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Tell HN: I am 12 and my GitHub account is flagged for no reason
I am 12 years old. My GitHub account is flagged for no reason. I am using the GitHub Student Pack. The problem is that I use GitHub OAuth everywere, I can't access applications like Replit and Digital Ocean that I registered using GitHub OAuth. Maybe it's because I'd never use Windows, I use GNU/Linux instead. I used Proton Mail to register GitHub. However, like RMS said, Microsoft is bad. I won't use GitHub anymore. But it is difficult to migrate. But GitLab is related to Google. I don't like BitBucket. And I can't use Netlify and Vercel with Codeberg which is what I love.
- xiyueuyix 4y agoBecause of that, my profile is hidden from the public. I am in the US now but I am from China, is this a reason?
- maxbond 4y ago> A User must be at least 13 years of age. https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-of-service https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t... Presumably because of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Online_Privacy_Pr... Sorry to hear you've lost access to your accounts. That really sucks.
- noobermin 4y agoThey say in another comment that they were flagged as spam, so the age thing doesn't seem to be the primary reason...
- hejaodbsidndbd 4y agoThere are lots of sites where moderators don’t make a point to look for underage users, but by policy have to cut them off when they come across them. I’ve seen scenarios before wear a spurious flag for some thing irrelevant ends up having this outcome.
- ashwagary 4y agoSo all I have to do to get Microsoft to delete my data is open a support request and say Im 10? Nice to know, thanks for sharing this tip op.
- richardjam73 4y agoLooking at archive.org the user says they are a middleschooler on their github profile.
- xiyueuyix 4y ago"You are marked as spam, and therefore cannot authorize a third party application.", they said. I am quite furious. I can't do anything.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tmpburning 4y agoThat makes me think of an experience I just had with Google for a new account that was automatically disabled. I contacted Google as suggested and my account was unblocked in one day... Maybe Google is coming to its senses? > You recently contacted Google support. As requested, we’ve restored your Google Account ???????@gmail.com, along with your emails, contacts, photos, and other data stored with Google.
- ceejayoz 4y agoThe GitHub terms: > You must be age 13 or older. While we are thrilled to see brilliant young coders get excited by learning to program, we must comply with United States law. GitHub does not target our Service to children under 13, and we do not permit any Users under 13 on our Service. If we learn of any User under the age of 13, we will terminate that User’s Account immediately. If you are a resident of a country outside the United States, your country’s minimum age may be older; in such a case, you are responsible for complying with your country’s laws. This is far more likely to be the reason than using Linux over Windows, lol.
- xiyueuyix 4y agoI am using GNU/Linux on a bare machine. I started using GNU/Linux when I was 9.
- throwaway09223 4y agoSure, but in the US children under 13 are more often than not banned from using internet services due to an ill-conceived law called COPPA.
- dissent 4y agoHe didn't mean you were running Linux "on" or "under" Windows. What he meant was "this is not because you are running Linux instead of Windows".
- 7e 4y agoIf you’re calling it GNU/Linux, I believe you.
- Waterluvian 4y agoHi Xiyue Zhang! A few things: - have you tried emailing support@github.com? They can help tell you what’s wrong or fix it for you. - it probably has nothing to do with Linux vs windows. - “Microsoft is bad” is a mindset that restricts many opportunities. Consider avoiding “black and white” ideas about things. Good luck!
- maxbond 4y agoCould we not attach their name to this so that it comes up when future employers search for it? It just seems unnecessary.
- Waterluvian 4y agoIt’s in their bio? I’m just trying to be friendly to a young individual who is interacting in an often unfriendly context.
- maxbond 4y agoI get that, but I don't think it's fair to interpret that as license to use their name, given that it also makes it clear they're a minor.
- genconfused 4y ago
- rvnx 4y agoWaterluvian: I also think maxbond raised a valid point; it could be kind of you, if you could remove the name of the child, to not permanently attach its real name to the posts. He/she can edit the bio later, but he/she can't edit your post. I'm pretty sure this kid is going to be very successful, especially when you see how he is acting today and curious about learning.
- maxbond 4y ago
- sulam 4y agoI don’t know of anything connecting Google to GitLab.
- rvnx 4y agoPerhaps some of the funding by Google: https://www.kyivpost.com/technology/google-fund-invests-20-million-gitlab-startup-ukrainian-cofounder.html https://www.kyivpost.com/technology/google-fund-invests-20-m...
- adolph 4y ago> The problem is that I use GitHub OAuth everywere Sorry you are learning the lesson about keeping all one's eggs in one basket the hard way. Don't single-source your identity authentication management and make backups for things important to you. If at all possible use adversarial services and treat accounts at services as ephemeral so that if one bans you, the other probably won't. There should probably be a 12 Factor Lifestyle manifesto. https://12factor.net/ https://12factor.net/
- than3 4y agoadolph that's not going to help him/her. In more generalized terms, OP what you need to do is called risk management analysis. At your age, your parents typically do this for you but its never too early to start learning it. It applies to many aspects in life, in chess its called adversarial thinking, or prophylaxis. To do this, basically, you start by having a goal, something you want to do or have done. Then you start by asking yourself what are the most likely risks or outcomes (what can happen), then you extend that to the uncommon but do happen risks, potentially the risks and the rare risks if the failure is particularly critical as well (i.e. safety-critical, or impacts your well-being). Write them down, then determine what your requirements, dependencies, and what your points of failure are, how many points of failure do you have, is there a single point of failure where everything depends on a single thing, can that break? Once you have it on paper, then reorganize to reduce, eliminate, mitigate, or remove those points of failure. Sometimes that means creating redundancy (more than two of a thing to combat a single point of failure) because that provides flexibility. Brittle systems break, flexible systems can cope or gracefully degrade if a leg of the system diagram is broken. This is called system resiliency in IT. Unexpected things will happen, and if you've gamed out what those outcomes are ahead of time, and worked backwards, and have a plan for dealing with them (mitigating), or have removed the issue by investing more or doing something differently, you are well on your way because you prepared ahead of time, and if something does happen you don't have to deal with the emotional shock alongside trying to figure out what you are going to do because you've written your plan out (step-by-step) and have contingencies in place. You just need to pull out the instructions you made, and follow them, and hopefully you've written the instructions, and validated them ahead of time. They should be written in a way that you can mindlessly follow them because you won't be nearly productive while you are in it, strong emotions have a way of clouding our thinking and sapping our productive efforts. When you first start doing this, it takes practice, which is why I said write it out, it can be as simple as a series of circle nodes as long as you account for those previous items how you write it out doesn't matter. This is used in many different places, and its particularly critical in IT (i.e. backups, business continuity, disaster recovery). Contingency planning (another name for a part of this), means you always have at least one fallback plan. If its not written/documented, its not a plan.
