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Comment by mindB | Hacker News Reader

Github will not be shutdown over any action they do or do not take in Spain. The worst that can happen to Github is that they are prevented from doing business in Spain. Given how strongly Spain has come down against freedom of expression on the Catalonia issue, Github is making it very clear by taking this action that freedom of expression is not one of their values. Let me repeat, Spain has come down hard enough against freedom of expression that I do not believe it is ethical for Github to continue operating in the country.

I highly value freedom of expression, and it is especially important to me that a code-hosting and (like it or not) a social media website holds to that value as well, and fights to preserve that freedom on their platform. This will definitely affect whether I choose Github or Microsoft in the future.

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What a tremendously uneducated comment. Freedom of expression has not being limited in Spain in any way or form, not at all. The apk was removed because a judge (not politics, not the police) confirmed that the app was used to organize violent manifestations. And GitHub had to legally comply with the warrant. No action is being taken to stop manifestations, only to stop the organization of violence.

In case you want to also made the uneducated point that the violence is necessary, I want to remind you that the fact that people manifest doesn't automatically mean there exist oppression from the state, as in this case, there is none.

> What a tremendously uneducated comment. Freedom of expression has not being limited in Spain in any way or form, not at all.

What an ironic couple of sentences tied together... In Spain we have rappers who have been sentenced to jail time for having lyrics criticizing the King. If that isn't limiting freedom of expression, I don't know what is.

Reference: https://www.elperiodico.com/es/ocio-y-cultura/20180221/valto...

I think he's talking about the Github takedown notice, not about Spain in general

I believe the OP is talking about Spain in general when she/he writes "Freedom of expression has not being limited in Spain in any way or form, not at all.", wouldn't you agree?

1. Please let's not start name-calling. The fact that you disagree with my beliefs does not necessarily make them or anything I say uneducated.

2. The fact that a judge was the one who ordered the limiting of freedom does not make it any less limiting.

3. Censoring an entire platform because it was used for evil purposes (I haven't personally confirmed that this is the case) is easily within the definition of limiting freedom of expression.

What’s the name of the judge?

>Github is making it very clear by taking this action that freedom of expression is not one of their values.

Github has made that very clear when they took down the parody feminist programming language C+=. There were no legal notices or government threats or anything. They simply did not like the message.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/12/14/1618239/github-take...

I'll admit I get a bit more worked up about companies colluding with governments to suppress speech; the potential harm is much higher. If Github had themselves taken a stance that the contents of the censored repository were unethical and independently chosen to take it down, I'd have much less of a problem with them.

> I highly value freedom of expression, and to me it is especially important to me that a code-hosting and (like it or not) a social media website holds to that value as well. This will definitely affect whether I choose Github or Microsoft in the future.

Would you rather choose a company that doesn't comply with local laws?

Most governments ( no doubt, yours too), want companies operating under their jurisdiction to obey their laws (Things get complicated on the web but the basic premise holds), to say nothing of the fact that freedom of speech is not absolute (not condoning or condemning the current action)

> Would you rather choose a company that doesn't comply with local laws?

If I made an app which mocked the King of Thailand, and Thailand demanded Github remove the app because it's against Thai law to mock the King of Thailand, what would you want to happen? How about an app which helped Uighurs avoid concentration camps, which China demanded the removal of?

Gotta point out that the comment pretty clearly indicated that GitHub should cease to operate in Spain. Not operating somewhere doesn’t violate local laws.

I would love to see civil disobedience at a corporate level. That level of bravery is so rare and so necessary.

"Corporate level" doesn't exist when you're talking about things termed criminal. Criminal charges are levied at individuals, not companies, because companies cannot act-only people can.

It doesn't end well for the people, sadly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio

>Would you rather choose a company that doesn't comply with local laws?

Absolutely. Companies and the individuals who make up companies should not comply with unethical laws just as people at large should not comply with unethical laws. Ethics stands above the law.

>Ethics stands above the law

This is pretty naive

Who decides what is ethical? I might think it's unethical to finance my government given its record of military adventures around the world. Does that mean that I'm off the hook on income tax?

>This is pretty naive

I think you may be misunderstanding me. Ethics stands above the law in that if ethics and law conflict, a person ought to do the ethical thing rather than the legal thing. It does not mean that people who disobey the law should be off the hook so long as they were obeying their own personal code of ethics.

