In the aftermath of Github banning or suspending dozens of popular accounts, the erotic game modding community wonders if they should move to platforms like GitGoon instead.

Developers making mods and plugins for hentai games and sex toys say Github recently unleashed a wave of suspensions and bans against their repositories, and the platform hasn’t explained why.

Developers I spoke to said the community estimated around 80 to 90 repositories containing the work of 40 to 50 people went down recently, with many becoming inaccessible around late November and early December. Many of the affected accounts are part of the modding community for games made by the now-defunct Japanese video game studio Illusion, which made popular games with varying degrees of erotic content. One of the accounts Github banned contained the work of more than 30 contributors in more than 40 repositories, according to members of the modding community that I spoke to.

Github didn’t tell most suspended users what terms they broke to earn a suspension or ban, and developers told me they have no idea why their accounts went down without notice. They said they thought they were within Github’s acceptable use guidelines; even though they make mods for hentai games and things like interactive vibrator plugins, they took care to not host anything explicit directly in their repositories.

Archive: http://archive.today/eNOI1

    • naticus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      41·
      5 days ago

      So they waited 7 years to do the ban? You know that happened in 2018, right?

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish
        31·
        4 days ago

        You know people were saying this was going to happen eventually back in 2018 when that happened, right?

        We have seen how much MicroSlop has stopped caring about their products over the last few years, so this shouldn’t be that surprising.

      • Katana314@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        5 days ago

        There’s a bit of merit to that. After a purchase, a lot of people are wary, and likely to magnify any changes that happen immediately. They need a period of stabilization to dissuade fears, and assure that “nothing will change in the long run”. Even this article is highlighting what happened around a month ago over a period of time, because it wasn’t apparent in the moment.

  • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    6 days ago

    For anyone that needs to know: it’s criminally easy to set up git for multiple remotes, making a migration from GitHub a lot easier.

    Remember that origin is just the default, and you can have any number configured you want.

    • View all remotes: git remote -v
    • Add new remote: git remote add $name $url
    • Push to another remote: git push $remotename $branchname
    • Pull from a specific remote: git pull $remotename/$branchname (note the slash)
    • Fetch from all remotes: git fetch --all

    The first two are just one-time setup, and the rest just get bolted onto your existing workflow. At some point, you’ll want to use git remote move names around, possibly even making origin something other than GitHub. Cheers.

    • dev_null@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      4 days ago

      Except the difficulty in migrating from GitHub is not moving the source code, that’s the trivial part.

      It’s moving the discussions, issues, releases, free CI on GitHub Actions, free hosting on GitHub Pages, stars, visibility, existing community around the project on GitHub, losing contributors. These are the problems, not configuring git for another remote.

      • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        4 days ago

        True, but the article is about projects getting de-platformed, so all that goes away under those circumstances. There’s value tied up in all that data, but the codebase itself might be far harder to replace securely if the public repo just vanishes. Better to have at least an alternate offsite backup - on another service even - if all you do is maintain a project-owner-controlled clone.

        Plus, I know it’s a small gesture, but some folks might need that tiny push to migrate if they’re already fence-sitting about leaving.

        • dev_null@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2·
          3 days ago

          Due to the nature of git, all developers already have a complete backup of the project and the entire history without a separate remote.

          More backups are always good of course.

  • ampersandrew@lemmy.worldEnglish
    41·
    6 days ago

    This smells suspiciously similar to the stuff affecting adult content on Steam, like Horses. No one’s saying anything about any of it, which feels like that’s on advice from their legal counsel.

    • UnspecificGravity@piefed.socialEnglish
      4·
      6 days ago

      I think they are testing the waters of just open warfare against indie developers. Microsoft has no interest in platforming their competitors. They start with the adult games because no one is going to defend them. Once the precedent is set, they go after everyone else. They do the same thing with porn as a vehicle to attack free speech.

      • ampersandrew@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        6 days ago

        I don’t see it. Indie developers would comprise the vast majority of open source projects. Many of them add value to their own products, and they know it, which is why they’re largely a services company now. And the timing is so close to everything going on with adult content in other places.

        • UnspecificGravity@piefed.socialEnglish
          1·
          6 days ago

          What about the last 20 years of Microsoft make you think that adding value to their products has anything to do with their business model?

          Tech companies don’t make new shit anymore and they haven’t done it for a long time. All they do now is steal our shit and sell it back to us. All Microsoft does now is remove existing features and put them behind higher paid tiers.

          • ampersandrew@lemmy.worldEnglish
            02·
            6 days ago

            What about the last 20 years of Microsoft make you think that adding value to their products has anything to do with their business model?

            The part where they tried to make an Apple app store and it didn’t take. The open ecosystem of Windows is the thing that allows it to continue to exist and dominate. And the open ecosystem of open source software actively enhances their ability to sell companies server infrastructure, which makes them more money than Windows does.

    • atrielienz@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      6 days ago

      Go on then. Talk about it. Which other games besides Horses (the feature adult content) have been removed from or not allowed to launch on Steam? Because that platform is full of porn games and the Horses thing was about sexual themes involving minors.

        • atrielienz@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11·
          6 days ago

          Again. This wasn’t on steam it was on the literally payment providers who forced the issue. If steam can’t accept payment for your game, of course they’re going to delist it. That’s not what he said. He said steam is trying to clear porn games.

