I don't really understand the reaction to this. People are saying it's harassment, and it makes fun of rape victims, but that is not at all what I took from it.
It's simply making fun of ideas and reasoning in radical feminism, and applying them to concepts in programming. This is partly in response to a feminist talking about a "feminist programming language", and also a satire on what happened on Node.JS about the use of a gendered pronoun.
I am aware that they mentioned rape, but I think this is a reference to the feminists loose classification of rape. One thing that immediately stands out to me is the contradictions, which again seems to be a reference to many radical feminists. I recall a "I need feminism because..." picture with a woman holding up a sign which read "I need feminism because no means no, but yes doesn't always mean yes."
I think a lot of people just don't 'get' it, because they don't like being made fun of.
Even if it was the most vile, distasteful, and offensive thing I have ever read, I still would condemn Github for taking it down, as free speech is binary - either all of it is okay, or none of it is okay. You don't get to decide what's okay, because once you decide something isn't okay, there's a billion reasons why everything else isn't okay that remain consistent with your original reasoning.
Examining the fork on BitBucket, I see a clear and obvious parody and one that accurately parodies and mashes up both feminist jargon and programming concepts in a way that is both funny and insightful.
I understand GitHub may not like this repo. I do not understand how it deserves a takedown.
If GitHub can takedown this repo, why would you trust them not to take yours down?
GitHub is not society. I don't expect guarantees of freedom of speech or expression. I'd be disappointed if they took those things down, but I think it is well within their jurisdiction to decide what type of content they want to host. They don't want to be 4chan or reddit, they want to be a place where people can come to make and learn.
If you're considering doing something potentially disruptive, especially politically, then I agree that Github isn't the place to do that. However, this repository isn't political speech in any serious sense. The whole thing is a troll, and I think Github locking the repo makes sense from a forum-moderator point of view.
GitHub took it down because shit like that makes it hard for women to do their jobs, and github is about getting work done.
It's also not terribly funny. Or rather, it would have been funny in the heyday of the constellation of academic disciplines now colloquially known as 'subaltern studies'. But that heyday was some time ago now, and it survives only in the Republican trust of bogeymen. Sorry, bogeywomen. Trust me, I have unemployed professor friends.
But let's be honest. Read the thing. It's not feminism that is in question, it is the dictum that your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose -- or in this case, the right of you and your brethren to swing your d*cks in the face of the female colleagues you work beside.
May the universe drill a single functional mirror neuron into one of your empathy-free heads. But I get to pick which.
You seem to believe that Github should be taking down things because "it makes it hard ... to get work done." Okay. Suppose you have some Republicans who want hosting on Github (yay Github Pages!) and they support some initiative which also, in your opinion, hinders "getting work done", for women or otherwise. Perhaps they very-publicly oppose a mandatory child-care provision in some proposed legislation, and write it on their page.
Should that be taken down too? If not, why does it differ?
What if they're hosting a website for someone, and that someone makes a public statement which is interpreted as misogynistic and wrong - e.g. Todd Akin uses Github Pages for his general campaign, and posts a defense of his nonsense about "legitimate rape". Should Github take that down?
I think it's offensive to women to imply that they aren't capable of handling some feminist satire. Both men and women are targets of satire ALL THE TIME. Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin are portrayed as the 'typical father' are irresponsible uneducated alcoholics. Do you honestly think this gives me a good reason to be crying to the television companies about how hard they're making it for me to watch TV?
You would probably like to think that you believe men and women are equal, but you clearly do not, because you insist on treating them like overly-sensitive children.
As a woman, I'll be offended on my own behalf thank you very much.
As a guy, if you feel the need to tell people whether or not to be offended you can scratch that itch by going to tell these guys to stop being offended or annoyed by the stereotype of idiot dads on tv - http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/12/living/dumb-dad-stereotype/
I think their offense (and yours) is laughable, but keep in mind that mens issues are largely ignored by most people, including men, and feminists who claim to be fighting for gender equality.
Women taking offense, just in the tech industry over the past 2 years alone has 'accomplished' quite a lot. Here's a few:
-Gotten a man fired from his job (Adria Richards)
-Raised $160,000 in exchange for a series of youtube videos on video games made from other youtube videos by a woman who has admitted she isn't a gamer (Anita Sarkeesian)
-Gotten a repo on github taken down (This whole Feminist Software Foundation thing)
And who knows what else?
Do you honestly think that men taking offense carries as much weight?
So many men are willing to bend to your every whim, just because they think you being a woman makes you less capable, and if that isn't sexism, then I don't know what is.
Who cares if something is rude. Rudeness shouldn't be the deciding factor for taking something down.
Is it rude to name your program/repo god[1]?
Is it rude to use foul language[2]?
Is it rude to write code in something that isn't ruby?
Who decides whats rude enough to be taken down and what isn't? Why should I believe my text is safe when someone found another text rude enough to be taken down.
FYI, her name is Catharine MacKinnon. You may wish to learn how to spell it, and then maybe read her papers again.
Also, I am always a bit stunned by comedians and other performers who encourage censorship of speech they dislike. That goes double for comedians speaking for groups that have been traditionally marginalized by society.
