GitHub blocked me and all my libraries

The author is Russian and has numerous seemingly popular github repositories. They question Github&#x27;s decision to ban their account without giving them any reasoning and illustrates how the open source community has lost a lot of value as a result of the comment&#x2F;asset removal.<p>The author&#x27;s comparison to internment camps and other dramatic measures of government suppression seems unfair. Github not providing reasoning is also unfair, but seems to be standard practice among corporations (maybe to help with liability?). The questions Github is asking from the user relate to U.S. OFAC policy, which is how the U.S. enforces economic sanctions. Basically if you&#x27;ve done business with North Korea or a number of other flagged entities you can be held liable criminally or more often for huge fines.<p>I don&#x27;t know how the author triggered whatever automatic suspension mechanism github has in place, but I think github should priorize the author&#x27;s case given their contribution to the community. I don&#x27;t think Github is an evil organization. I do think OFAC policy is difficult to enforce and the U.S. gov should make it easier. If Github reported the number of suspensions, who was suspended or explain why a suspension happened I would have more trust in them as a platform.

Yeah shadowbanning is not cool, and it is still used here on HN. This shows once again that you cannot trust these corporations with your information and sure as fuck not with your livelihood. Facebook, patreon, google, youtube, twitter, apple, etc. Ironically even medium where this article is posted, as they regularly shadowban accounts.

If you&#x27;re hosting your stuff on corporate platforms, like Github, Google (Gmail&#x2F;etc.) you just have to be Ok with losing access to all your code or data with no notice, explanation or recourse.

The quote from the article:<p>&gt; Also, apparently, all my comments in all issues in all other repos have instantly disappeared for anyone other than me, and some of those comments contained a lot of really useful and valuable information&#x2F;knowledge&#x2F;solutions<p>Reminded me of something: I was following a thread in a Github issue, received an email that had a useful answer but was hard to read due to gmail not formatting code well. I let it be and the next day went to the thread and the comment was nowhere to be found. I wonder if something similar happened.

I have tried to access his account and seems to be working now: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;catamphetamine" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;catamphetamine</a>. And It&#x27;s also indexed on github: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;search?q=catamphetamine" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;search?q=catamphetamine</a>

&gt; While git version control itself makes sure that you don’t lose your code when GitHub, Inc. decides to block you, the same isn’t true for all your other intellectual property in the form of numerous comments you’ve posted in issues&#x2F;pull-requests&#x2F;commits&#x2F;etc (including your employer’s paid repos).<p>Companies that pay for GitHub and have remote workers that may trip up the detection system should take note of this situation. They could lose their employees work in an instant.

Fossil [0] makes this situation a bit better since you can always clone the entire repository. It wouldn&#x27;t help with authoritative URLs to resources if the host went away, though -- that kind of infrastructure would still need to be planned.<p>I offer free Fossil hosting [1].<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fossil-scm.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fossil-scm.org&#x2F;</a> [1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;chiselapp.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;chiselapp.com&#x2F;</a>

However many years ago it was that sourceforge capsized, I swore to myself that I&#x27;d never give a 3rd party control of my source code repository (or bug tracker or ...).<p>I still use github because it is convenient for many other people, but it is always a mirror of the canonical repository, which runs under my control on AWS (and is fully replicated locally).<p>I understand the convenience, but once burned, twice shy: I&#x27;m never going to rely on 3rd party code hosting services ever again.

If I had software used by thousands I would ask them to contact github via twitter or any employees.<p>Then I would self host.<p>If still angry then I would create a liceasd that doesn&#x27;t allow Microsoft&#x2F;github&#x2F;etc to use your product in anyway. Share to lib users with self hosted link.

It seems that it only tells half the story.<p>Perhaps he was pushing code from his holiday in Crimea and his IP got tagged. Something like that would possibly do it.

&gt; complain about centralized corporate content-hosting<p>&gt; post that on Medium<p>Hoo boy.

