A project called “Remove-DEI” shows the tweaks used to remove “forbidden words” from a database about childhood school readiness.

The updates, shown in Github commits, are to a database for the Department of Health and Human Services’ Head Start program. They show a project called “Remove-DEI,” which reveal some of the back-and-forth that is happening behind the scenes to align federal agencies with Donald Trump’s executive orders that forbid almost anything having to do with race or gender within federal agencies. The Github pages show software engineers discussing amongst themselves how to best remove all instances of “forbidden words” from a specific database, and the code updates they used to do it. The changes also show that, while thousands of government datasets are disappearing from the internet, even ones that remain are having parts of their utility deprecated or broken in a way that may not be visible to those outside the government.

      • @NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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        1481 month ago

        This is being done by trump and musk.

        Microsoft just own the company where this is being discussed because the people actually doing the work are treating it like any other software project.

          • @otp@sh.itjust.works
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            931 month ago

            I think you’re missing something here.

            GitHub isn’t doing anything. It’s just a repository where people can track changes that are happening by end users. The end users are using GitHub and are removing DEI stuff from their products at the direction of the US government (AKA. Musk and Trump).

            Being angry at Microsoft is like being angry at a grocery store chain because you saw a kid being told by his grandpa to feed stale bread (from that grocery store) to some ducks.

            • Maeve
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              41 month ago

              Maybe, I’ll reread, I’ve something to do shortly that will take most of my day but I’ll come back tonight to this. Thank you

              • @otp@sh.itjust.works
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                231 month ago

                To add, GitHub is actually a great place to be making these changes, because with GitHub you retain history of the edits and prior versions. So after Trump changes his mind or loses power, the missing information can be brought back in fairly easily. Nothing is permanently lost.

                • @shades@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  71 month ago

                  So after Trump changes his mind or loses power, the missing information can be brought back in fairly easily. Nothing is permanently lost.

                  It’s funny they have absolutely no idea.

                • @0x0@programming.dev
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                  21 month ago

                  Missing information being brought back? Assuming they don’t destroy backups. Assuming there are backups.

          • @NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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            501 month ago

            Excusing what? Someone called out the “free speech absolutist” hypocrisy. You assumed they were talking about Github or Microsoft for some reason. I corrected you.

            Maybe learn how to contribute to a conversation?

            • Maeve
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              11 month ago

              And people discussing it are employed by musk?

              • TJA!
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                201 month ago

                The people that are discussing it are exposing it and showing what is happening. And the tools provided by GitHub are helping.

                So your original comment was celebrating Microsoft?

          • snooggums
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            1 month ago

            Are you too stupid to understand the difference between hosting software source code and modifying it?

            Microsoft/github are not the ones making changes through commits.

  • *dust.sys
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    1721 month ago

    Read 1984, if you haven’t already.

    This is exactly what The Party does through simplifying the Newspeak dictionary - targeting words to remove from the lexicon to make even communicating against The Party’s narrative impossible.

    DEI is being Unpersoned

    • @latenightnoir@lemmy.world
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      541 month ago

      This is why it’s essential, now more than ever, to keep these words and notions alive, let the truth be an act of rebellion in itself.

      Life is meaningless without diversity, and it is up to each and every one of us to protect it.

      • @ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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        51 month ago

        They usually don’t care, they just claim some imaginary East-Asian country banned any kind of self-expression to the point all people are wearing the same clothes, which made crime disappear over night or some similar bullshit. They want to claim humans are not different by nature.

    • @0x0@programming.dev
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      41 month ago

      The irony that the author was red scared… all this authoritarianism… certainly Trump’s a commie.

      • @ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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        31 month ago

        The author got backstabbed and almost killed by Stalinists, who turned on them instead of fighting the fascists.

  • Cat without eyebrows
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    341 month ago

    I’m a contractor for uscis. We were ordered to change all instances of the word ‘immigrant’ to ‘alien’. We said ok and shrugged because our systems actually use the word ‘person’. They didn’t say anything about that and we didn’t ask

  • @nevemsenki@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    This level of pettiness could be amusing if it wasn’t in control of the world’s largest army and nuclear arsenal.

    Edit: and not actively trying to murder people, now that I think about it.

    • @0x0@programming.dev
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      51 month ago

      Let’s hope that jarheads have some common sense.

