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Comment by Shizka | Hacker News Reader

I will bite.

How does using Github even remotely contribute to accepting misogyny in our industry?

There was an ugly affair there.

Github's handling of the affair is difficult to judge from outside. At least it seems that management's handling of this affair did not increase future misogyny at the company.

Github promoted misogyny internally. You give them revenue, allowing them to continue to run their business. Ergo, you are promoting the misogyny Github promotes* internally.

* The burden of proof that Github doesn't promote misogyny is on Github.

EDIT: I personally use Github, but I cancelled my account after what happened. For new projects I use bitbucket. I actually feel bad when I'm using Github precisely because to a degree it means I'm promoting misogyny.

I might be wrong but isn't that a faulty argument. That's the same as saying that you pay tax in the US(or any other counter) and you therefore condone of all the behavior of said country? Or saying that if you use any Google product you promote corporate monopoly? There's quite a way from paying for a service such as Github to promoting misogyny.

I will bite back.

Github's corporate culture appears to be very anti-woman. There is plenty of available evidence to this effect. There is very little apparent diversity (of any sort) in their large team. https://github.com/about/team

Using Github contributes to the success of this monoculture and encourages tech leaders to revere and duplicate this model. It makes tech more difficult for people outside of that group - the white, straight, male group. It makes tech culture worse.

If I'm aware that you host on Github, I will make sure to consider what your competitors are doing before I use your service.

I can see how you could make it a valid argument like that. Thanks for elaborating.

Do you think that not using services from companies with a monoculture is the most effective way of furthering the cause? I'm all for more diversity in the technology and startup sector, but I do believe that the cause should, and eventually will, be solved by dialogue and focus on the issue - not by silently boycutting the companies. Or am I missing some part of the picture?

I can't say if this cause is better solved some other way, but I believe that avoiding Github (not exactly boycotting it) and other big monocultures is the right action for me to take. When I use a service, I give it a piece of my economic power. I don't want to give that to Github.

I do believe a capitalist-based ecosystem can only be healthy with an appropriate level of competition and alternatives for consumers. Github's progress in the market is worrying in the sense that it seems to be driving towards a monopoly.

Github can never be everything to everyone - if there is no meaningful competition, it's guaranteed that some people will be excluded.

> There is very little apparent diversity (of any sort) in their large team.

I'll grant you that they all look the same. Doesn't prove much -- Karl Marx looked a lot like Andrew Carnegie.

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