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What frustrates me about these kind of things is how impersonal they are. How many orgs/users does GitHub sanction a day? Too many for it to be able to email th

What frustrates me about these kind of things is how impersonal they are. How many orgs/users does GitHub sanction a day? Too many for it to be able to email the users and ask clarifying questions? Or even have a human dig in and double check what the algorithm says. Basic human interaction would seemingly solve 99% of false account lockouts and takedowns. Even basic heuristics like this org has a repo with 11,000 stars, it isn't a new user that just signed up yesterday, we need to look into this deeper.

cryptonector 7y ago
In a world in which online presence is an essential attribute of... commerce, professionalism, etc., deplatforming cannot be allowed to be so trivial to effect and difficult (in many cases impossible) to challenge. At some point human rights have got to include sufficient due process to deal with accidental or unjust deplatforming.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  It's an interesting thought, but at the moment at least, things are still too fluid to really nail down how that would work. What is a "platform?" What is "deplatforming?" If Github kicks me off and I can migrate easily to GitLab, have I been "deplatformed?" Is it morally correct to tie Github's hands from locking someone's account if they're using their git repo to host CP? We're getting there, but pulling it off is going to require a level of international cooperation that is rarely seen (and tends to give a few key players a lot of power; if we do this, I hope everyone's excited to be living under the US's notion of what morality looks like. Or Europe's. or China's).
  - cryptonector 7y ago
    > If Github kicks me off and I can migrate easily to GitLab, have I been "deplatformed?" Most definitely you have. Especially if the reason and process used by GH is likely to also be in use at GL. > Is it morally correct to tie Github's hands from locking someone's account if they're using their git repo to host CP? The relevant question is: is it constitutional. In the U.S. I believe the answer would be a solid "yes" as to a Federal statute that adds due process protections for this, no different than with the many many Federal and State laws and regulations that have created civil justice recourse for specific kinds of torts. Morality is a different issue, and it's much too easy to flip your question on its head: is it moral to deplatform people if doing so damages their ability to earn a living? Indeed, there's no need to frame this as a moral question, and it's arguably foolish to do so. It is and should be only a question of policy, politics, and constitutional law. Regarding politics, mine is a political argument. Regarding policy, I think it's a good idea to give "little people" some minimal protections from "big people". This is quite standard around the world. There are going to be policy details to debate, but writ large, this is a no-brainer. I already address the very likely U.S. consitutionality of such a policy. > We're getting there, but pulling it off is going to require a level of international cooperation that is rarely seen (and tends to give a few key players a lot of power; if we do this, I hope everyone's excited to be living under the US's notion of what morality looks like. Or Europe's. or China's). No. This can be done in each country w/o internaltional cooperation. Granted, GH might pull out of France, say, if they don't like French laws, and so on. But U.S. business will not leave the U.S. over this.
    - shadowgovt 7y ago
      > Indeed, there's no need to frame this as a moral question, and it's arguably foolish to do so. It is and should be only a question of policy, politics, and constitutional law. Morality drives the shaping of all three of those things, so framing it as a question of morality is unavoidable if one wants to do something other than the status quo (which is "A private service provider may choose to do business with or refrain from doing business with anyone for any reason that hasn't already been carved out by previous civil rights legislation"). I believe you immediately demonstrated this fact by stating as "policy" something that is a moral stance ("little people" deserve some minimal protections from "big people"). And we may do well to remember that the KKK is also "little people", as are neo-Nazis (and society has a vested interest in keeping both groups "little people"). All people should be treated equally as people in the eyes of the law, i.e. with empathy for their humanity. But when you divide groups into "little" and "big" by political belief, sometimes you do, in fact, find situations where the majority should suppress the minority (because the minority's belief is anti-human, and political beliefs are malleable).
      - blanche_56 7y ago
        We may also do well to bear in mind that, in this political climate, many reasonable people advocating very reasonable policies are being slandered as "Nazis" with their subsequent deplatforming justified by that label alone. As long as that exception that you tacked on at the end exists, it will be exploited by whoever holds power.
        shadowgovt 7y ago
        Which is going to need to be acceptable, because the alternative is much worse. The backstop is to keep checks on those who hold power. And if no such checks can be kept, then whether we consider deplatforming acceptable is irrelevant, because the powerful will do whatever they want regardless.
eterm 7y ago
Justice isn't supposed to be carried out in darkness.
jedberg 7y ago
Unfortunately US law dictates that you nuke first and ask questions later. You loose your platform protections if you don't.
- antoncohen 7y ago
  Does the law actually require a fully automated means of detection? For example to "nuke first" means you need to know that sanctions apply. If the law doesn't require it to be fully automated, "know that sanctions apply" could involve a human doing verification.
  - bdcravens 7y ago
    With over 100M repos, manually reviewing (even if the flagging for review is automated) is likely just not practical. I suspect that once they are aware (the automated flagging) they are then legally on the hook for as long as it takes to perform the review.
    - antoncohen 7y ago
      That still comes down to when they are considered "aware". If I emailed GitHub and told them the "microsoft" org was run by people in Iran, would they then be "aware" and need to shutdown the "microsoft" org? If you consider automated flagging to be a tip-off that needs to be investigated, then you aren't "aware" until it is investigated. I don't think 100 million repos matters. What matters is how many automated tip-offs they need to investigate. It would have taken two minutes of investigation to find out this repo wasn't from a sanctioned country. If it takes two minutes to review a case, a team of five people could review over a thousand cases in an eight hour day. I work for a tech company that has a team of people that reviews uploaded content for copyright violations, it can be done. Remember that the sanctions are for commercial use, primarily paid accounts. These sanction violation aren't happening at the rate of something like YouTube copyright violations. I wouldn't be surprised if it was less than ten a day.
      - bdcravens 7y ago
shadowgovt 7y ago
Personal interaction and special-case handling of individual issues does not scale. That's the curse of getting too big as an internet service provider of any stripe.