A practice resembling this is featured in dystopian literature and has been written about since at least the early 1900s <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Franz_Kafka#%22Kafkaesque%22" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Franz_Kafka#%22Kafkaesque%22</a>

Can&#x27;t GitHub add a popup asking, &quot;We detected you are in a restricted country, are you sure you want to login?&quot; or just block logging in without locking up the account?

We need a system where repositories are duplicated in different political jurisdictions that don&#x27;t get along with each other. A copy in the US, a copy in the EU, a copy in China, a copy in Russia, a copy in Kenya, a copy in Japan, a copy in Vietnam, a copy in Iran. With hashes on a blockchain every few days to check for tampering.

Wow, that interogation form is indeed freaky. I was planning to create some github repos but after this, thanks but no thanks. The US is slowly becoming a police state and it’s taking up the internet with it.

This is why centralized SCM is a bad idea. Backing up GitHub issues, etc is a pain and isn&#x27;t 1:1 portable to other platforms.<p>Issue tracking and SCM features needs to live inside the Git repo or at least in a decentralized app. Git is supposed to be decentralized by nature. Everyone is so content with GitHub and GitLab that not much innovation has happened for decentralizing SCM as a whole. They have so much money and resources that they can blackhole anyone who says otherwise.

&gt; &quot;Or maybe I’ve called someone a moron on the internet recently? (spoiler: that finally turned out to be the case)&quot;<p>That doesn&#x27;t look like reason for blocking an account and all the repository. Probably Github should delete such comment and send email to poster to repost comment without using any offensive words (As per their dictionary).

Imagine my surprise when, after all the hyperbole and claims to have &quot;no idea&quot; what could have triggered it, it turns out he&#x27;s engaged in an Internet-scale harassment campaign of another person.<p>I look forward to the pearl-clutchers in the thread walking back their overheated rhetoric.

Good luck with Gitlab, they have to follow the same laws.

It always struck me as ironic that Github itself isn’t open source.

I just hope that people that advocated companies to remove users rot in hell. And if it doesn&#x27;t exist, they should rot in hell twice. Sorry for the rant, but a lot of platforms have been made significantly worse the last past 5 or so years because of random content moderation.<p>Github was pretty reliable for a long time. oh well... I guess the flaw of code centralization should have warned us.

I&#x27;m sensing there is a lot more to this story.<p>Related note while we&#x27;re banning people for word selection:<p>Does github realise that &quot;git&quot; has a pejorative association? Its not actually a polite word. If you were to call me a &quot;git&quot; in comments on any of my projects it would be an automatic code-of-conduct violation. You&#x27;d get one very specific warning about abusive word use then you&#x27;d be blocked.<p>Are they aware of this? Its always made me laugh. They&#x27;ve basically put a minor league swear&#x2F;offensive word in the name of their corporation.<p>PS Please don&#x27;t explain why the git tool is named git. Or why github was named. I already know. Just understand that &quot;git&quot; is similar and has as much offensive weight as pointedly calling someone a &quot;worthless idiot&quot;. You&#x27;re actually being deliberately offensive. In some places you would also likely get a punch in the face depending on who you insulted. Its at that level of offensiveness. Different cultures etc.

So why did zbetcheckin demand that capslang come down? Why does abuse.ch get to dictate to other countries based on hearsay?

Quote: &quot;...the same isn’t true for all your other intellectual property in the form...&quot;<p>Sorry, it&#x27;s not your intellectual property anymore, it belongs to Microsoft now. People tend to forget Microsoft owns GitHub nowadays, and also tend to forget Microsoft is a corporation.

If I ever run an Internet company in the future, we will always have an old-fashioned customer support telephone line, where you will always be able to talk to a live human being, where they will actually try to assist you, not give you B.S. answers nor hide behind corporate policy nor give you the run-around.<p>Even if an account is ever closed due to a terms of service or policy violation and the issue could not be resolved through customer service channels (exceedingly unlikely but possible) -- you and every other user would still be able to download YOUR DATA from YOUR ACCOUNT, <i>even if</i> the account was closed or suspended...<p>It&#x27;s amazing what passes for both &quot;customer service&quot; and software &quot;usability&quot; these days...

