Peertube: Replace the term “blacklist” by e.g. “blocklist” to avoid the “black == bad” connotation

[blipp]

Thanks for your work on this project! The recently published roadmap for 2020 inspired me to donate to the fundraiser and to become a recurrent supporter of Framasoft.

I want to suggest that the term “blacklist” be changed to another one, to avoid using the connotation that “black == bad”.

Replacing blacklist by blocklist seems a common choice to solve this problem, see for example Travis CI (Tweet by Amy Gebhardt), and Chromium (Article by The Register, entry in issue tracker).

[mcgodwin]

Great suggestion, thanks @blipp !
I fully agree it's about time we move on to new terminology in software development.

[blipp]

Thanks @mcgodwin for the positive reply.

I am worried about the thumbs down and similar negative emoji reactions, and so I would like to add a couple of thoughts:

• This is not about accusing contributors of being racist (by e.g. deliberately choosing a term that can be perceived as racist). I do not want to accuse anyone here of being racist. I am sorry if I offended any contributor of this community, by being unclear in my first message, because I tried to keep it short.

• This is about moving forward. First, by raising awareness that a term that has been used for a long time in software, can be perceived as offensive to underrepresented groups. And second, by choosing more inclusive language.

• At the same time, this can be about choosing language that is actually more accurately describing the behavior of the software. “Blocking” a video might speak more directly to novice users than making a video “black”.

If the community decides that the term should be changed, and then decides to what it should be changed, of course the technical questions arise: While a change from blacklist to e.g. blocklist is literally only one letter for each occurrence, the question is how to do this change without breaking things in the ecosystem. I have no expertise in release or update management, so I am not able to estimate the cost; but I assume the earlier it happens within PeerTube's life cycle, the easier it would be. I am happy to help by creating pull requests, for example.

Edited to add: This new message has in parts been inspired by comment 8 and comment 9 on this entry in the Drupal issue tracker on the master/slave terminology.

[ghost]

can be perceived as offensive to underrepresented groups

Can or is it for sure? I wanna see a few videos where some groups of black people are complaining about the word 'blacklist'.

And second, by choosing more inclusive language

Show me a few comments where black people are complaining to a project that uses the term 'blacklist', and where they say they feel excluded because of that.

[mcgodwin]

Can or is it for sure? I wanna see a few videos where some groups of black people are complaining about the word 'blacklist'.

I am sure you can do some research yourself! You will quickly find proof that these terms pose a problem.

Show me a few comments where black people are complaining to a project that uses the term 'blacklist', and where they say the feel excluded because of that.

Same. We are not here to do the research for you ;) It literally took me 12 seconds to find at least 6 relevant sources.

[JohnXLivingston]

I am 100% for this proposal. There is no good argument for not doing it.

[DatBewar]

I don't care which solution will be choice, but don't a rude and do not told to people that there is no good argument to not doing it.

Removing words, which are IT words in a IT project, will not helped to educate people.
Everything need to be understood in their context.

I will be sad to see a French project at the beginning, getting hit by "American sensibilities".
I mean, this is a America cultural problem of always try to clean everything even when it's not a problem in a specific context which is the case here IMO.
It's a world project now, not a place to try to fix all the earth and humanity problems.

Here one example of project which took the choice to not change(Redis):
http://antirez.com/news/122

To conclude IMO, it should be a community decision not a sensibility decision.

[mcgodwin]

It is a political decision indeed. Do we want to finally look at our white privilege with integrity and courage and contribute to make the world a better place for everyone else and not just us? Well, I do.

Refusing to change and encouraging the status quo (keeping the same terminology just because "we've always done it this way" without addressing the racist aspects of it) is in fact participating to oppression. It is up to us to educate ourselves and act accordingly. See this chart.

[DatBewar]

Yeah, and I think it's not a good context for political decision.
It's not because "we have always done it this way", it's an IT terminology applied in an IT project.
Now I repeat myself, I think that should be a community choice so, we will see.

I already had some seminar about "privilege", the fact we don't know we don't know, etc...
I understand your position.

[mcgodwin]

I hope you agree that software and IT don't exist in a vacuum. They are used by real people and they contribute to show to everybody what is allowed / possible or not. So switching language has a huge impact on how we collectively see the world. Peertube holds a lot of great values. Switching to terminology that DOES NOT IMPACT usability and understandability of the software AND show that we acknowledge and respect systemic oppressions and want to do our little part about it is, I think, the bare minimum.

As a systemic designer, I try my best to not isolate things. Isolating things is an open door to gaslighting and arguments that don't apply to real life situations. I suggest this post by Mike Monteiro: https://deardesignstudent.com/how-to-fight-fascism-dabdfeab1830

[DatBewar]

I can take this argument, but this words are not here to show to everybody which are allowed or not. In my opinion, the employment context is very important. Here we are using a term which have never been used in IT for inappropriate thing.

I agree with your fight, I may think that it should be better to educate people instead of removing every thing which is bad in the world because it will always had bad thing in the world.

We debate about this terms today but in the future it will be others, deleting this terms will not suppress ignorance.

