StackExchange is a popular question-and-answer message board. As a default, and as a central feature of the site, all content posted to StackExchange (and its respective sub-pages) is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike, which includes a stipulation for attribution:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit , provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made . You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
This was the policy across the entire StackExchange network, including Stack Overflow, a popular destination for computer programmers seeking advice. Among the many users of Stack Overflow was one Luigi Mangione, the man allegedly responsible for assassinating United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Mangione's activity on the site had nothing to do with the allegations against him; like many other users of Stack Overflow, he was looking for advice on things like iOS constraints for creating in-app buttons. But as Substacker (and Stack Overflow user) Evan Carroll pointed out, the administrators of Stack Exchange recently took the liberty of renaming Mangione's account—removing any identifying features, and reverting the account to the default name of "user4616250."
Some Stack Overflow users, including Carrol, believe that this move violates the site's Creative Commons agreement by removing any identifying attribution from Mangione's posts. When Carroll raised concerns with the site's administrators, he had his own account suspended.
After several weeks, a Stack Overflow administrator did address the allegations, acknowledging that yes, they did change Mangione's username. The reasons given:
I'm not sure where the assumption that the username was reset because someone with the same name (and whom we cannot confirm is the account owner) was charged with a crime originated. But that's incorrect. We've never, as far as I know, reset a username because someone with the same name as a username was charged with a crime.
We may (but are under no obligation to – except by user request) reset usernames to their default value for various reasons, such as to uphold our Code of Conduct, Terms of Service, and Acceptable Use Policy, to protect the sites and the integrity of content (see our Inauthentic Usage policy – for example), for legal reasons.
The moderator also added:
The requirements of the CC-BY-SA license are spelled out by CreativeCommons. But we do believe resetting the username to the default value to prevent abuse (such as in the cases listed in the post) is within our scope. I can't give advice on interpreting these licenses or saying what they mean or don't mean because we're not a law firm.
It's unclear what kind of "abuse" is being prevented by obscuring the name of a person accused of a crime, for posting on a message board about computer programming—or indeed, why Creative Commons licenses would carve out such exceptions. As one Stack Overflow user pointed out (via Carroll), Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht was also a Stack Overflow user, and his username was not changed following his conviction.
The erasure of Luigi Mangione [Evan Carroll / Substack]