworthy person, any more than someone living in the United States, Germany, Japan, or the UK. It has nothing to do with "untrustworthy" and everything to do with "will be coerced without anyone even breaking the law". I don't know if that will change your mind, but it's an important difference, it's not a judgement of the people but of the state they are living in.

mam2 7y ago

In america it is my understanding you can be legally forced by intelligence agencies to provide confidential info about your company and legally forced to not disclose it to your company. There's no reason to believe it's different in any other countries, in particular countries that have a an obvious confrontational stance against "the west" and are at least semi authoritarian. So a person maybe a "nice/trustworthy person" but because of such laws, working with a person from a country equal granting access to your internal infos to the whole country this person is a citizen of.

slim 7y ago
there is no reason to believe any other country does this to it's citizen. my understanding is this kind of imperial reach has been abandoned by all other countries since the invention of the nation-state (in favor of positive law)

d1ffuz0r 7y ago

It's called Ukrainization of US politics, in short "cut off one's nose to spite one's face" principe of life

brightball 7y ago

FWIW I have seen government contracts that specifically request only US citizens have access to certain parts of systems.

Quarrelsome 7y ago
to elaborate: defence. They don't want people to have potential leverage (e.g. family members) within the grasp of other national powers who may not be allies.

acdha 7y ago

The factor I'd consider is the legal system of those countries: if you hire someone who lives in China, you're adding another country which can compel your employee to against against your company or customers’ interests (as an American company they're already exposed to the U.S. government's powers). Similarly, you're taking on the risk that something like, say, a future iteration of the current trade war would lead to you suddenly being forced to discontinue their employment on potentially very short notice (remember Adobe's need to comply with the Venezuelan sanctions?).

ArchReaper 7y ago

I think you're really missing the point of this entire discussion in the first place. This came up because of a client request. Your question about whether people from other countries can be considered trustworthy is completely irrelevant. The fact is, organizations exist that are at polar odds with governments that exist today. It is not unreasonable to, for example, have a 'Uyghur Oppression Awareness Group' require that all of their data be handled by NOT-CHINA. It has nothing to do with Chinese people, or their ethnicity. It has to do with the fact that if an employee is able to access their data, and the government has an incentive to take that data, the government can easily force that person to hand over that data. This exists in many countries, Russia, China, USA, Australia, UK, the list is very long. Your argument is flawed because you're arguing the wrong point. The trustworthiness of an individual is not relevant in any capacity.

Timpy 7y ago

I might be understanding this differently (perhaps incorrectly). I lived in Russia, and I left with a very strong model in my mind that Russian_people != Russian_government. I don't think this is related to trusting foreign nationals, I believe it's strictly about trusting foreign states. The threat model isn't "Russian developer who wants to support their family." The threat model is "Russian government." I agree with and support the laws prohibiting discrimination against people for race, religion, etc., but I don't think this is related to any of the criteria you cited. As far as I can tell, GitLab is enthusiastic about promoting diversity [0]. It's based on country of residence; Americans living in Russia would be blocked and Russians living in America would not. Frankly, I think they should consider putting Australia on the list too [1]. It's not an issue of discrimination based on race, sexual orientation, religion, physical appearance, age, marital status, or ethnicity. [0] https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/inclusion/ https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/inclusion/ [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-46463029 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-46463029