If this view is naive, then I believe most all work in moral philosophy is naive. I don't think there are any major viewpoints that would elevate obedience to the law as being a concern higher than ethical behavior.

Do you think that the entire field of business ethics is bunk and can be reduced to the single maxim, "Follow the local law"? Is the code of ethics by which I would be required to abide[1] if I became a professional engineer an unnecessary restriction?

[1] https://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-ethics

If what was "unethical" was inscribed on stone tablets by God, then that would be a decent position. But I don't want companies deciding for themselves what is unethical; they are not unbiased actors and are incentivized to define "ethical" as whatever makes them the most profit. Do you want companies deciding for themselves that labor/environmental/financial regulations are unethical?

Watching your Github profile I see you are from the US, time to get back to history classes and time to fight for the freedom of expression on your own country, which is ranked on 49 on Press Freedom Index 2019 https://rsf.org/en/ranking next to Senegal and Romania.

Pretty meaningless index when American citizens are free to promote a separatist agenda and the higher ranked Spaniards can't.

Yes we can. There are independentists in parliament. The president of Catalonia is an independentist. Pro-independence demonstrations happen and there are no arrests just by going there (except in riots, but that's because the police force is way too uncontrolled, not because of a general freedom of expression issue).

This takedown was to an app that was used to organize a blockage of a major airport. I do not agree with the takedown, but I do not think it's such a clear cut that it's 'freedom of expression'.

No. That's a false wrapper around "lack of freedom" trying to make it look like freedom.

The politicians are free to have independentist ideology, and they can put it into their political program. But if they try to execute some pro-independence laws, they are blocked by the overuse of judiciary system in Spain and threatened (or punished).

So yes, the Catalan independentists are there for their ideas. Carme Forcadell is going to spend 10 years in jail while the rest of the table members of the parliament are being accused of disobedience [1]. Other Catalan politicians have seen reduced the accusations because they abandoned politics (Mundo or Santi Vila[2]).

> This takedown was to an app that was used to organize a blockage of a major airport. I do not agree with the takedown, but I do not think it's such a clear cut that it's 'freedom of expression'.

It's the right to protest.

[1] https://www.ccma.cat/324/el-suprem-jutjara-el-govern-puigdem... [2] https://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20191014/47901534881/c...

According to your reasoning, if I am a communist and think that everything has to be shared, and decide to take your property and get in jail, I would be a political prisoner because I would be there for my ideas.

And Carme Forcadell is not going to spend 10 years in jail. I would bet she will be out next year.

Please, stop spreading lies.

The treatment of Carles Puigdemont and others is hardly consistent with free expression.

They were prosecuted not when they expressed pro-independence views, but when they decided to disobey court orders and use public resources for the referendum. At no point it was an issue regarding freedom of expression, and they in fact admitted disobedience during the trial.

Puigdemoont is free and has been free to say whatever he wants but embezzlment is a crime.

Executing your elected mandate is not embezzlement. Calling a spade a fish does not make it a fish, <i>even if the courts of law in your state agree with you</i>. If the government of Catalonia was not competent to hold a referendum, they should have been dismissed. (The central government in Spain retains that authority.)

If it was not politically possible to dismiss them, then spending public resources on a policy which is the raison d'etre for the governing parties but which is outside the competence of that government should merely be considered a cost of the distribution of power.

Other democracies constantly have disputes about whether such a use of funds is within the competence of a specific government. And they find that, no, it is not within the competence of a specific government. And they manage to cope without charging anyone with embezzlement despite the money having been irrecoverably spent.

If this is too much for Spain, then Spain should remove the statutes of autonomy.

If we remember their thousands of interviews in european radios, tvs, local, national and international press, It seems he has granted much more opportunities to express their ideas freely than any of us. He definitely can talk. Can talk for hours about himself and his bizarre world. Can talk until you start thinking about suicide.

The fact that lots of people in Europe wouldn't touch him anymore with a fifty foot pole and that Canadians panicked this same week about the idea of receiving him in Canada, is probably related with the fact that he can talk, but is definitely unable to stop talking.

Puigdemont took selfies with each requirement that the supreme court sent to him, like a thug. They had multiple warnings that they were steering out of the law and it wasn't until they approved some clearly unconstitutional laws in the parliament that justice acted.

