[mrfrisby]

This thread is a depressingly self-serving reflection of this community. Few of you seem to have bothered to do anything but skim the article and come to a snap judgement based on what seems to be your idealised notion of how TLDs should be managed.

For the sake of my own sanity, lets just be clear here:

1. An island chain was forcibly depopulated in order for the largest land mass to be leased to the United States as a strategically important military base away from outside observers which has since been used as a staging post for the renditions of people to illegal prisons on US sovereign territory.

2. The former inhabitants of the Island are prevented from returning thanks to a tricky piece of political gamesmanship which classfieid the island chain as a marine park unable to sustain human population, whilst at the same time permitting the construction and continuous growth of one of the United States largest overseas military bases.

3. The Chagossians - now living in slums in Mauritius - or even worse - Kent, have limited access to education, die younger than they ought to, and are prevented from prospering in exile thanks to their ill treatment at the hands of the Mauritian government, the same government paid to help Britain pave the way for the above heinous acts.

4. The natural resources of the islands, the land, the sea, the soil, the strategically important geographic position, the TLD, the international dialling code, the airspace - all of this was stolen when the people were forcibly removed. You may discuss the merits of TLD sovereignty somewhere else, this is not the issue at hand here. If Britain can sell and profit from .uk domain names, the Chagossians deserve that same right as equals.

This is not about a TLD, it is about the abhorrent treatment of a small nation at the hands of a large one. It is the grossest example of the same kind of tawdry crap which colonial powers of past and present have gotten away with for centuries. Your ignorance and self-serving positions are staggering, disappointing, and completely unsurprising.

[pearjuice]

Meanwhile, Palestine is still a colony of Israel but hey they don't have a nice TLD so who bothers.

[itafroma]

> Meanwhile, Palestine is still a colony of Israel but hey they don't have a nice TLD so who bothers.

The relationship between Palestine and the IANA is not very similar to .io and the Chagossians. Palestine has two TLDs—.ps and .فلسطين—that are managed by a Palestinian—not Israeli—naming authority, PNINA. As such, using the Palestinian TLD is considered[1] a mark of solidarity with the concept of a Palestinian state, not a reminder of, or the exploitation of, a forced exile.

[1]: http://www.pnina.ps/domains/

[frozenport]

I don't find it pragmatic to revise history, I don't believe the Native Americans should get .us

[mrfrisby]

I don't find it useful to play Human Rights abuse Top Trumps.

[chrislgrigg]

This situation doesn't really seem like it's "history" in the same sense, considering it happened so recently, governments are still actively working against them as they attempt repatriation, and the TLD issue is fresh.

[PythonicAlpha]

I see some parallels, and time that has passed by is also a weak excuse. Even I think, that many native Americans also still suffer from the treatment their ancestors got.

But: You can't excuse one wrong with another wrong. The fight about the TLDs might be some little thing, but what happened to those people is an outspoken injustice and I can't comprehend, how modern countries could do such things in the last decades.

The comparison to native Americans is good, because it shows, that the methods are still the same, the deeds are just hidden better nowadays.

[chrislgrigg]

No, time that has passed is not a weak excuse if we are discussing something that is current and loosely involves many of us (the purchase of .io TLDs, an issue that only emerged recently) instead of having a general discussion about government abuses over time.

Nobody is trying to say that Native Americans didn't get a raw deal; only one person is trying to say that because Native Americans got a raw deal a few hundred years ago, it's OK to do the same to the Chagossians right now. This is the sort of logic people always employ when they're trying to feel better about participating in something shitty. It's the "But he hit me first!" of ethics.

[aaron695]

> This is not about a TLD, it is about the abhorrent treatment of a small nation at the hands of a large one.

That's nice then re write the story without the link bait title designed to sucker HN users in.

It's a good story in it's own right but obviously people other than yourself don't appreciate being lied to and fooled.