I&#x27;ve never kept my repos on Github, Gitlab and the likes. I just host them on my own and rented servers, Sure I loose on that cumulative effect of a single place that has everything but then I do not depend on the whims of some company.

Great post. Especially the addendum about github being super weird about personal information. Wish it wasn&#x27;t on medium though! They&#x27;re worse than github.

GitHub must not be able to remove user accounts nor individual repositories without:<p>1. Demonstrable just cause for removal, fully communicated to the removed user.<p>2. Due process - before and after the removal (some kind of prior notice, ability to challenge claims against you, adjudication mechanism, appeal mechanism etc.)<p>3. Community notification about the removal - no axing accounts in secret.

what happens with forked or cloned projects? will they be blocked too?

We don&#x27;t know why he was banned, and it&#x27;s a real problem that you can&#x27;t get an explanation out of a company in situations like this, but there&#x27;s a hint:<p>&gt; “If you accessed GitHub.com while you were visiting Iran, North Korea, Syria, or Crimea, please tell us why you used GitHub.com.”<p>He may have tripped over the US government sanctions.<p>I also feel that it&#x27;s poor taste for a Russian living in an authoritarian state to liken github to the gulag.

Self-host. EOM

Besides lower popularity, is there any downside to moving everything to GitLab?

i could stand behind this rant until unexpectedly (or expectedly - this from a russian after all?) stumbling upon this:<p>&gt; Flagged”? So this is how you call “disposing of someone” in a “politically correct” manner nowadays — you “flag” them. “The United States flagged 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II”. Yeah, much friendlier than: “The United States forcefully relocated and incarcerated in concentration camps about 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II”.

I have the feeling that this article is gonna be deleted from medium for including the f word.<p>Though that might just be my hatred for medium and its walls talking.

This is a great illustration of the problems of corporatization for online content providers. A similar story is playing out over at YouTube, where channel&#x27;s, and people&#x27;s livelihood&#x27;s, are facing increased surveillance and pasteurization for the sake of advertiser friendliness.<p>As for this case, I don&#x27;t know what&#x27;s going on, and can&#x27;t tell from the article, but a user 1) from Russia, 2) with a &quot;drug name&quot; in their handle is not the picture perfect story of corporation friendly. Too bad for his users!

Without even looking at the article I guessed he was a javascript developer. And I was right.

I&#x27;m a bit late to the party ... just wanted to say that his account seems to be back (don&#x27;t know why):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;catamphetamine?tab=repositories" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;catamphetamine?tab=repositories</a>

&gt; “Flagged”? So this is how you call “disposing of someone” in a “politically correct” manner nowadays — you “flag” them. “The United States flagged 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II”.<p>Whoa!! What an astonishing comparison!<p>Go host your software on gitlab, IPFS, or some other service and please don&#x27;t bother comparing your experience hosting software with forced internment.<p>&gt; Remind me, GitHub, since when are you Ordnungspolizei? Who exactly granted you the authority to interrogate and police regular people?<p>B...b...but it&#x27;s their server, their disk space. <i>You</i> granted them the authority by showing up at their doorstep asking for the service.

Stallman warned all of us. No one wanted to listen.

He had a very, very valid point until he devolved into referencing Japanese-American internment and Nazi Germany.

So .. one user gets banned for unclear reasons, Github doesn&#x27;t reply within a week and <i>somehow</i> Github is now the equivalent of the German Nazi party?<p>I understand: it&#x27;s frustrating and maybe undeserved that a service has banned you. But comparisons to the Second World War, concentration camps and the treatment of Jews by Nazi Germany are really, really not appropriate. Take a breath.