Why do I think Nat Friedman, CEO of GitHub, failed at his job?
we all fail
First of all, who I am, why did I write this story?
I am a 22 year old programmer from Iran. I joined GitHub on September 2, 2015 and have been using it constantly since then. The most useful future for me was GitHub’s private repository, I didn’t need to take backups of my projects each time I change my working device, because I could login to GitHub from the new device and then use a simple git clone to get a copy of any project I needed. So what’s changed? Racist USA sanctions imposed on GitHub’s Iranian users.
Why do I think the restriction created by GitHub on Iranian accounts are an act of racism?
Just a day before GitHub’s restrictions went into effect, Special US Representative for Iran Brian Hook denied the US sanctions technology used for communications in Iran, calling it a “myth”.
“Unlike your regime, we believe strongly in the free flow of communication and information,” Hook said in a televised message. “You deserve access to information and to be able to communicate with each other and the world.”
(There’s an excellent reading here that proves GitHub’s sanction as “a potential over-enforcement of US sanctions on Iran.”)
Why did Nat Friedman, as a CEO, failed, potentially at what he had promised before taking the position?
So I was reading through Nat Friedman’s reddit AMA hosted 1 year ago, before he became the CEO of GitHub.
Here are screen-shots of his answers in the AMA:
“We want GitHub to be accessible to everyone in the word, and for everyone to have an opportunity to be a developer”.
Except for everyone from Iran, Crimea, Cuba, North Korea and Syria, I guess.
“We want GitHub to be more widely available and more broadly used”.
“I think I will have a lot of power to ensure we do the right thing, because if Microsoft screws this up, we will lose the trust of developers for a generation. We’re committed to doing this right.”
At first stage of the restrictions, developers from Iran, Crimea, Cuba, North Korea and Syria logged in to GitHub to see a notification similar to “Yellow badges belonging to Nazi Germany”,
The first thing that hurt the developers was the notification not having any dismiss buttons, and many created tools (example) to get rid of it.
The second heart-brake was the moment the developers realized their private repositories were locked, and they couldn’t access their repositories!
The third one, that hit the most, was the email sent after the repositories were locked!
Now the question is, does Nat have “a lot of power” as a CEO? If he does, then with the changes GitHub made days after the restrictions, “why didn’t GitHub made those changes at first?”
If GitHub couldn’t give anyone prior notice, then what was the point of the sanctions when GitHub added the option to make repositories public, and to close the yellow notification, a few days later?
I think GitHub didn’t expect so many people to complain, not just from the mentioned countries but from “everyone around the world”. If that was the case then GitHub owes an official apology to its targeted users for its ignorance (which was against what Nat, as the CEO, said before taking the position).
“we don’t give governments direct access to customer data”, Nat said.
If GitHub can resist against a government’s access to customer data, why can’t they resist government’s request to restrict Iranian users?
“ GitHub already has policies and controls in place to limit employee access to private repos, and this will remain as tight as ever under Microsoft.”
Can we say, if there was any “employee access limits to private repos”, then how on earth GitHub got private repositories locked. Let’s say it was an script that an employee wrote! (This one is a bit tricky)
“ we believe that GitHub is in an incredibly valuable market because both the number of developers in the world and their influence on important decisions are growing rapidly”
Unfortunately people from Iran, Crimea, Cuba, North Korea and Syria don’t have any influences on any decisions made.
“ we believe the GitHub core business of serving developers, which is already healthy, will keep growing and will be very significant — even at a Microsoft scale — in the future.”
Sigh!
“ we have no plans to stop GitHub from advocating for developers or for freedom of expression.”
Don’t forget to count the failures!
“ The main thing is just that I want more people to get a chance to use GitHub.”
“ With the internet, people shouldn’t have to move to a different place to join a different community.”
I guess a few people have to move to a different country to join GitHub now!
“ fostering a diverse and inclusive environment is very important to the leadership at Microsoft”
Is it?
At the end, we all fail, the important thing is to never give up on our words and promises.
Reading through these got me hopeful that GitHub might stand for the restricted developers, I, a victim of these sanctions, like the other affected individuals seek for a free Internet and that would only be possible with the help of tech companies. We are ordinary people, imposing sanctions on us is like calling all Americans racists, because Donald Trump is their president.
Let’s hope for a support.
