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A comment on Ask HN: Is there a whole universe of Chinese software that we don't see?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Is there a whole universe of Chinese software tha... by _bxg1 on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @12:07AM (#23473824)
I think GitHub gets used there as a social network because it isn't fully censored. I've read about Chinese using it to share/collaborate on unsanctioned information because it can't just be blocked: unlike Facebook and Twitter, it's too important to their software industry.
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Re:Ask HN: Is there a whole universe of Chinese software tha... by p410n3 on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @01:01AM (#23474108)
Trivia: This effect is called colleteral freedom

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_freedom

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Re:Ask HN: Is there a whole universe of Chinese software tha... by alisonatwork on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @12:49PM (#23479231)
This is true, but only as far as people can keep their Github accounts anonymous. A couple months ago the government tracked down three people who had been using Github to share censored content and arrested them[1]. A whole bunch of other repos shut down quick smart after that for fear of more arrests. We can only hope some people outside the country made local clones.

[1] https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/27/china-free-covid-19-acti...

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