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Private repos are not subject to our Community Guidelines on public content, so no, we don't enforce the same rules there: https://help.github.com/en/github/sit

Private repos are not subject to our Community Guidelines on public content, so no, we don't enforce the same rules there: https://help.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-community-guidelines https://help.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-communi... I wasn't aware of SS13, and will look into what happened there. Content moderation at GitHub scale is hard and sometimes mistakes are made.

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
> Content moderation at GitHub scale is hard and sometimes mistakes are made. This is completely fair, but lack of transparency makes it significantly more frustrating.
- GordonS 6y ago
  Agree strongly with this. If a repo is public and gets banned, I think it's reasonable to expect that the community can know why, regardless of the rights or wrongs of the decision.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - zerkten 6y ago
    It seems reasonable to expect this, but it can fall down in practice for several reasons: * Sometimes legal counsel provide advice that there should be no further response to the individual or organization. Often technical people don't understand this situation, but it doesn't change the merits of the legal advice. In smaller organizations a leader might take a chance in further engagement, if they think it's helpful, but it's unlikely a large organization would expose themselves to this risk. * Breakdown in internal response processes. You'll find that many people are really uncomfortable in these situations (e.g. compliance team shut down service, but don't "own" the response.) Unless the legal team has written a response and instructions on how to deliver it, you will often see people in organizations avoid giving the response. Things get passed down as low as they can go which doesn't help because there is less experience with handling tough situations. Very often some poor person with support ends up having to give the response and they basically ignore it because they can avoid the situation. This isn't very professional of the organization, but it's a reality.
    - GordonS 6y ago
      This is a well thought out response with factors that weren't obvious to me - thanks.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
  Transparency can give bad actors a way to game and workaround the system.
  - underdeserver 6y ago
    More likely, ammo in a potential legal battle between GitHub and the banned party.
    - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
      So far it's been mostly small / independent developers or organizations that were banned, and Github has Microsoft behind it, a $125bn / year revenue company with a legal team 1,500 strong (https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2019/12/02/how-brad-smith-evolved-microsofts-legal-team.html https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2019/12/02/how-brad...). I don't think fear of litigation is the issue.
      - koheripbal 6y ago
        The very first thing a corporate lawyer does is proactively prevent litigation through protective policies that specifically do NOT emphasize transparency.
  - vbezhenar 6y ago
    We're living with transparent juridical system and it works fine. Imagine that you could be thrown to jail without explaining a reason. That would be outrageous.
    - toyg 6y ago
      > transparent juridical system and it works fine Yeah, criminals are always arrested and convicted. /s It's a balance. With something as essential as human rights and personal freedom, people (tend to) err on the safe side. Online moderation can err on the other side, since consequences are relatively modest. If you get banned on GH, move to Gitlab or host your own, that's hardly a tragedy.
- sytelus 6y ago
  No, it’s not fair. Banning a repo should be taken as seriously as banning a book. Living in a country that is US where github HQ is hosted, freedom of speech should be prized and cared for dearly. For a commercial company, there should be only one reason to ban a repo and that is to abide with a law. For even that company should do everything in its power to prevent that or provide a viable lawful alternative. This should be taken so seriously that each ban should have been reviewed at CEO level. GitHub CEO saying he has no clue, it’s a scale issue and “mistakes are made” is not really acceptable.
  - nrr 6y ago
    I appreciate the idealism here, but the reality is that trying to run a business under the pretense of free speech absolutism can alienate an otherwise profitable market segment. With the loss of that market segment likely comes the grumbling of investors, to whom ultimately the executive management is beholden. Grumbly investors beget grumbly board members, who then vote to oust executives to correct the profitability problem.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
      > can alienate an otherwise profitable market segment How are you going to alienate/lose customers by not getting rid of customers? If anything, I'd argue the opposite; a platform that refuses to ban legal content is one that I find easier to trust (for a counterexample, see Google). It's not even like github-like companies are social networks where you can claim that one user's experience of the platform is made worse by another user's posts.
      - hiram112 6y ago
        We all know that the most vocal on the left, who want to silence anyone who doesn't pander to their political ideals, pressure public companies, advertisers, etc. to 'cancel' those who refuse to go along - drop their advertising, cut off their servers, purge their DNS, ban their accounts, shame them relentlessly until they disappear. Most US companies these days have no morals, and are easily influenced by these tactics due to greed and fear of being targeted themselves. Silicon Valley and the majority of the big tech companies seem to be especially vulnerable to this, probably due to their own employee demographics. What many of these companies don't understand, possibly because they live in a relative 'bubble' surrounded by those who think similarly, is that there are a lot of us out there who not only disagree with this type of behavior, but will actively NOT use the services of any company who supports these types of tactics.
jfoster 6y ago
Do public repos that get banned have access cut off, or are they just forcibly made private?
- MrStonedOne 6y ago
  Access is cut off in our case (ss13), i don't know if that's different in user owned repos vs org owned repos.
MrStonedOne 6y ago
I run /tg/station's servers. A few questions: Do you think the scale could be handled better if you informed repo owners 1: that their repo was disabled, and 2: why their repo was disabled? Currently the owner has to contact support to know why it was disabled, our repo was disabled thursday at 5am pdt, we sent a ticket by 6am. We still don't know why it was disabled. Its tuesday. (edit: we did get a reply, vague comment about slurs, nobody's sure if its the nword word filter (so thats getting removed, ironically enough), or the comment from 2014 with a soft-a, (but it can go), or the fact that the meatball food item has a, umm, british name)). Also, do you think the scale of content moderation would be easier if you tiered repo disables between can be resolved and can not be resolved, and in the former case provide the same 24 hours deadline that you provide line item dmcas, as well as provide access to the owner during any suspension if the 24 hours deadline is not met (That you also provide to line item dmcas)? All of these unneeded trips to support has to be eating into the efficiency of things.

