Twitter engineers replacing racially loaded tech terms like 'master,' 'slave'

I never in my twenty years of computing have thought of those words in terms of race until today.

Race is being dragged into everything now and I hate it.

(Non-US opinion) I don't mind changing the usage of loaded terms, either racially or in other ways (like grooming).

Changing the usage doesn't harm me in any way and if it arguably provides a more welcoming environment for people then why not.

Please explain to me how "sanity check" or "dummy value" can reasonably be considered non-inclusive.

There are multiple definitions of these words including:

Sanity - reasonable and rational behaviour.

Dummy - an object designed to resemble and serve as a substitute for the real or usual one.

It strikes me as incredibly sensitive to say these are unacceptable for use. Sure, we can use different words but that is not the point - the point is how can words used as commonly defined and with no spite or foul intention be banned?

The comedian Stewart Lee has an excellent routine on this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03zdyz5

There were masters and slaves thousands of years before it existed here in America. To claim the terms are only referencing slavery in America is rather short sighted.

That will change a lot of stuff.

I really have an inside battle when I read this sort of stuff here on HN, because I don't want to post derailed political comments, I want this place to be like it is, keep it cool and avoid kulturwars, but man it's hard.

Look, I'm not in the US, so maybe I can't even think how it is with racism there, but I just can't help to think this is kind of stupid-naive virtue signaling. It feels like some bunch of uber-priviledged SV guys who think too high of themselves want to feel good about something and they come up with this BS that everyone will forget a week later.

Man, it's so surreal. Don't you have poor people in your city? What about helping your local NGOs? What about working for them for free? One week you help feed the people, another in the kitchen and another one in accounting.

Dunno, it feels sooooo far away from my reality. I don't know what is to be earning +100k year and thinking this is a great idea! It was even difficult to write this comment because I find it funny and just feel the impulse to mock this.

Soon:

Chess is racist, blacks always move second and are thus at a disadvantage. Cancel chess.

Daoism is racist, yin is black and has negative connotations. Cancel Daoism.

Star Wars are racist. Droids are enslaved, C3P0 even calls his owner 'Master Luke', a racially-charged word. Cancel Star Wars.

Education is racist. Issued Master's degrees use a racially-charged word. Cancel education.

"To kill a mockingbird" is racist. It is full of insensitive language and it makes reader feel uncomfortable. Cancel "To kill a mockingbird".

"Mysterious island" by J.Verne is racist. The only black character is a servant to a wise white engineer and serves mostly as a comedic relief. Cancel "Mysterious island".

Coal industry is racist, miners are always mocking blacks wearing blackface after every shift. Cancel coal mining. (Good for environment, too!)

Disclaimer: I'm so insensitive because I was born with a white privilege, which I greatly enjoyed since my early childhood in an industrial/mining town in the Ural Mountains, near the eastern border of Siberia.

Saying that these terms are racially loaded is, well, racist.

I can kind of understand the argument that there is a history of racism connected with slavery, but the concept of "slave" predates discrimination of coloured people by millenia, closely followed by the word itself, which is actually derived from "Slav" (like you sometimes hear Russians being referred as). But fair enough, seeing a connection to racism is maybe just misinformed.

But "blacklist" (and "whitelist") is just completely absurd. "Blacklist" is a term from a play, referring to a literally black list. Whitelist is just an antonym. Such color metaphors are incredibly common, think wedding dresses or "black death", or black flags, or white lie. Obviously, none of this is connected to skin color. How exactly does your mind have to be wired to come to the opposite conclusion?

As one of the largest (and most criticized) players in political information, one would think that Twitter could maybe do something better about the current situation than engaging in etymological misinformation...

This is going to be controversial; thus flagged, but I'd like to have an actual conversation about this.

It's my understanding that slavery has very little to do with race, blacklist has nothing to do with black people and "man" is the default term of humanity that comes from a completely different etymology than the word we use to refer to a male person.

I'm generally pretty stubborn but given the amount of traction this is getting, can someone _please_ explain to me the logic here? I'm perfectly willing to change my mind but right now I cannot fathom that these terms were harming people- unless those people were looking for reasons to be harmed.

There's been a movement at my employer to replace some of these terms for years, though it seems to be getting more widespread attention lately.

Some of the terms, especially 'whitelist' and 'blacklist', are also very confusing to many non-native english speakers. 'Allowlist' and 'denylist' are just a lot clearer in those cases.

Moving away from race a bit and totally anecdotally, but my wife was looking at my screen once while I was using the command line and she remarked how it seemed like all the commands were chosen by men: kill, terminate, spawn, mount, push etc. It may be subtle but words matter and they do attract or repel people. And then we complain why there are too few women in tech. Inclusion is not just about race.