I cannot condone my own countries recent (say past couple hundred years) treatment of freedom of expression. It causes my blood to boil on at least a weekly basis. That said, press freedom while important is only a subset of freedom of expression.

> This will definitely affect whether I choose Github or Microsoft in the future.

I see you've linked your Github in your profile. Why not put your money where your mouth is and delete your Github account now?

I'm weighing doing just that. The problem is that the primary language I use (Julia) has most packages heavily centralized on Github and even specifically designed their central package repository to be simpler to use if your package is hosted on Github. Migrating repositories I maintain to another service is a slam-dunk, but being unable to easily contribute to Julia packages hosted on Github would hamper not just my work but others who may have benefited from my contribution.

There is no Catalonia issue and you have plenty of freedom to express yourself wherever you want. We must remember that Catalonia has already held two legal referendums, where the result has been a refusal of the Catalan people to leave Spain or Independence. Apart from not having any historical reason for independence, it is very funny how you talk about a lack of freedom of expression in a country that has suffered 40 years of dictatorship and where people like my own grandfather were shot for expressing their ideas. Take a walk through Qatar, Chechnya, Hong Kong, China, North Korea ...etc and value your freedom to express yourself on the Internet, your grandparents surely died for it. Respect the dead, read a little about the history of Spain and do not make the mistakes of generalizing.

"There is no Catalonia issue"

I beg your pardon, are you gaslighting Hacker News?

I saw videos of protests. Were those fake?

I have friends from Catalonia who tell me there is an issue. Are they lying to me?

Whether you agree that Catalonia should leave Spain or not, whether you agree that Spain should jail the leaders of a movement to leave Spain or not, there clearly is an issue. There clearly is some dissent, some controversy, something going on.

As for referendums... Seems to me there was a referendum a while back, and the vote was declared illegal. I saw video of law enforcement preventing people from voting.

Was that fake? if not, do you count it amongst your evidence of the people of Catalonia refusing to leave Spain?

The protests were violent riots not supported by any political party or entity, Catalan or not. As you can see violence stopped like one week ago, and everything back to normal. For example, you can see here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkgW7Bab1J8) violence blocked the university, so other Catalan students cant go to classes that day. Catalan society is not related to the protest. It is like seeing an Antifa video from US and think there is a political revolution.

Your friends probably didn't tell you, that ordinary justice condemns the political leaders, not because organizing a referendum, but for public funds misappropriation, corruption and refuse to follow the law. Something reasonable, since on other countries and 99% of history when you revolt, either you win or you will get your head off. The trial was public, documented and fair. Probably an exemplary for the future on how to deal when a corrupt government wants to take over.

You also need to go back a few years and read what happened on the previous referendum, that they were legal because they were organized following the rules and because this is a democracy. If you don't like the rules you have a political parliament and elections to change the laws. Thats fine.

As someone living in Barcelona I can tell you that the majority of violence was caused by the Police starting to go after protestors, police provoking protestors with Spanish flags, playing the Spanish national anthem. Its was caused be a few people who always cause violence, does not matter if its a soccer game or a peaceful protest. It was caused by the central government spending years changing the law, to the point where its illegal to protest the government, unless they authorize it. Its caused by police stopping and searching people daily on the streets, confiscating anything that can hide your face, and Catalan flags. There are even cases where Spanish police officers sent to catalunya from other parts of spain have been identified with swastika tattoos.

There is a HUGE issue, where people on both sides have been abusing the system for their own gains. Both political sides know that as long as they can keep the people fighting and "hating" each other, they can continue with the corruption that exists here.

None of that suggests that there is no issue.

I could say almost all the same things about whether the people of Québec want to leave Canada or not, and whether the tactics of those who want to leave are legitimate or not.

But I would never say there is no separation issue in Québec.

There isn't a separation issue in Quebec... At this moment. The BQ has given up on secession, and instead doubled-down on islamophobia, to great success at the polls.

> We must remember that Catalonia has already held two legal referendums, where the result has been a refusal of the Catalan people to leave Spain or Independence

That's not true, I think you are confusing Catalonia with Scotland.

Preciselly one of the main issues is that a part o Catalonian society (I would say a big one, from both sides, independentist and non independentists) wants a referndum, but Spain refuses to do it.

Catalonia society already voted many times, and the results were very clear, with no support to independence. You can translate from here all the times they did: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proceso_soberanista_de_Catalu%...

