GitHub is sponsoring CodeLand, and have the expected friendly DevRel spokesperson, announcement thread, raffle for early access to new stuff, and the like.

I'm not going to belabor the issues I have with GitHub. Suffice to say that when I asked the friendly DevRel spokesperson @bdougieyo how he felt about his company's collaboration with the US government's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) it was in good faith -- I'm genuinely interested in hearing how he does or doesn't grapple with his employer's ethics!

Instead of answering, ignoring, or even brushing me off with patter about how donations to nonprofits absolve GitHub of responsibility, he used the post author tools to hide my comment. And that I have a problem with: it crosses the line between GitHub using DEV to whitewash its reputation, and DEV providing tools to help GitHub whitewash its reputation.

If a comment on a sponsor post violates no rule, sponsors shouldn't be able to hide it for mere political expediency. They're here to attract attention and drum up business; if their practices mean that that attention isn't all as positive and uncritical as they'd like, that's for them to handle -- not DEV.

What do you think?