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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

#551

Post by JumpCrisscross »

hashim wrote: post #545
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how comfortable you have to be (as a supposed philanthropist, no less) with the deaths of tens of thousands of brown kids to laugh in a situation like that Laughing at someone yelling on stage can be entirely orthogonal to what they’re saying. (And it’s not like that outburst did anything.)

The article you're commenting on quite literally mentions that employee pressure, of which Ibtihal Aboussad's was the most vocal and memorable in the media, played a significant role in the decision.

> article you're commenting on quite literally mentions that employee pressure

Fair enough. I’m not buying it—the timeline doesn’t work, and the broader literature on disruptive protest is mixed, leaning towards negative.

What clearly swung the odds was the Guardian reporting on the frankly brazen meetings Microsoft executives decided to take. Without that reporting, this wouldn't have happened. With that reporting and absent the employee protests, this would have still likely happened.

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

#552

Post by jajuuka »

coredog64 wrote: post #468
jajuuka wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The classic "an effective protest is one that is neither seen nor heard". Which is just ahistorical. Civil rights in the US was not passed because black folks explained to white people that they are people deserving the same rights as them. I hate this white washing of history as a series of peaceful movements that everyone agreed with.

The other side of this is that the people doing the protesting have to have the fortitude to accept judicial punishment. If the punishment is out of whack WRT the crime, then you get popular support (e.g. a year in jail for sitting at a lunch counter). But the current situation where folks can break the law and then suffer no consequences? F that noise.

Sitting at a lunch counter was illegal and the punishment was widely viewed as too light for the protesters. Like the racist violence going on right now, people of color were framed as disturbing the peace and disturbing a private business. There were called animals and criminals. Like I said, buying the white washed version of history where everyone was on the right side.

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

#553

Post by lordofgibbons »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #523
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…

Doesn't every army conduct "mass surveillance"? What do you think all those satellites with cameras are doing orbiting the planet? Wouldn't the opposite be incredibly immoral? Attacking/bombing/etc without large scale surveillance would largely mean increased collateral damage.

Are you seriously equating observing an area using satellites with indiscriminately monitoring everyone's calls, messages, and possibly hacking their devices?

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

#554

Post by worik »

hashim wrote: post #389
BrenBarn wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that if you're very very bad, you can do a good thing and still be very bad.

What other reasons are Microsoft very very bad? Genuinely curious about what your definition of "very, very bad" is and whether it aligns with mine.

> What other reasons are Microsoft very very bad

Their laziness, greed and business acumen have left us in the position that the world's dominant personal OS is insecure, unreliable and running a protection racket with virus detection (and virus writers)

This is an ongoing rolling clusterfuck, and is entirely due to MS

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

#555

Post by throwaway3060 »

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…

If this was how the world worked, we'd all be using Athenian democracy. There are plenty of things the whole world once believed that turned out to be wrong.

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

#556

Post by baobabKoodaa »

khnov wrote: post #514
efitz wrote: post #473

I think Cloud providers should be common carriers. I don’t think that it is a good thing when a company can make an arbitrary decision and disable functionality that you have put millions of dollars and thousands or tens of thousands of person hours into. I think that the only reasons that a cloud provider should be permitted to use to justify termination of service, are illegal activity (in the country of service),…

So you think making a genocide is not illegal ?

Look how carefully they worded that to make a carve-out for this very case: "in the country of service". As in, Gaza is now part of Israel, and according to Israeli laws, Israel is not doing any genocide on Palestinians.

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

#558

Post by JumpCrisscross »

DaveExeter wrote: post #534
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one could easily have said that Nazi Germany had greatly increased legitimate surveillance needs after they invaded Poland This is an interesting comparison—thank you. That said, did the Poles launch cross-border attacks on German civilians? The closest I can come up with is Bloody Sunday [1], which was an attack on ethnically German civilians, but not a cross-border incursion. (Granted, we can only observe this ex…

There was the Warsaw uprising.

Not cross border. The only purpose German surveillance of Poland would have furthered would have been (again, with the benefit of hindsight) their own occupation. Not the safety of Germans in Germany.

If the Armia Krajowa had carried out an October 7 style attack on the German homeland, against German civilians, their memory would be mixed, not the virtually unblemished heroism they deservedly command in the historic record.

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

#559

Post by nashashmi »

sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #450
34679 wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You lost me at "pretend activist". This person put their job on the line for what they believe in, and in a public enough way that complete strangers are discussing it on the internet. That's real activism.

If they don't like it, they don't have to work there. All these people hate on their employer and customers whilst simultaneously drawing a salary. If they put their money where their mouth is, they can all quit en masse and let the company deal with customers without employees to support.

If they don't like it, they can voice what they don't like. And that is what happened here.

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

#560

Post by hashim »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #484
meowface wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that, and I am sympathetic to those needs to some degree. They do have increased legitimate surveillance needs. But they've lost all of their good will. Partnering with them is too morally and PR-ily hazardous. I am not saying Israel is nearly as bad as Nazi Germany, but I think this argument is overall kind of pointless because one could easily have said that Nazi Germany had greatly increased legitimat…

> one could easily have said that Nazi Germany had greatly increased legitimate surveillance needs after they invaded Poland This is an interesting comparison—thank you. That said, did the Poles launch cross-border attacks on German civilians? The closest I can come up with is Bloody Sunday [1], which was an attack on ethnically German civilians, but not a cross-border incursion. (Granted, we can only observe this ex…

Why would being cross-border matter when the entire land was previously Palestinian land before being handed over by colonial powers and then "won" in subsequent "wars" (read: massacres) on the barely-armed villagers living there? The Viet Cong, South Africa's ANC, the Suffragettes and civil rights movements all used violence for their causes. Hamas was established in 1984, by the generation that had grown up with the occupation in 1948. If your country was occupied and members of your family killed, would you be as careful to keep your resistance peaceful?
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