You're right. And I'm disappointed with myself, for being baited into making precisely the sort of joke that pissed me off in the first place, hence the comment deletion. But I'm also so upset that the rest of my workday is shot. Spelling? Definitely out.
A repo seems the perfect implementation of speech, where as the fist nose swinging metaphor has always up until now been about physical real world actions involving ... your nose.
Oh, and also, BitBucket? I may be a woman, but I am also calling the shots in my workplace, and I'm about to go find another provider. Your free repos were nice, but this isn't. So.
I'm just trying to clarify this here. I haven't seen any statement from BitBucket for or against this repository, so... What specifically has BitBucket done wrong, exactly, that you are ending your business relationship with them (informal as it is)?
It seems like a rather stupid, rather misogynist parody. It seems neither particularly funny, nor is there any insight from this juxtaposition of (mostly post-structuralist) positions and programming logic.
And stuff like calling the "echo"/"print"-command "yell".... Really? Wtf?
I don't think Github is honor-bound to let people use their service to be divisive or hurtful (and it is hurtful to make a joke that boils down to "you people sound so ridiculous when you're asking for fair treatment"). They have a great niche as a venue for technical collaboration; they're not obligated to also be Reddit.
There are lots of things which have been alleged to be "divisive and hurtful" in the world. Should all of those be removed from GitHub (including Github Pages)?
As an example, take former congressman Todd Akin. He opined some pretty ridiculous opinions about biology and "legitimate rape". Many found those opinions divisive and hurtful. Suppose that he set up a Github Pages account to use for a hypothetical 2014 election campaign, and repeated his opinion on that site. Should GitHub take his site down on principle as well? How about if he didn't repeat that particular opinion, but did post information supporting the same policies that he supported as a result of that opinion?
Nope. Actually, as a female programmer who pays for private github repositories and was thinking I should move them to bitbucket so it would be free - I just decided I'll stay.
And to clarify - that's not saying I'll boycott bitbucket (although I hope they also take it down when it is brought to their attention). That's saying that GitHub is behaving in a way that I want to support, and a good way to support a company is by purchasing their products.
Interesting question. A library, not so much, as I see them as having an archival function - if it exists, it can be recorded for posterity, and the library does not exist to provide a financial benefit to the writers. A bookstore? Hell yea I'd give them my money if they refused to stock KKK or MRA literature, or hold an MRA bookclub meeting. Selling those books supports the poisonous assholes who write them, just like providing a space for these jerks to do their stupid performance art supports them. If it's easy to do, I will avoid giving people money that they will turn around and give to someone I don't want to support.
Well not much can be said without being assaulted by a horde of angry feminists and white knights, but I personally found the repository hilarious.
But to answer your question, Github did not break my trust by removing this, because this is what I would expected Github to do. I'm not naive enough to think that most people have enough common sense on this planet.
Yes. Regardless of the content, GitHub violated our constitutional right to freedom of expression. Just because you don't like what someone is saying, that does not necessarily make it wrong or bad, they have just as much to offend you as you do to offend them. I would highly recommend anyone who is currently using GitHub to switch to another version control system, as GitHub is most likely reading your emails, censoring your search results, and selling your information to proprietary software companies like Apple and Microsoft.
> Regardless of the content, GitHub violated our constitutional right to freedom of expression.
No they haven't. They've only violated our natural right to freedom of expression. The Constitutional part of our right to freedom of expression only applies to government control of that right.
There's a big BIG difference between expression and directly trying to create animosity.
These are things that become more apparent as you mature. I honestly can't fathom why someone would waste time creating such a crude concept instead of something genuinely useful.
It is simply a matter of perception. If one perceives, for instance, evidence of government surveillance programs being abused, and chooses to censor this information, this is wrong and goes against the greater good of GNU/America.
2 things - no way in hell richard stallman would create a hackernews account (and definitely not 30 minutes ago).
second - Your attempt at a straw man argument with equitating the vitrio that 4chan generates into something worth defending as freedom of speech in order to discriminate an entire group of the population is absurd.
What 4chan did was pretty much make the equivalent of racial hate speech from the 60's against women. They might as well have told all the female programers to go back to the kitchen and code in there.
You cannot use the constitution to defend hate speech. What classifies as hate speech is open to debate.
I don't really understand the reaction to this. People are saying it's harassment, and it makes fun of rape victims, but that is not at all what I took from it.
It's simply making fun of ideas and reasoning in radical feminism, and applying them to concepts in programming. This is partly in response to a feminist talking about a "feminist programming language", and also a satire on what happened on Node.JS about the use of a gendered pronoun.
I am aware that they mentioned rape, but I think this is a reference to the feminists loose classification of rape. One thing that immediately stands out to me is the contradictions, which again seems to be a reference to many radical feminists. I recall a "I need feminism because..." picture with a woman holding up a sign which read "I need feminism because no means no, but yes doesn't always mean yes."
I think a lot of people just don't 'get' it, because they don't like being made fun of.
Even if it was the most vile, distasteful, and offensive thing I have ever read, I still would condemn Github for taking it down, as free speech is binary - either all of it is okay, or none of it is okay. You don't get to decide what's okay, because once you decide something isn't okay, there's a billion reasons why everything else isn't okay that remain consistent with your original reasoning.