cryptonector 7y ago

In a world in which online presence is an essential attribute of... commerce, professionalism, etc., deplatforming cannot be allowed to be so trivial to effect and difficult (in many cases impossible) to challenge. At some point human rights have got to include sufficient due process to deal with accidental or unjust deplatforming.

shadowgovt 7y ago
It's an interesting thought, but at the moment at least, things are still too fluid to really nail down how that would work. What is a "platform?" What is "deplatforming?" If Github kicks me off and I can migrate easily to GitLab, have I been "deplatformed?" Is it morally correct to tie Github's hands from locking someone's account if they're using their git repo to host CP? We're getting there, but pulling it off is going to require a level of international cooperation that is rarely seen (and tends to give a few key players a lot of power; if we do this, I hope everyone's excited to be living under the US's notion of what morality looks like. Or Europe's. or China's).
- cryptonector 7y ago
  > If Github kicks me off and I can migrate easily to GitLab, have I been "deplatformed?" Most definitely you have. Especially if the reason and process used by GH is likely to also be in use at GL. > Is it morally correct to tie Github's hands from locking someone's account if they're using their git repo to host CP? The relevant question is: is it constitutional. In the U.S. I believe the answer would be a solid "yes" as to a Federal statute that adds due process protections for this, no different than with the many many Federal and State laws and regulations that have created civil justice recourse for specific kinds of torts. Morality is a different issue, and it's much too easy to flip your question on its head: is it moral to deplatform people if doing so damages their ability to earn a living? Indeed, there's no need to frame this as a moral question, and it's arguably foolish to do so. It is and should be only a question of policy, politics, and constitutional law. Regarding politics, mine is a political argument. Regarding policy, I think it's a good idea to give "little people" some minimal protections from "big people". This is quite standard around the world. There are going to be policy details to debate, but writ large, this is a no-brainer. I already address the very likely U.S. consitutionality of such a policy. > We're getting there, but pulling it off is going to require a level of international cooperation that is rarely seen (and tends to give a few key players a lot of power; if we do this, I hope everyone's excited to be living under the US's notion of what morality looks like. Or Europe's. or China's). No. This can be done in each country w/o internaltional cooperation. Granted, GH might pull out of France, say, if they don't like French laws, and so on. But U.S. business will not leave the U.S. over this.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    > Indeed, there's no need to frame this as a moral question, and it's arguably foolish to do so. It is and should be only a question of policy, politics, and constitutional law. Morality drives the shaping of all three of those things, so framing it as a question of morality is unavoidable if one wants to do something other than the status quo (which is "A private service provider may choose to do business with or refrain from doing business with anyone for any reason that hasn't already been carved out by previous civil rights legislation"). I believe you immediately demonstrated this fact by stating as "policy" something that is a moral stance ("little people" deserve some minimal protections from "big people"). And we may do well to remember that the KKK is also "little people", as are neo-Nazis (and society has a vested interest in keeping both groups "little people"). All people should be treated equally as people in the eyes of the law, i.e. with empathy for their humanity. But when you divide groups into "little" and "big" by political belief, sometimes you do, in fact, find situations where the majority should suppress the minority (because the minority's belief is anti-human, and political beliefs are malleable).
    - blanche_56 7y ago
      We may also do well to bear in mind that, in this political climate, many reasonable people advocating very reasonable policies are being slandered as "Nazis" with their subsequent deplatforming justified by that label alone. As long as that exception that you tacked on at the end exists, it will be exploited by whoever holds power.
      - shadowgovt 7y ago
        Which is going to need to be acceptable, because the alternative is much worse. The backstop is to keep checks on those who hold power. And if no such checks can be kept, then whether we consider deplatforming acceptable is irrelevant, because the powerful will do whatever they want regardless.

eterm 7y ago

Justice isn't supposed to be carried out in darkness.

jedberg 7y ago

Unfortunately US law dictates that you nuke first and ask questions later. You loose your platform protections if you don't.

antoncohen 7y ago
Does the law actually require a fully automated means of detection? For example to "nuke first" means you need to know that sanctions apply. If the law doesn't require it to be fully automated, "know that sanctions apply" could involve a human doing verification.
- bdcravens 7y ago
  With over 100M repos, manually reviewing (even if the flagging for review is automated) is likely just not practical. I suspect that once they are aware (the automated flagging) they are then legally on the hook for as long as it takes to perform the review.
  - antoncohen 7y ago
    That still comes down to when they are considered "aware". If I emailed GitHub and told them the "microsoft" org was run by people in Iran, would they then be "aware" and need to shutdown the "microsoft" org? If you consider automated flagging to be a tip-off that needs to be investigated, then you aren't "aware" until it is investigated. I don't think 100 million repos matters. What matters is how many automated tip-offs they need to investigate. It would have taken two minutes of investigation to find out this repo wasn't from a sanctioned country. If it takes two minutes to review a case, a team of five people could review over a thousand cases in an eight hour day. I work for a tech company that has a team of people that reviews uploaded content for copyright violations, it can be done. Remember that the sanctions are for commercial use, primarily paid accounts. These sanction violation aren't happening at the rate of something like YouTube copyright violations. I wouldn't be surprised if it was less than ten a day.
    - bdcravens 7y ago

shadowgovt 7y ago

Personal interaction and special-case handling of individual issues does not scale. That's the curse of getting too big as an internet service provider of any stripe.