Those weren't "referendums", those where "enquirys" which is not the same. The result of an "enquiry" has no legal obligations, for example, in the first enquiry, independentist won by far (81%), but there was no independence. It some way of knowing what people/society thinks about an issue.

As I said in my previous comment, there haven`t been any referendums about independence in Spain (I live in Spain so I think I know about what I'm talking), basically because the spanish goverment doesn't want to, and on the other hand, the so called "rigth to choose or decide" with a referendum is one of the things Catalonians (and also Basks) want.

Wait, both referendums (November 9th and October 1st) had +80% independence support. I am not sure why you would use them to make the opposite point?

I must have missed something. What are those two legal referendums that you speak of? Also, wouldn't the reasons for independence be up to the citizens? You say there have none...

I think he means no historically justifiable reasons. Most countries demanding self determination due so in religious, political or historical basis.

Catalan identitarianism is very very recent. Culturally they are as Spanish as any other region (spain is relatively federal more so than a single monolithic culture like France). Some of the main reasons for claimed independence are "Spain steals from us". Now this is insulting to many Spaniards as the implication is that they pay taxes so everyone else can be lazy and fuck about. Essentially its based on them wanting a similar tax treaty to the basque country, another rich area who pays much less in tax than other areas with similar average salaries. In other words, rich not wanting to pay their fair share.

Slogans like that have alienated the discussion massively in Spain. Then they elected a local government that made their own campaign about leaving Spain. So kinda like the Brexit party in the UK they had to deliver, so they took crazy drastic measures, government escalated the problem massively and now we are here in no mans land.

I think you might not know much about Spanish history. The Catalan movement has existed for at least over a century. We had revolts quashed, we had our language forbidden, we had forced economic depression, presidents executed, all since early 19th century. When do we get your approval, at 150 years? 200?

the catalan movement from 100 years ago and now is not the same. The revolutions of the late 19th century where far left, considering the absolute barbaric infighting between anarchists, communists and republicans in BCN which heavily hindered the efforts against rising fascism. The Catalan movement now is not comunist and anarchist, is heavily favoured by Catalan elites. The Puyol family being a clear example. The same rancid spanish right wing bullshit with some catalan paint cover. Puigdemont is Rajoy with a senyera

Just saying, you said this is new therefore invalid. Now you talk about it being different therefore invalid. I think you are a holding a political position but trying to mask it with random requests for legitimacy.

Back to your original statement, when do you give legitimacy to a movement?

On the basis of cultural, religious or ethnic differences. Palestine, taiwan, kurdistan, the division of middle east in ethnic groups instead of ww1 borders, The divisons we have seen in Congo in the last 30 years, even the indigenous people of Peru probably with their recent protests againt Lenin Moreno all have claims to needing due to incapability to form an understanding with the central goverment to be allowed to have their own country.

Catalunya has no historical, political, religious or ethnic divide with Spain. Literally 0. Their tripartit is gonna be mimic now by Cuidadanos, PP and PSOE. Their elites are just as corrupts as madrid. They are as religious as anywhere else in Spain. Catalunya has never been a historical region unless you concede Aragorns crown to be fundamentally Catalan but even then it is ages ago.

Basque country has a much better claim to indepdence in my opinion, and I still do not think they deserve the right of self determination. Not only in part because a great claim of their ethnic difference is still based in anti Spanish racism.

Check referendum on the dates: 9N-2014, 25N-2015, and many others Wikipedia have an extense article about the times they go to vote freely: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proceso_soberanista_de_Catalu%...

Those weren't referendums. The Spanish law doesn't allow independence referendums, that's why the Spanish courts handed a 100 year sentence on the Catalan politicians that allowed one. They were consultations with no tied outcomes. Again, the Spanish law today does not allow a referendum about independence. It could if the Spanish government allowed it, but they won't, after many years of asking. A large majority a catalans supports having a referendum, many wanting to vote against independence.

The 9N consultation came out with what, 80% support for independence?

You have to keep in mind that those referendums were basically pro-independence acts, not an official vote by any measure. So it's obvious the results are wins of the pro-independence side.

Absolutely. Those are not referendums, and the results are not more valid than a survey, if not worse.

I was responding to the OP's statement:

> We must remember that Catalonia has already held two legal referendums, where the result has been a refusal of the Catalan people to leave Spain or Independence.

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