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GitHub Takes Down Satirical 'C Plus Equality' Language
FooAtWFU writes "Some clowns and jokers over at 4chan thought it would be a funny idea to put together a web page for a programming language named 'C Plus Equality' as a parody of feminism, dismissing OOP as 'objectifying' and inheritance as "a tool of the patriarchy". But this parody was apparently too hot to host at Github, which took down the original Github repository after receiving criticism on Twitter, prompting a backlash and inquiry into the role of free speech and censorship on Github's platform. The project has since found a new home on BitBucket, at least for the time being." Comments on an article describing the research which sparked the parody call the parody's language "fake," and compare it to the 1996 Sokal affair. (It also reminds me a bit of Jesux.)
It seems it was also too hot for Hacker News to discuss.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Not in California, where GitHub is headquartered. California's constitution says "everyone has the right to free speech" and the Supreme Court of the US has interpreted this to mean that it goes beyond "Congress shall pass no law..." and applies, in some situations, to private entities. The more someone opens their property up to the use of the general public, the more their private property rights are circumscribed by the publics. See Pruneyard vs. Robins. I'm not saying that people certainly have a right to use Github like they way they have a right to pass out fliers at a shopping center or outside a big box store, but to deny that freedom of speech applies to private businesses/property in California is wrong.