[janeerie]

This is exactly right. Direct File got thrown into the discussion, but it was not the reason that 18F was getting labelled as far-left.

[djur]

I don't see any evidence that 18F was any more "far-left" than tech workers on average.

[skissane]

The tweet the GP linked – https://x.com/lukerosiak/status/1885523747425399247 – mentioned they wrote a Slack bot to lecture people about using inclusive language.

I don't think that is average for US tech workers. I don't believe the vast majority of US tech firms have such a thing.

I wouldn't call that "far left" myself – although "far left" as used by American conservatives is a pejorative colloquialism whose meaning has shifted from its traditional definition (Trotskyists, Stalinists, Maoists, etc). Not slang I'd use myself but I can understand it.

P.S. If you don't trust a tweet from a right-leaning journalist, here's a page from their own GitHub repo about their bot: https://github.com/18F/charlie/blob/main/InclusionBot.md