‘This is horrific’: GitHub kills Copilot pull-request ads after user backlash | Daily Reports Online
- More than 11,000 GitHub pull requests had ads inserted by Copilot
- Developers were unhappy about the way they were being implemented
- GitHub has confirmed this was a mistake, and it has no plans to advertise like this
GitHub has reversed its decision to insert ads for its AI tools into Copilot-generated and edited pull requests after developer backlash.
Australian developer Zach Manson explained how after a colleague used Copilot to correct a typo in a pull request, the Microsoft-owned platform had also inserted promotional messages for but just its own tools, but also third parties like Recast.
Manson was just one of many developers complaining about this perceived advertising – more than 11,000 pull requests contained similar Copilot-inserted ads without user awareness or consent.
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GitHub has stopped inserting ads into pull requests
Besides the unwanted ads, developers were also unhappy about GitHub’s execution – ads appeared as if they were written by the developers, not inserted by AI.
One of GitHub’s later changes included these so-called ‘tips’ on any pull request where Copilot was mentioned, but previously, they were just inserted when Copilot created the pull requests.
Manson cited separate commentary by Cory Doctorow on TikTok’s demise: “Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.”
GitHub has since admitted it made the “wrong judgement call,” and has subsequently disabled these tips in pull requests.
“GitHub does not and does not plan to include advertisements on the platform,” Developer Relations VP Martin Woodward has since explained.
“We recently identified a programming logic issue in the GitHub Copilot coding agent that caused a ‘product tip’, including a third-party suggestion, to appear incorrectly in a pull request comment.
“Our goal was to share novel ways to use Copilot coding agent, and in this case, we highlighted our integration with Raycast as part of a broader set of product tips… We have removed Copilot agent tips from all pull requests moving forward.”
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