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Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

theguardian.com

211–220 of 894 posts

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#211
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, here, that would have the stench of colonialism about it. It's not their land to 'return to' - after all, people already live there and they have no moral right to displace them.

Honestly can't tell if this is satire or not.

Poe's law! Welcome to the internet!

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> the current suffering could stop tomorrow if they simply Who is the "they" in this sentence, exactly?

The Gazans obviously. Who else?

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#213
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other commenters are right, but I'll point out another fallacy you're pushing here. The current situation is like somebody commits a murder. Then the community rounds up a posse and goes out to kill the murderer. Then kill the murder's family, their neighbors, the residents of the next neighborhood over, raze the neighborhoods and then take all the land for themselves. Justice means penalizing the guilty parties, not…

But isn't that what Hamas did? Broke into homes and burned babies to death? Beheaded people? Pulled fetuses from pregnant women? Shoot up clinics and murder the entire staff and patients?

> Broke into homes and burned babies to death? Beheaded people? Pulled fetuses from pregnant women?

It's important to note that these things never happened, and you're still repeating them years later. The only baby that died on 10/7 was a 10 month old hit by crossfire.

I have no idea of the third, and though I feel sure it's wrong judging by the rest of what you have said, I feel obligated to check. Try it.

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#214
post #97

The issue that people have with Israel's actions is the death of civilians, not the death of Hamas, the widely recognised terrorist. I believe it also to be true that the IDF do not want to kill civilians, and that their target is only Hamas. In which case, is it prudent to remove the IDF's ability to successfully target the correct people? Precise military intelligence is absolutely necessary for minimising civilian…

> I believe it also to be true that the IDF do not want to kill civilians, and that their target is only Hamas. I think it’s this second assertion that relies on facts not in evidence. Previous Guardian reporting on IDF use of compute for targeting indicated they were using it to increase, not decrease, the number of approved targets.

Quantity doesn't correlate with accuracy. OP's point was that surely having more intelligence means you are more accurate and thus less collateral damage.

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#215
I guess time to buy more Oracle or Google stocks? They can easily provide more than needed, especially Oracle which is very friendly to Israel and Ellison is a big supporter of IDF (large donations to "Friends of the IDF" non-profit).

Here is a link in case anyone wants to donate https://www.fidf.org to this amazing organization.

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#216
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other commenters are right, but I'll point out another fallacy you're pushing here. The current situation is like somebody commits a murder. Then the community rounds up a posse and goes out to kill the murderer. Then kill the murder's family, their neighbors, the residents of the next neighborhood over, raze the neighborhoods and then take all the land for themselves. Justice means penalizing the guilty parties, not…

But isn't that what Hamas did? Broke into homes and burned babies to death? Beheaded people? Pulled fetuses from pregnant women? Shoot up clinics and murder the entire staff and patients?

Getting away from the debate around your details (most of which didn't happen) ...

A singular terrorist event is not the same as an multi-decade occupation, on-going theft of land, discrimination, annexation plans, and - not least - a 2 year long genocide of tens of thousands of civilians.

So, no, that isn't what Hamas did.

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#217
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other commenters are right, but I'll point out another fallacy you're pushing here. The current situation is like somebody commits a murder. Then the community rounds up a posse and goes out to kill the murderer. Then kill the murder's family, their neighbors, the residents of the next neighborhood over, raze the neighborhoods and then take all the land for themselves. Justice means penalizing the guilty parties, not…

But isn't that what Hamas did? Broke into homes and burned babies to death? Beheaded people? Pulled fetuses from pregnant women? Shoot up clinics and murder the entire staff and patients?

Hamas is a terrorist organization. IDF is a state-sponsored military force.

I expect those two categories to behave differently from one another. Do you?

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it’s a good thing AND we don’t need to be celebrating companies when they finally do the bare minimum . Nobody with any semblance of ethical, just or just plain being a basic good corporate citizen would say.. oh yeah mass surveillance of the comms of a whole population for money is in any way acceptable or ok. This shouldn’t be a tech side note this should be a total meltdown front page scandal. What a disgustin…

> Yes it’s a good thing AND we don’t need to be celebrating companies when they finally do the bare minimum. I think we should give props here. This is an important step forward. Thank you Microsoft! I think we should protest when companies do things that are wrong and we should give them kudos when they make good moves. Carrot and stick. I am not fans of those that say because you did wrong things in the past, I wil…

I agree. If we want our pressure campaigns to be successful, we need to reward companies that respond to them.

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Now imagine this scenario and ignore everything else that’s happened for the last 60-70 years and oh yeah, don’t mention the current genocide.”

Let's not ignore the last 60-70 or even 1400 years. Israelis hit back hard. But they haven't been the ones to declare war on peaceful neighbors. It wasn't them who stood for thr München massacre or a number of plane hijackings in the 70ies. It wasn't Israelis who blew up buses in Gaza. Was it? We must stop confusing powerful with evil and currently helpless with "innocent".

What a delightful selection of specific incidents.

In just the past two weeks Israel attacked a half dozen of its neighboring countries.

Israel itself is a belligerent Western colony that has been ethnically cleansing Palestine since the 1940s.

It is the obligation for an occupied people to resist their occupiers, and according to the UN that is up to and includes violent resistence. The entirety of Palestine has been increasingly under occupation since Israel's inception.

Countless UN resolutions highlight Israels belligerence time and again with only the US and its subservient states like Micronesia voting against the overwhelming voice of the whole rest of the world.

Israel is an evil apartheid genocial settler colonial state that has brought nothing but further war and bloodshed to the region, and nothing Zionists state can change that fact.

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#220
post #97

The issue that people have with Israel's actions is the death of civilians, not the death of Hamas, the widely recognised terrorist. I believe it also to be true that the IDF do not want to kill civilians, and that their target is only Hamas. In which case, is it prudent to remove the IDF's ability to successfully target the correct people? Precise military intelligence is absolutely necessary for minimising civilian…

Israel claims that they “don’t want to kill civilians” but historically have not substantially changed course when the killings became grotesquely excessive. It’s also arguably true that they have never even sincerely investigated any issues. Israel just gets more aggressive in the murder and bombing.

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