It makes people uncomfortable and it's such a small change.
And it's just software, go use sed or whatever to rename it.
Why be disingenuous and say stuff like "oh I guess racism is solved now!" Or "GitHub changing the default branch name for new projects is going to break everyone's CI-CD pipelines!"?
Many reasons, including a very (distorted) US centric view of the world, going overboard with emotions instead of rationality (words are generally tied to context), and now people have to walk on eggshells or they'll lose their jobs if they speak the "wrong" word.
Rational actions are defined by the society that judges it.
Twitter is an American company.
If you feel like you have to "walk on eggshells" then maybe you're not a cultural fit for the company.
If you're working at a company like Twitter, GitHub etc. Then you should have some pretty good career mobility.
These companies aren't the only ones in the world.
If you want to work at a place that will push back against changing master / slave terminology then there's a sizable amount of people that feel the same way.
I stated that what is rational is subjective of the context of the culture.
You don't have a right to a job, it's not oppression if people do things you don't like that don't impact your life.
Using "SJW" unironically? How is it taking over the US when the majority of government is socially conservative?
You're effectively parroting the majority opinion and acting like the victim.
"I gotta walk on eggshells, if I say the wrong word they'll fire me"
That's quite a scary thing, not because I have a problem with renaming words that make other people feel bad, but because I don't understand why they feel bad in the first place. That means I can't predict what's going to happen next or whether I'm doing something wrong that I don't know about but will get me fired. The whole thing is confusing and strange and unpredictable, and I can't tell whether it's going to end in civil rights, civil war, or just be a storm in a teacup.
I'm guessing people who are dismissive of e.g. Github renaming master branches are feeling the same way and lashing out.
Not a small change, and gay people also make some people uncomfortable, does not follow we should remove them ... so ... what?