from Hacker News

Tell HN: GitHub banned me permanently

by siproprio on 11/12/22, 7:48 PM with 138 comments

• by ch4s3 on 11/12/22, 8:09 PM

  I really dislike the trend of locking people out of professional work and banking due to bad or disagreeable speech. I really don't see a world in which this doesn't lead to some sort of backlash that we're all going to wish hadn't happened.

• by FiReaNG3L on 11/12/22, 8:06 PM

  VPN, pseudonym, don't reupload any previous projects, avoid contributing to same projects that created problems, behave better in the future? I don't see how they could 'hunt you'.

• by ghghgfdfgh on 11/13/22, 4:19 AM

  Despite what other people in this thread are saying, I believe the fact that this could occur is a much bigger problem than everyone seems to think. The fact that a company can lock you out of your life with little justification and no opportunity for redemption is astounding to me.

  A lot of people are saying that GitHub is a company, and that it has absolutely no responsibility to do business with the OP; they had the terms and they didn't follow them, end of story. Now put yourself in their shoes. There is a service that you use for work, and that you are not paying for. You do something wrong with the service - or maybe you didn't, what does it matter? - and you're banned. You are unable to do your job and you might be fired due to this. You ask for an explanation, or at least for a second chance, and are given no response. Who's at fault? The crux of the problem is related to quite a few issues, things that shouldn't be happening.

  - GitHub basically entirely controls the market for the space it's in, giving the OP little alternatives to get a different job.

  - GitHub does not have the time to respond to OP's support ticket but they do have the resources to overzealously ban them

  Why is it like this? Yes, GitHub has no legal obligation to respond to OP, and that's tough luck for them. This really lends itself to the issue of GitHub being essentially a monopoly. It's the same thing with Google, Facebook, etc.; they all offer essential services that nobody else offers, and if they shut you out, it's over for you. GitHub has no legal obligation to do anything for OP, but the real problem is that they do not have any financial obligation to do anything. There's no alternative, nobody's just going to shift to GitLab; no matter how much GitHub fucks up, they have nothing to lose.

  Another problem is the absurdity of the rules (although I obviously do not have full knowledge of what OP did and they could be leaving out important elements of the story) on sites like this. GitHub is a site for programming; why is it their place to moderate things from a social perspective? But that's a whole different story.

  What I'm trying to say here is, the real problem is that there exist single companies that are allowed to destroy your life for any reason they want, without any retaliation or retribution. Your life could depend on single companies, with no alternatives. To me, it seems almost like a dystopian scenario.

• by JonathanBeuys on 11/12/22, 8:09 PM

  Drama Queen :)

  Make a new account from a fresh email and you are probably good to go.

  How would they know it is you? If you use your work email, yeah, you have to ask your employer to give you another one. But is that so hard?

  If the permaban is appropriate is a different discussion. Without seeing that comment that go you banned, it's impossible to say.

• by gw98 on 11/12/22, 8:09 PM

  I don't have a solution but I regularly make controversial but polite points on Microsoft's open source projects so this worries me. I am anti-Telemetry and against some of the decisions they have made as a business which have impacted usability of their tools in my sector.

  Perhaps we should simply not be building organisational dependencies on this product.

• by imran-iq on 11/12/22, 8:16 PM

  What sort of comments did you make?

  > This means that GitHub has effectively suspended my ability to participate in the development community, and also I cannot work as well, because my company uses GitHub

  > I don’t know what to do anymore, I’m afraid, I’m going to be fired if I can’t work

  You'll have to have a discussion with your employer/manager about why you can't use github any more.

• by ChildOfChaos on 11/12/22, 8:15 PM

  It's likely tracking cookies from another website they are using.

  For example Google.

  I have the same issue with Reddit. I can create an account on a different email and use it fine for a few days and then boom. But I stopped using it on anything I am logged into my Google account with and it's been fine for months.

  What do you access Github on? I would create a separate user profile for work. Do not log into any services such as Google on it that Github have linked to you and you should be fine.

• by user5994461 on 11/12/22, 8:34 PM

  I've been trying to find a legal page with legal contact for GitHub since the topic was opened, with no success.

  The only contact information I can find is this email for privacy requests, which should be good enough, they have to process legal requests they receive privacy@github.com

  For Microsoft there is this Page https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/policies AskCELA@microsoft.com

  It's not clear from your messages whether you are a subscriber or your organization is a subscriber or both or neither. This affects how to access support and escalate and what claims you may have (your company should have a contract with access to enterprise support if they are customers).

  It's not reasonable for GitHub to ban you with no justification and no recourse and make you lose your job.

  Get a lawyer yourself. Or get your company to escalate through their support channel or legal.

  Warning: We only have one side of the story. If you were posting abusive messages to Github in your name and/or in the company name, on company time. The company may review the messages and may find them abusive too and may fire you.

• by ronsor on 11/12/22, 8:13 PM

  I didn't even know GitHub permanently banned people, notwithstanding users from sanctioned countries.

• by makkesk8 on 11/12/22, 8:13 PM

  Seems like this could have been better handled by suspending you from commenting and creating issues instead. Best bet is probably appealing like you've tried already.

• by injb on 11/12/22, 8:09 PM

  Try and get your employer to put pressure on them. Your employer pays them.

• by frederate on 11/12/22, 8:28 PM

  See here the problem with a large centralised provider.

  People that support non-discrimination should consider moving their repositories to smaller providers.