[mcgodwin]

"The UK government's cyber-security agency said this week it would stop using "whitelist" and "blacklist" due to stigma and racial stereotyping surrounding the two terms.

Instead, the UK National Cyber Security Centre said that going forward, it would use the terms "allow list" and "deny list" instead of the two.

"It's fairly common to say whitelisting and blacklisting to describe desirable and undesirable things in cyber security," said Emma W., Head of Advice and Guidance at the NCSC.

"However, there's an issue with the terminology. It only makes sense if you equate white with 'good, permitted, safe' and black with 'bad, dangerous, forbidden'. There are some obvious problems with this," she added.

"So in the name of helping to stamp out racism in cyber security, we will avoid this casually pejorative wording on our website in the future."

https://www.zdnet.com/article/uk-ncsc-to-stop-using-whitelist-and-blacklist-due-to-racial-stereotyping/

"No, it's not the biggest issue in the world - but to borrow a slogan from elsewhere: every little helps," the NCSC said.

[mcgodwin]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6148600/

“Blacklists” and “whitelists”: a salutary warning concerning the prevalence of racist language in discussions of predatory publishing

Frank Houghton, Director, HEALR Research Group, Limerick Institute of Technology, Limerick, Ireland
Sharon Houghton, Psychology Department, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

This commentary addresses the widespread use of racist language in discussions concerning predatory publishing. Examples include terminology such as blacklists, whitelists, and black sheep. The use of such terms does not merely reflect a racist culture, but also serves to legitimize and perpetuate it.

It is imperative that such vocabulary ceases to be deemed acceptable. Examination of the history of terms such as “blacklist,” combined with the context of a growth in racist discourse, means that this is a real issue and not just a matter for idle academic debate. Finally, it is perhaps useful to conclude with a quotation by author N. K. Jemisin:

If the first words out of your mouth are to cry “political correctness!”,…chances are very, very high that you are in fact part of the problem.

[mcgodwin]

I can go on and look for other sources. These took me 3mn to find.

The Limerick Institute of Technology brought this topic on the table in 2018. So it is safe to say that these terms are not set in stone, especially when IT research directors point out their impact. They know what they are talking about, probably better than us even. And they advocate for a change in language in IT.

SO ?

I suggest we resolve this topic and actively choose to show a good example on Peertube by changing ONE letter in a word.

[DatBewar]

What I read here is an argument from authority.
In IT we speak with a specific IT language.

You want to change it, well let the community choose.

[JohnXLivingston]

Furthermore, «block list» (or «deny list») will be better understood. Peertube moderators are not necessarily all from the IT world.

[DatBewar]

I have said all the stuff I needed to say.

"By banning those words, you’re giving them the meaning you don’t want them to have."
https://medium.com/@Zh0uzi/on-banning-racial-terms-in-programming-bdc5b6255d9f

[taziden]

I am 100% for this proposal. There is no good argument for not doing it.

I manage a Peertube instance and I'm also 100% for this proposal.

[gagzzz]

"By banning those words, you’re giving them the meaning you don’t want them to have."

Ah, the very last argument when one knows they're wrong but don't want to accept it. I've seen this exact argument being used to refuse the use of gender-neutral phrasing in other projects…

Anyway, I'm here to say that I'm also in favor of the use of "Blocklist" and "Allowlist" instead of the black/whistlist thing.

Even more: I think it's very important because language carries culture, and specifically mainstream culture. Mainstream culture is white, rich, male, cisgender etc. This mainstream culture takes care of making other cultures less visible, and even discredits them. So I think that people with privileges, people able to see themselves in such a mainstream culture, if they want to help less privileged people, need to take this seriously and review their language (and many other things but that's another topic).

Thanks for everything, peertube and framasoft!

cheers

[DatBewar]

For sure I don't think I'm wrong, but contrary with you I'm open mind to listen what people think and let them talk without saying "you are wrong".

Cheers

[3risian]

I agree with this proposal.
On a personal level I feel like that interpreting the connotation as racial is confirmation bias that ignores the longstanding meaning of the word, although that doesn't mean that the term shouldn't be replaced. It's not unreasonable for someone to interpret that connotation and feel unaccepted, and so far I have not been convinced by a counterargument that it should remain. Replacing a terminology isn't banning the old one, plus if I'm not mistaken an instance can easily change it back if they do interpret this as problematic social censorship. Like security, I feel that safest by default is appropriate in this situation.

Regardless, on a user-experience level, I believe that 'block' and 'allow' is a much clearer, self-explanatory terminology than the pre-existing 'black' and 'white'.

Note: I take issue to the civility of many comments on both sides of this argument, such as the accusatory nature of one of the comments which appears to blindly assert that other PeerTube contributors have white privilege, as well as the comment implying wanting to not offend is somehow an "American sensibility" that other nations don't have, as well as an assertion that "there is no good argument" for something they are currently unconvinced by. This rhetoric does not seem constructive on a software issue tracker. While I recognize there is most likely no offence intended, these kind of comments don't help maintain civil discussion.

[JohnXLivingston]

as well as an assertion that "there is no good argument" for something they are currently unconvinced by.

I should have say «I can't see no good argument». My bad, you are right.