- unixbotnuke 4y agoThat is annoying that we have such a law. I’d recommend putting 1901-01-01 as your birthday. Companies don’t need to know your real birthday…I never give that out, it is just lawyer-proofing.
- rvnx 4y ago1970-01-01 :)
- sshine 4y agoI always pick this date. :)
- techdragon 4y ago1972-01-01 is better. That’s the starting point for Unix time based on UTC and thus the first properly coordinated date you can store on a Unix timestamp.
- xiyueuyix 4y agoMy mom and dad allow and support me to code. I lost my access to digital ocean. And I have a free VPS trial now. If I can't use GitHub OAuth, it will eat my mom's credit card in 2 months.
- xiyueuyix 4y agoEven a 3-year old kid can use Gitee, China's GitHub. Can't I just end my Digital Ocean VPS free trial and just delete my account? My birthday is coming soon. I lost my control to Vercel, which hosts my website https://euyix.me/ https://euyix.me/
- sshine 4y agoThis experience reveals that you can lose control of your online accounts for any reason. If you don’t want this to happen again, you need more control of your platform. “The cloud is just someone else’s computer.” https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s... > On the Internet, proprietary software isn't the only way to lose your computing freedom. Service as a Software Substitute, or SaaSS, is another way to give someone else power over your computing.
- xiyueuyix 4y agoIf I can't end my Digital Ocean VPS trial, it will cost $84 a month, I really don't want this to happen, my mom will "kill" me.
- sshine 4y agoContact DigitalOcean support to have them close your account. Maybe someone on DigitalOcean is listening in here, but it’s better to try all channels.
- radishien 4y agoTell your mum what happened and have her call her bank and report her credit card as lost. A new number will be issued so Digital Ocean won't be able to bill her card any more. Also contact Digital Ocean via email and explain what happened and that you need to close the account. Then you have a legitimate record of what happened so if they try to send you an invoice, you have evidence that they shouldn't be doing this per your earlier request. Good luck and I'm sorry to hear this happened to you.
- xiyueuyix 4y agoI currently have $400 Digital Ocean credit, and my VPS trial costs $84 a month, I wish GitHub can fix this problem in 4.7619047619 months. At that time I am already 13 years old. I'd never give GitHub my age.
- richardjam73 4y agoDigital Ocean has a process for this https://docs.digitalocean.com/support/i-lost-access-to-the-github-account-i-use-to-sign-into-digitalocean/ https://docs.digitalocean.com/support/i-lost-access-to-the-g... It requires a photo id government issued. You would be able to use a passport.
- hackerman123469 4y agoHe's 12 lol
- RealStickman_ 4y agoIf I read GGP's comment correctly, he will be 13 by the time/before the credit on digital ocean runs out.
- richardjam73 4y agoYes and most twelve year olds don't have photo id but since he has moved from China to the US he might have a passport.
- willcipriano 4y agoI wouldn't let digital ocean know you are 12, they will shut the account like Github did.
- richardjam73 4y agoYes and then his parents won't be billed on their credit card which is what he wants.
- xiyueuyix 4y agoI am a citizen of China, I love my nation, and I think Children's Online Privacy Protection Act don't work on me.
- sidewndr46 4y agoCOPPA applies to businesses in the US, not their customers.
- dudul 4y agoOf course it does. Doesn't matter where you are or what citizenship you hold. Github has to follow US laws.
- mdcds 4y agoIs it illegal you use fake name and fake age on the internet? asking for a friend :)
- cykros 4y agoTechnically? If they wanted to be really a pain they could probably hit you with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). That said, that act is like using a nuke to kill a spider, so it'd never actually happen.
- sverona 4y ago12yos who know who RMS is inspire my cold, dead heart. Try sr.ht or savannah.gnu.org, and keep fighting the good fight. I remember being your age and I'm sorry the Internet is the way it is.
- KomoD 4y agosr.ht is paid.
- cykros 4y agoGood for you for being honest about your age -- I was never so virtuous. As others have pointed out, this is due to COPPA. Use a foreign service, host your own, or get creative. Personally I'd say that hosting your own is probably your best, if not your cheapest option, as it'll teach you plenty about running a server, and ultimately, could be done on a pretty minimal spare machine (raspberry pi), if not right on your main system. You can get a free hostname redirect from a service like No-IP to access it with a dynamic IP if you're trying to access it from outside of your home network. As much as COPPA does have some negative side effects, it's not getting repealed any time soon -- companies are still collecting WAY too much information about children, including the under 13 crowd, mostly under the same argument Pornhub tried using ("the uploader SAID the content was legal"), and then happily reaping the financial benefits of having collected it. Perhaps having a tier of under 13 rules allowing reduced use could work, but the legal system is picking its battles here, and making sure kids have access to online services just isn't a priority.