Reinstatements, including as a result of appeals, are a key component of fairness to our users and respect for their right to a remedy for content removal or account restrictions. Reinstatements can occur when we undo an action we had taken to disable a repository, hide an account, or suspend a user’s access to their account in response to a Terms of Service violation. While sometimes this happens because a user disputes a decision to restrict access to their content (an appeal), in many cases, we reinstate an account after a user removes content that violated our Terms of Service and agrees not to violate them going forward. For the purposes of our transparency reporting, we look at reinstatements related to:
- Abuse: violations of our Acceptable Use Policies, except for spam, phishing, and malware
- Trade controls: violations of trade sanctions restrictions
GitHub’s Terms of Service include numerous abuse-related restrictions on content and conduct. There are a number of enforcement actions we can take When we determine a violation of our Terms of Service has occurred. In keeping with our approach of restricting content in the narrowest way possible to address the violation, sometimes we can resolve an issue by disabling one repository (taking down one project) rather than acting on an entire account. Other times, we may need to act at the account level, for example, if the same user is committing the same violation across several repositories.
At the account level, in some cases we will only need to hide a user’s account content—for example, when the violation is based on content being publicly posted—while still giving the user the ability to access their account. In other cases, we will only need to restrict a user’s access to their account—for example, when the violation is based on their interaction with other users—while still giving other users the ability to access their shared content. For a collaborative software development platform like GitHub, we realized we need to provide this option so that other users can still access content that may provide value to their projects.
We’re dedicated to empowering as many developers around the world as possible to collaborate on GitHub. The US government has imposed sanctions on several countries and regions (Crimea, separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria), which means GitHub isn’t fully available in some of those places. However, GitHub will continue advocating to US regulators for the greatest possible access to code collaboration services for developers in sanctioned regions. For example, in January 2021 we secured a license from the US government to make all GitHub services fully available to developers in Iran. We are continuing to work toward a similar outcome for developers in Crimea and Syria. Our services are also generally available to developers located in Cuba, aside from specially designated nationals, other denied or blocked parties under US and other applicable law, and certain government officials.
Although trade control laws require GitHub to restrict account access from certain regions, we enable users to appeal these restrictions, and we work with them to restore as many accounts as we legally can. In many cases, we can reinstate a user’s account (grant an appeal), for example after they returned from temporarily traveling to a restricted region or if their account was flagged in error. More information on GitHub and trade controls can be found here.