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Microsoft Employees Protest Work with ICE

nytimes.com

11–20 of 333 posts

Re: Microsoft Employees Protest Work with ICE

#12
post #3

Doesnt ICE answer to the President and the laws written by Congress? Is hurting ICE meant to influence the decision making of the Trump admin, and if so, how effective might this move ultimately be?

Why frame the question in such a way? I would expect a good portion of people to not want to contribute personally to ICE activity.

Re: Microsoft Employees Protest Work with ICE

#13
post #3

Doesnt ICE answer to the President and the laws written by Congress? Is hurting ICE meant to influence the decision making of the Trump admin, and if so, how effective might this move ultimately be?

This is kind of orthogonal issue. Making sure that technology is used ethically. Google now has ethical charter. Hopefully, Microsoft will do something similar. Then it's Amazon's turn: https://twitter.com/amanda_m_macias/status/98380706501249433...

Re: Microsoft Employees Protest Work with ICE

#15
post #4

>Microsoft has been positioning itself as tech’s moral leader. Mr. Nadella and Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, have publicly said they want to protect user privacy Hard to take this seriously given what Windows 10 and other new microsoft products subject users to.

NYT is just giving MSFT its pat on the head for being "with it".

Re: Microsoft Employees Protest Work with ICE

#16
post #3

Doesnt ICE answer to the President and the laws written by Congress? Is hurting ICE meant to influence the decision making of the Trump admin, and if so, how effective might this move ultimately be?

I'm not sure it needs to be effective at influencing the decision making in order to be worthwhile.

I think people owe it to themselves to evaluate the ethics and morality of their work, and not contribute to things they do not want to be part of.

Take IBM and the Holocaust (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust) for instance. Could you imagine having written that software on your conscious? Would you be willing to write it? I wouldn't.

Re: Microsoft Employees Protest Work with ICE

#17
post #7
post #3

Doesnt ICE answer to the President and the laws written by Congress? Is hurting ICE meant to influence the decision making of the Trump admin, and if so, how effective might this move ultimately be?

Its not about hurting ICE, its about being decent human beings. ICE will be ICE regardless, but Microsoft doesn't have to be complicit, and its employees don't want to be either. That said, if ICE can't find a single company to buy services from, it will reverberate up the food chain

Decent human beings don't break serious laws and put their families in danger. There's 10 consulates where they can apply for asylum. No one has to "jump" the border.

Re: Microsoft Employees Protest Work with ICE

#18
post #14

I’m not American and I’ve always found it fascinating how a part of the American population defends the existence of illegal immigrants in American soil. It’s crazy.

It's baffling to me as well. For some reason lots of Americans also don't support ID requirements for voting either. I'm from Brazil and even here we require ID for voters. I really just don't get it.

Re: Microsoft Employees Protest Work with ICE

#19
post #4

>Microsoft has been positioning itself as tech’s moral leader. Mr. Nadella and Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, have publicly said they want to protect user privacy Hard to take this seriously given what Windows 10 and other new microsoft products subject users to.

^ turn off cortana and windows starts to fall apart in strange and subtle ways (ie no more local search index)

Re: Microsoft Employees Protest Work with ICE

#20

Microsoft has something like 125,000 employees. 100 isn't even a rounding error.

In a week or so there will be something else for the MSM to outrage everyone about, using yet another extremely one-sided angle about some other policy that started long before Nov 2016. I simply cannot watch/read mainstream news anymore, it's such a joke. You're being lied to and manipulated on a daily basis. Weekly periodicals are the last best source of any kind of non-technical information, and maybe technical too in some cases.
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