Provide an ethical alternative to the .io TLD
Gitlab allows hosting static websites for free using the Gitlab Pages feature, which is very convenient, and prevents websites from disappearing when the author no longer cares about the project strongly enough to pay for hosting and domain names. The only domain name offered with the free service is gitlab.io. Unfortunately this is not an appropriate domain name. Hasn't anyone ever wondered what the .io TLD means and why it was chosen?
The .io TLD belongs to British Indian Ocean Territory, a territory that was established in 1965 through forced expulsion of the inhabitants of the Chagos Archipelago.
“The British government bought all the plantations of the Chagos archipelago for £660,000 from the Chagos Agalega Company. The plan was to deprive the Chagossians of an income and encourage them to leave the island voluntarily.”
The Colonial Office head writes to the UN that some “Tarzans” and “Men Fridays” will go. The Chagossians are still not allowed to return today.
I could go on and publish my websites on the gitlab.io domain, but it would hurt me to think that every time someone visits my websites, I'm validating racial inequality, and telling all my visitors that we should accept social injustice. I would rather have an option not to do that. It's not of primary importance whether .io finances the ongoing social injustice. It's still a country code TLD no matter whether it makes a profit for the territory it represents.
If there would just be the option to choose another domain name to use with the free service, this would solve the problem. My humble suggestion is gitlab.net, as the .net TLD originally is for service providers, or maybe an even shorter name to put more focus on the subdomain.
I apologize if this does not belong to the Gitlab software repository, but I couldn't find a repository for the Gitlab.com service.