      Wasn’t there some top brass saying during first term that it’s not that clear-cut “obey bitch” if Mango Mussolini says “fire”?

  • @DudeDudenson@lemmings.world
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    261 month ago

    It’s not that unlike what companies were doing to appease the woke gods, a friend works at Salesforce and he had to change the name of a class called Blacklist to something else because apparently they’re not allowed to use the word black in any context in the code

    • @MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com
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      321 month ago

      But, it is unlike that. Companies were changing the name of an existing feature to be more inclusive. Trump is more REMOVING data sets or data fields entirely. It’s not renaming “gender” to “sex” because they believe there is no difference, it’s completely removing climate change information from websites.

    • @Saleh@feddit.org
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      1 month ago

      I wonder how they communicated GUI colors then.

      draw.set_color(r=0,g=0,b=0) # Adjust text color to very very dark grey

    • @ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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      141 month ago

      Some parts of some DEI initiatives were dumb during the BLM protests, therefore we must do digital nazi bookburnings.🤡

      • @thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world
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        161 month ago

        You what the master terminology comes from? Master and slave. USB devices do this day use this terminology master device and slave device. There’s no reason to be perpetuating the terms sever and client work fine. Main branch also works fine.

        • The Octonaut
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          111 month ago

          Master in branch meant the same as the master of an audio track or video. We haven’t all stopped saying “remaster” or “masterpiece”.

          As it turns out, there are software developers from outside the country with people whose grandparents-grandparents were chattel slaves, and they name things without the same baggage. It’s Gulf of America stuff, but for the ‘good guys’.

          • @towerful@programming.dev
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            71 month ago

            I don’t think the argument is worth having.

            Only thing I will say is that the audio world has no common meaning for a slave.
            Programming does.

            • The Octonaut
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              71 month ago

              The point is that no branch was ever called a slave branch, just as no audio copy was ever called a slave copy. One does not direct the other in the same way that master and slave implies. Usually quite the opposite.

              Oh and master-slave usually refers to hardware infrastructure, not programming. Where, as you mentioned, client-service is the equivalent, or parent and child.

        • Aatube
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          71 month ago

          The server does not necessarily control the client though. Looking at the list of alternatives, I like boss/controller–worker the most.

          • @pressanykeynow@lemmy.world
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            21 month ago

            I like boss/controller–worker the most.

            Meh, might need to change it in the future if the commie government comes to power.

        • @0x0@programming.dev
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          11 month ago

          You what the master terminology comes from? Master and slave.

          You know who cares and makes a fuss about it? White 'murican virtue-signaling programmers.

          No one else cares or gives it any other connotation. Oh no! The slave branch is being oppressed! Let’s free the slave branch! is something no one ever said (except maybe the Monty Pythons).

          The difference is that racism is still quite trendy in the US (suspected to make a fabulous come-back now that they reelected Mango Mussolini and his fascist side-kick); in Rest of the World™ not as much although right-wing fucks are also on the rise.
          And the US was probably last abolishing slavery (but i could be wrong on that one).

          • @thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world
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            11 month ago

            Is not about freeing the “slave branch” you numb skull it’s just about using more appropriate terminology in every day life and in the work force. I don’t want to talk to my boss about the slave device and master devices if I’m working on USB shit. No fucking reason to keep it the same other than to appease whiny ass conservative bigots who have nothing better to do then bitch about the world trying to better itself.

      • Amon
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        31 month ago

        Imo the main branch should be called the trunk.

  • @ZeroGravitas@lemm.ee
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    231 month ago

    Apparently the new slogan is “Vox Populi No DEI”.

    The content filtering approach to government, or, if you will, a filterocracy.

  • Optional
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    101 month ago

    I think you’re missing the point - Democrats failed to pass UBI and M4A because they love the genocides.

  • Bob Robertson IX
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    51 month ago

    Does anyone have a list of words that the new administration is now allowing that the previous administration had blocked?

      • Bob Robertson IX
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        81 month ago

        No, I’m curious to know which words or phrases the last administration wasn’t allowing. My guess is that there isn’t such a list.

  • @_carmin@lemm.ee
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    41 month ago

    Witch sistahs, what are we gonna do!! Im literally shaking uncontrollably, my transphibian body is levitating.