>Sanity check becomes quick check, confidence check or coherence check

why?

I'm not american and don't know what do these words _mean_ for a lot of people. My sidestory that I only feel "bad" because as a non-native english speaker it's really hard sometimes to speak correctly PC-ish. For example my native tongue doesn't have gender pronouns. Grammatical gender doesn't exist at all. So third person singular doesn't make a difference between gender like english. It doesn't exist when I address that person. But when I go to Twitter or check people's profile they more and more ask how they should be addressed or what pronoun to use. Just interesting how the language can affect your way of thinking about the world.

Are they going to rename their servers as well? The word 'server' comes from the Latin word 'servus' which means slave.

Also, the word 'twit' has several meanings which might not fall so well with certain people. Ask Google Translate what it means and this is what you get:

Twit: (noun) a silly or foolish person. Syonyms: idiot ass halfwit nincompoop blockhead buffoon dunce dolt ignoramus cretin imbecile dullard moron simpleton clod dope ninny chump dimwit nitwit goon dumbo dummy dum-dum dumbbell loon jackass bonehead fathead numbskull dunderhead chucklehead knucklehead muttonhead pudding-head thickhead wooden-head airhead pinhead lamebrain peabrain birdbrain zombie jerk nerd dipstick donkey noodle nit numpty clot goat plonker berk prat pillock wally git wazzock divvy nerk twerp charlie mug muppet nyaff balloon sumph gowk gobdaw schmuck bozo boob lamer turkey schlepper chowderhead dumbhead goofball goof goofus galoot dork lummox klutz putz schlemiel sap meatball gink cluck clunk ding-dong dingbat wiener weeny dip simp spud coot palooka poop squarehead yo-yo dingleberry wing nut drongo dill alec galah nong bogan poon boofhead mompara tomfool noddy clodpole loggerhead spoony mooncalf

While I personally think they chose a name which fits the product very well indeed I do get the feeling that, if the current witch hunt continues, they'll eventually fall foul of the mob and be either forced to bend to their will or find themselves in the position now reserved for Facebook, i.e. the whipping boy of the social media giants.

Really sad seeing a flagship company making headlines with something this superficial.

As an Asian American. I find Yellowstone national park offensive and oppressive.

To say that these terms are racist, one must start with a racist point of view.

ridiculous. context is king

I would think racism and slavery are two different things. Usually slaves and masters are of the same race. But I understand why this might be a good move, the word “slave” itself is pretty loaded with negative connotations.

Another discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23723433

This endeavor is doubleplus good!

The whole idea is to remove the subconscious bias that it creates in our minds, always associating black with bad and white with good in the case of blacklist and white list.

None of this has any effect on me and I don't see the negative side of changing it.

This is controversial but shouldn't be flagged. It's a link to a factual news story. Dang could you unflag this or otherwise explain why this remains flagged?

Anyone else find it ironic the official announcement on twitter about a major programming change about inclusivity was posted in a non-accessible way?

Tl'dr the list of words to be replaced:

>Whitelist becomes allowlist.

>Blacklist becomes denylist.

>Master/slave becomes leader/follower, primary/replica or primary/standby.

>Grandfathered becomes legacy status.

>Gendered pronouns (for example "guys") become folks, people, you all, y'all.

>Gendered pronouns (for example "he" or "his") become they or their.

>Man hours becomes person hours or engineer hours.

>Sanity check becomes quick check, confidence check or coherence check.

>Dummy value becomes placeholder value or sample value.

Could "Spartan" and "Helot" work? Or would Greeks be offended?

And yet they allow Trump to tweet his hatred.

Orange is the New Purple

Thank you twitter engineers. To the people trying to deflect, consider this as an opportunity to learn and progress.

So much of the tech language is filled with insensitivity.

We now live in clown world.

There is a lot of "white" and "black" out there to replace, especially on paper.

github (owned by Microsoft) also was on the FP just recently for renaming master.

this feels like empty (if not hypocritical) when (as Cory Doctrow writes) the same companies:

"spend 20-45% of their budgets on policing on but cops run foundations that solicit millions from large corporations, which then take tax breaks for their donations. The money goes into a slushfund used to procure off-the-books military and surveillance gear. " -- https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1278391796733669378

this just fuels the culture wars but does nothing to address the problem of racism

To everyone whose first reaction to this is negative, can I ask why? Do you really have an emotional investment in these specific terms?

We have the opportunity to make tech marginally more hospitable to Black developers at basically zero cost to everyone else. Let’s not mess it up!

There is a lot of downvoting going on in here on very valid comments. I know it goes against the guidelines to complain about downvotes, but it’s surprisingly toxic in this comment section. I expected better on HN, it’s pretty disappointing.