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago

> Content moderation at GitHub scale is hard and sometimes mistakes are made. This is completely fair, but lack of transparency makes it significantly more frustrating.

GordonS 6y ago
Agree strongly with this. If a repo is public and gets banned, I think it's reasonable to expect that the community can know why, regardless of the rights or wrongs of the decision.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- zerkten 6y ago
  It seems reasonable to expect this, but it can fall down in practice for several reasons: * Sometimes legal counsel provide advice that there should be no further response to the individual or organization. Often technical people don't understand this situation, but it doesn't change the merits of the legal advice. In smaller organizations a leader might take a chance in further engagement, if they think it's helpful, but it's unlikely a large organization would expose themselves to this risk. * Breakdown in internal response processes. You'll find that many people are really uncomfortable in these situations (e.g. compliance team shut down service, but don't "own" the response.) Unless the legal team has written a response and instructions on how to deliver it, you will often see people in organizations avoid giving the response. Things get passed down as low as they can go which doesn't help because there is less experience with handling tough situations. Very often some poor person with support ends up having to give the response and they basically ignore it because they can avoid the situation. This isn't very professional of the organization, but it's a reality.
  - GordonS 6y ago
    This is a well thought out response with factors that weren't obvious to me - thanks.
2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
Transparency can give bad actors a way to game and workaround the system.
- underdeserver 6y ago
  More likely, ammo in a potential legal battle between GitHub and the banned party.
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    So far it's been mostly small / independent developers or organizations that were banned, and Github has Microsoft behind it, a $125bn / year revenue company with a legal team 1,500 strong (https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2019/12/02/how-brad-smith-evolved-microsofts-legal-team.html https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2019/12/02/how-brad...). I don't think fear of litigation is the issue.
    - koheripbal 6y ago
      The very first thing a corporate lawyer does is proactively prevent litigation through protective policies that specifically do NOT emphasize transparency.
- vbezhenar 6y ago
  We're living with transparent juridical system and it works fine. Imagine that you could be thrown to jail without explaining a reason. That would be outrageous.
  - toyg 6y ago
    > transparent juridical system and it works fine Yeah, criminals are always arrested and convicted. /s It's a balance. With something as essential as human rights and personal freedom, people (tend to) err on the safe side. Online moderation can err on the other side, since consequences are relatively modest. If you get banned on GH, move to Gitlab or host your own, that's hardly a tragedy.
sytelus 6y ago
No, it’s not fair. Banning a repo should be taken as seriously as banning a book. Living in a country that is US where github HQ is hosted, freedom of speech should be prized and cared for dearly. For a commercial company, there should be only one reason to ban a repo and that is to abide with a law. For even that company should do everything in its power to prevent that or provide a viable lawful alternative. This should be taken so seriously that each ban should have been reviewed at CEO level. GitHub CEO saying he has no clue, it’s a scale issue and “mistakes are made” is not really acceptable.
- nrr 6y ago
  I appreciate the idealism here, but the reality is that trying to run a business under the pretense of free speech absolutism can alienate an otherwise profitable market segment. With the loss of that market segment likely comes the grumbling of investors, to whom ultimately the executive management is beholden. Grumbly investors beget grumbly board members, who then vote to oust executives to correct the profitability problem.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    > can alienate an otherwise profitable market segment How are you going to alienate/lose customers by not getting rid of customers? If anything, I'd argue the opposite; a platform that refuses to ban legal content is one that I find easier to trust (for a counterexample, see Google). It's not even like github-like companies are social networks where you can claim that one user's experience of the platform is made worse by another user's posts.
    - hiram112 6y ago
      We all know that the most vocal on the left, who want to silence anyone who doesn't pander to their political ideals, pressure public companies, advertisers, etc. to 'cancel' those who refuse to go along - drop their advertising, cut off their servers, purge their DNS, ban their accounts, shame them relentlessly until they disappear. Most US companies these days have no morals, and are easily influenced by these tactics due to greed and fear of being targeted themselves. Silicon Valley and the majority of the big tech companies seem to be especially vulnerable to this, probably due to their own employee demographics. What many of these companies don't understand, possibly because they live in a relative 'bubble' surrounded by those who think similarly, is that there are a lot of us out there who not only disagree with this type of behavior, but will actively NOT use the services of any company who supports these types of tactics.

jfoster 6y ago

Do public repos that get banned have access cut off, or are they just forcibly made private?

MrStonedOne 6y ago
Access is cut off in our case (ss13), i don't know if that's different in user owned repos vs org owned repos.

MrStonedOne 6y ago

I run /tg/station's servers. A few questions: Do you think the scale could be handled better if you informed repo owners 1: that their repo was disabled, and 2: why their repo was disabled? Currently the owner has to contact support to know why it was disabled, our repo was disabled thursday at 5am pdt, we sent a ticket by 6am. We still don't know why it was disabled. Its tuesday. (edit: we did get a reply, vague comment about slurs, nobody's sure if its the nword word filter (so thats getting removed, ironically enough), or the comment from 2014 with a soft-a, (but it can go), or the fact that the meatball food item has a, umm, british name)). Also, do you think the scale of content moderation would be easier if you tiered repo disables between can be resolved and can not be resolved, and in the former case provide the same 24 hours deadline that you provide line item dmcas, as well as provide access to the owner during any suspension if the 24 hours deadline is not met (That you also provide to line item dmcas)? All of these unneeded trips to support has to be eating into the efficiency of things.