            • atrielienz@lemmy.worldEnglish
              12·
              6 days ago

              This smells suspiciously similar to the stuff affecting adult content on Steam, like Horses.

              With this sentence you basically implied that Steam is removing or not allowing porn games.

              You never in any of your comments mentioned payment processors. If that’s what you meant, that’s what you should have said.

              You also claimed nobody was talking about it when literally everybody everywhere was talking about it when the news first dropped. So much so that Mastercard made a statement about it.

                • atrielienz@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  11·
                  6 days ago

                  I said what I said. You decided my argument was something other than what it actually was. You decided to engage me about it in a bad faith argument. You’re fault not mine.

              • Katana314@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                6 days ago

                Sorry, let me try.

                This smells suspiciously similar to the stuff affecting adult content on Visa, like Horses.

                Oh. No, wait, you don’t sell games on Visa. Let’s try again.

                Actually, what you call Linux is really GNU/Linux-

                Dammit! Stupid pedantry setting!

                • atrielienz@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  11·
                  6 days ago

                  So, when pornhub had problems with payment processors it wasn’t pornhubs fault they had to remove content.

                  But when steam removes some content because payment processors won’t let them take payment for that content it’s steams fault. Have I got that right?

      • ampersandrew@lemmy.worldEnglish
        01·
        6 days ago

        Exactly. Steam is so laissez-faire about adult content that removing one game, without elaborating, and allowing so many others sounds exactly to me like it violates or risks violating a law somewhere, and so they’re covering their asses, maybe even preemptively. I’m not a lawyer, but their advice is often to just shut the fuck up. Epic sure was excited to host it when Steam declined and then did the same thing. For all I know, the reason GOG can host it but the other two won’t is that maybe GOG doesn’t operate in a country where some law makes that game a problem for them.

        • atrielienz@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          6 days ago

          They did elaborate though. They explained that the game had depictions of children with adults in sexual situations and the game developer removed one scene and paid some lip service about how they were just small adults. Steam didn’t buy into that and wouldn’t allow the game on the platform which is a reasonable take.

          Would you like to give the names of specific other porn games involving children in sexual situations? I would like to see that list because I’m pretty sure it violates the law in several places.

          You seem to be suggesting that Horses got treated differently for invalid or incomprehensible reasons and that isn’t true from literally every article I’ve seen reporting on the situation.

          GOG is based out of Poland, and I’m sure Polish law absolutely does cover children in sexual situations in media.

          But we also don’t know what the developer went on to change in the game since it was submitted to Steam with acception of the part highlighted by Steam specifically when they denied it.

          This developer may have gone on to change several things that clear the bar in Poland but not everywhere else.

          In any case you speculated that Steam might be trying to clear porn games from the platform in your initial comment (or inferred such) and one game doesn’t validate that claim.

          • ampersandrew@lemmy.worldEnglish
            01·
            6 days ago

            In any case you speculated that Steam might be trying to clear porn games from the platform in your initial comment (or inferred such) and one game doesn’t validate that claim.

            Quite the opposite. The reason I suspect there’s something legal behind behavior like this is that it is so laser targeted to this game. Especially when it was immediately followed up by their competitor eager to host the game (which had already removed the content named in Steam’s initial reason) and then changing their mind at the last second.

            What I see in common between Horses and Github is that it appears that they see it as a bad idea to explain publicly why they’re doing what they’re doing, and that smells like a legal reason to me.

            • atrielienz@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              6 days ago

              Microsoft went and changed the TOS for GitHub intentionally to remove this content. Valve hasn’t made changes to the TOS to exclude sexual content. They specifically never allowed sexual content that included minors in sexual situations.

              Those are not the same thing.

  • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    1·
    5 days ago

    “Perhaps most frustratingly, all of the tickets, pull requests, past release builds and changelogs are gone, because those things are not part of Git (the version control system),” Sauceke told me. “So even if someone had the foresight to make mirrors before the ban (as I did), those mirrors would only keep up with the code changes, not these ‘extra’ things that are pretty much vital to our work.”

    What can be done about this?

  • Lexi Sneptaur@pawb.socialEnglish
    1·
    6 days ago

    This is just TOS enforcement, they updated their TOS in October. From the article:

    Github updated its acceptable use policies in October 2025 to forbid “sexually themed or suggestive content that serves little or no purpose other than to solicit an erotic or shocking response, particularly where that content is amplified by its placement in profiles or other social contexts.” This include pornographic content and “graphic depictions of sexual acts including photographs, video, animation, drawings, computer-generated images, or text-based content,” according to the terms.

    • Tony Bark@pawb.socialOPEnglish
      1·
      6 days ago

      So they suspended users without telling them about the fairly recent TOS update? That’s just scummy behaviour.

      • Agrivar@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        6 days ago

        I’m quite sure said users clicked right past a notification of the updated TOS, just like we all do, without even skimming it.

        • Hetare King@piefed.socialEnglish
          1·
          5 days ago

          “But the plans were on display…” “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” “That’s the display department.” “With a flashlight.” “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.” “So had the stairs.” “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”

          • Agrivar@lemmy.worldEnglish
            02·
            6 days ago

            Not relevant. You asserted that the users weren’t told about the changes, when we both know they most certainly ignored some notification of said changes, be it via a popup or an email or whatever. How much fun the TOS is to read and parse has nothing to do with this.

              • Agrivar@lemmy.worldEnglish
                02·
                6 days ago

                Since you seem determined to completely miss the point, welcome to my block list.