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

theguardian.com

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

#491

Post by stackedinserter »

bArray wrote: 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…

Inconvenient truth is that anyone who remained in Gaza, in active IDF ops area, is not a civilian. Civilians left these areas, or at least asked to leave many, many times. Unless it's a little child that's not capable of lifting a firearm, this person is Hamas at this point.

If you have better way to differentiate, I will happily pass it to IDF. Don't forget to mention about the last time you risked your own life.

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

#492

Post by thisislife2 »

colpabar wrote: post #415
thisislife2 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right that with the Trump administration (well, bipartisan support), US companies don't have to worry about any adverse political action by cooperating with Israel. Negative publicity from the common people also won't adversely affect their bottom line. But they do have to worry about the legal aspects - the US is one of the few countries actually having laws against genocide / war crimes. Trump may be ready…

Trying to pin support for israel on one side and not on the entirety of the us government at all levels is either profoundly naive or profoundly dishonest.

Well, Biden was claiming that "there is no genocide" while approving the building of (future) concentration camps for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, while Trump is worried only about the "optics" but is fine as long as a "beautiful resort is finally built in Gaza", after herding the Palestinians into these new "refugee centres" (i.e. the concentration camps) and from there to Egypt (who has been promised to be made the future gas hub for Europe) to complete Israeli occupation of Gaza. I'll leave it to you to decide whether I am being naive or dishonest or who planned the genocide and who is complicit in it - Here's the "propaganda" sources based on which I am making these assertions:

1. Trump criticizes Israel for releasing photos and videos of its devastating war in Gaza - https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-criticizes-israels-pho...

2. Trump ruthless take on Israel's war on Gaza: 'Finish the problem' - https://www.newarab.com/news/trump-israels-war-gaza-finish-p...

3. Satellite photos show Egypt building Gaza wall as Israel’s Rafah push looms - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/16/satellite-photos-sh...

4. Israel’s plan to build Gaza ‘concentration camps’ was rolled out months ago - https://mondoweiss.net/2025/07/israels-plan-to-build-gaza-co...

5. Trump’s Gaza takeover all about natural gas - https://asiatimes.com/2025/02/trumps-gaza-takeover-all-about...

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

#493

Post by dotancohen »

meowface wrote: post #465
dotancohen wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

At some point, when basically the entire world is saying one thing and only two countries (the US & Israel) are saying the opposite, you really need something strong to convince someone that basically the whole world is wrong. This is some lame right-wing outlet whose front page contains things like: >The assessment, shared exclusively with the Free Beacon, follows mainstream media claims that cuts to global health f…

[flagged]

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

#494

Post by stale2002 »

bArray wrote: 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…

[flagged]

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

#495

Post by danbruc »

CommanderData wrote: post #490
danbruc wrote: post #479

What would happen in a hypothetical scenario where Microsoft cut off everything [1] they can for all of Israel - no Azure, no Office, no Outlook, no Exchange, no SQL Server, no Windows, no Xbox, no ...? Depending on how many things they can make unusable, I would imagine that this would be pretty bad, probably even causing some deaths because of affected infrastructure. [1] Not sure what they could actually make unus…

That would never happen. Israel has too much influence over the US.

That is why the comment says hypothetical scenario. ;-)

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

#496

Post by dotancohen »

itsnowandnever wrote: post #467
dotancohen wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

hey, man - I understand this is a stressful time for you. but you're not doing your people any favors by denying the suffering your government is causing. in fact, the bold faced unapologetic nature of these atrocities is why people are talking about sanctions (which is also likely why MS made this move - to avoid being caught up in sanctions)

[flagged]

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

#497

Post by boxed »

dark_mode wrote: post #235

> The decision has not affected Microsoft’s wider commercial relationship with the IDF, which is a longstanding client and will retain access to other services. The termination will raise questions within Israel about the policy of holding sensitive military data in a third-party cloud hosted overseas. It's worth noting that even after finding out the "most moral" army is conducting mass surveillance, they're still h…

[flagged]

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

#498

Post by [deleted] »

bArray wrote: post #289
d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> I know this will be unpopular, but I'm just repeating what I've heard from the Israeli side [..] It's war, this is the unfortunate truth and why we try to avoid war. Nobody really ends up winning in this. > This doesn't justify killing civilians, but what do you do when civilians kill you? Then point at which a civilian picks up a weapon to operate alongside Hamas, they have become Hamas and are no longer civilians…

[deleted]

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

#499

Post by BurningFrog »

lomase wrote: post #405
dmix wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s been a couple studies showing that disruptive protests (blocking roads, yelling at people entering buildings, etc) cause public support for their cause to decrease or even increase opposition. If the ideas are good then support will build through effectively communicating those ideas. Being noisy is fine but there’s an obvious line that selfish activists cross. The sort of people who want their toys now and d…

I think the people is just more vocal, not that the protest changed its opinion, but now they have an excuse, violence, to go against the cause they did not like. "Violence" like stoping the traffic. If that is violence...

Stopping traffic can easily kill people if it stops a medical transport, for example.

Even if it just ruins the day for thousands of people, I have zero sympathy for such assholery. Whether you call it "violence" is unimportant.

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

#500

Post by hashim »

WD-42 wrote: post #466
hashim wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, unfortunately this is what happens when you have people who are constantly critical of Microsoft based on what they know of the company from the 90s and 00s, it devalues genuine modern criticisms and makes all criticism meaningless.

Have you used a modern Microsoft OS? They are somehow worse than they were in the 90s and 00s. I don’t remember having to agree to sell my personal information in the 90s or having advertising baked into the start menu in windows xp.

I agree that in-OS advertising for a paid product is dumb, but a) I thankfully still use Windows 10 which doesn't have those, and b) those are ultimately UX concerns, not ethical. And no, Microsoft doesn't sell your data no matter how many in tech subscribe to that conspiracy theory.
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