• by tptacek on 11/12/22, 8:15 PM

  What was the nature of the controversial comments you made? This thread is starting to spin off into concerns that, for instance, being "anti-telemetry" (like 85% of HN) would get you banned. Is that what you were talking about? Or was it something... more controversial?

• by rglover on 11/12/22, 8:57 PM

  Potentially helpful (and a must-have for any hacker bookshelf): https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Privacy-What-Takes-Disappear/...

• by lob_it on 11/12/22, 8:18 PM

  Looks like you got a personal moderator on HN too :)

• by cpach on 11/12/22, 9:28 PM

  There’s not so much we on HN can do about this.

  I would suggest that you talk to your manager. If your company pays for GitHub, hopefully they can get in touch with support and/or a sales rep and get it sorted.

• by warbler73 on 11/12/22, 8:14 PM

  So expressing regret did not work, it rarely does and is widely considered a sign of weakness. Perhaps it have worked better to double down on your offensive positions, strengthen them, draw in deranged allies. (\s, maybe)

  Or find an employer that does not require github which is like 99% of employers.

  Apparently your username is a Portuguese psychological term that means self-reflection, that is cool. But maybe expand outside that.

• by SoftTalker on 11/12/22, 8:11 PM

  Get a new phone number.

  Get a new email address.

  Use a clean/new browser profile.

  Create a new github account.

  If that doesn't work, I'm curious to know how Github connects the accounts to the same person.

• by mytailorisrich on 11/12/22, 8:17 PM

  IMHO, Github is for, well Git repos, so I would understand of the behaviour described resulted in a ban on commenting in other people's Github but a blanket ban seems very heavy-handed.

  On the other hand, maybe Github has enough on its plate not to bother trying and they just blanket ban on a significant enough red flag.

• by kazinator on 11/13/22, 3:48 AM

  I deleted my Github account right around the Microsoft takeover. Though I don't require any reassurance or more reasons that I did the right thing, thanks for your story.

  > and as soon as GitHub finds out that a account is used by me

  How does that happen; what sort of fingerprinting are they going by?

• by manquer on 11/12/22, 8:18 PM

  If your employer uses only GitHub as git host and not use proprietary extensions like issues, you could simply have your company IT mirror (or do it urself) the repos to another host and setup sync - gitlab can do it - you can do it urself as well with few shell scripts.

• by beej71 on 11/13/22, 5:26 AM

  It's risky running a company that doesn't have user access control over it's own repos. Given the low cost of running your own remote, it seems like a no-brainer.

• by wisnoskij on 11/12/22, 8:28 PM

  Talk to your boss, presumably someone else can upload your work. What have you been doing for the months it has been like this?

• by cultofmetatron on 11/12/22, 8:05 PM

  get a lawyer

• by paxys on 11/12/22, 8:14 PM

  Why not use your work email to create a new account? How will they know it is "you"?

• by MollyRealized on 11/12/22, 9:33 PM

  I don't wish to be uncompassionate.

  But I must respectfully note, I think if you're asking for help to circumvent a punishment by GitHub, one needs to know what the nature of the "controversy" was. There are certainly some 'controversial' viewpoints that are vile enough that I'd rather not help someone who had their views.

  I respect that you're in a sticky wicket. But this seems no different from pre-Internet times when one might lose their job from insulting a close vendor or client your employer works with. Imagine you were in a bar in a one-company town talking about a sexual conquest, only to turn around and see your employer, who reveals your conquest was a 20-something child of theirs. Your choice at that point is pretty much to move.

  You failed to have the self-awareness that you were in a venue that could affect your livelihood and made a mistake so significant that it can't be retracted or made up. That has happened both off the Internet and on it since time immemorial.

  The question you are asking now is not how to handle the situation, but how to continue the behavior of disguising yourself to circumvent the punishment. I think that (a) is a question that shows you are not owning up to your behavior (which itself is problematic); and (b) is the wrong strategy to take in this situation, because any circumvention or working outside the GitHub system is _conceivably_ fragile and could collapse at any point, leaving you with the same problem once more.

  My own suggestion - and I make this with reluctance not knowing whether the 'controversy' is something vile - would be to do two things. Both would be extremely hard.

  First, I would approach your HR contact, apologize for your conduct with the most remorse you can demonstrate, and see if their person/contact (sales, support, whatever) at GitHub can help you in this situation. Assuming they want to keep you, they can even say to GitHub, "Look, we want to keep this person employed, what can you do for us? Can you provide an ability to commit code without commenting ability?" Etc.

  Second, pursuing that guidance separately, I would see if anyone here, or any personal or professional contact of yours (cf. LinkedIn, etc.), has any contact at GitHub, or any friend-of-a-friend at GitHub, etc., so that you can speak with someone personally.

  Certainly the repeated attempts (and deletions) at circumvention likely are not doing anything but racking up points on the 'don't let this guy back in' meter, whether that's automated or not.

  Lest you think I am unsympathetic, I once made a decision that might've potentially locked me out of a great deal of future employment. I truly believe what made the difference in that situation was that I owned up to my error and looked the wronged parties in the eye and apologized directly. I explained the human factors leading me to make the wrong decision, while explicitly saying it didn't excuse the mistake. Humility is rare enough in today's world that it can oft make a difference.

  I wish you luck in your resolution of this issue.

• by draggedup on 11/12/22, 8:16 PM

  in addition to the steps mentioned, avoid re-using ssh keys

• by blipvert on 11/12/22, 8:20 PM

  You can’t figure out a way to get around this?

  Sheesh, what happened to hackers … ?