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Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

bbc.com

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Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#131

Post by invalidname »

esalman wrote: post #127
invalidname wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You are reiterating Israeli talking points which, just like al Jazeera , are also misleading and not reflective of the actual situation.

The fact that Israel is saying something doesn't mean it's a lie and neither does the fact that Al Jazeera said it. Notice I specifically did not say Israel was innocent in that, so it's very much not the Israeli "talking point". Some things are just bad and don't have any good or convenient solution.

You're repeating a false narrative of picking a side in a problematic situation where two zero sum players are trying to engage and escalate. I'm a liberal Israeli. I have friends in Gaza too. I don't want them hurt and I'm sure they don't want to hurt me. Unfortunately, we're both stuck in a situation where people frame this as a Palestinian vs. Israeli conflict. That's wrong. It's a conflict between two zero sum players who have been pumping each other up for 30 years and sabotaging repeated attempts for peace.

Al Jazeera is run by Qatar who also host Hamas. They are a very bad actor in many cases and in line with a zero sum player in this narrative.

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#132

Post by Nifty3929 »

some_random wrote: post #80

US gov tells companies that xyz groups are under sanctions (which is good, actually) and that they must put effort into preventing them from using their products (also good, actually). The problem is that they are punished for true negatives (in the press and potentially by the gov) but not for false positives (except for articles like this). The end result is overzealous bullshit that ends up hurting innocent people…

You get to an important issue: Type 1 vs Type 2 errors - precision vs recall. Any system is going to have errors, so what do you prioritize? The company has only limited control over this choice, as you also point out that the gov't will punish them for false negatives but not false positives. So the company prioritizes recall over precision.

But you also imply that the gov't should punish BOTH types of errors, but I'm not sure that's fair. By extension it implies that the company should have a perfect system, with no errors of either type. That's not realistic, and a company should be punished for meeting an impossible goal.

Better is for the government to just be explicit about it: we're requiring companies to employ broad sanctions, and even if some innocents get swept up, we think it's worth it to stop the bad guys. Or the verse, if that's the gov't decision.

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#133

Post by slibhb »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #98
slibhb wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulations are why Microsoft is banning users who call Gaza. The real solution here is to use Signal (or something like it). And I don't mean to criticize Microsoft or regulations. Microsoft is faced with an impossible task here, I assume they're doing the best they can.

>The real solution here is to use Signal (or something like it). The article discusses that they are unable to contact their family over the internet because Israel is shutting off internet. So they were using Skypes Skype to Phone service to call their family's mobile phones over normal cell service in Gaza.

Interesting, I missed that. I wonder if there is a version of that service that isn't managed by Microsoft.

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#134

Post by ImHereToVote »

psychoslave wrote: post #126
ImHereToVote wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice atronym.

Like a typo of aptronym/aptonym or like a neologism mixing -nym and atro- from Latin atrox which gives atrocity in English? :D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atrox#Latin https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atrocity

Damn, both.

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#135

Post by 6510 »

kibwen wrote: post #50

If technology becomes necessary to participate in society, and if we cede control of that technology to unaccountable dystopian hypercorporations like Microsoft, Google, and Apple, then we're setting ourselves up for disaster.

I get nothing positive or useful out of writing this comment but the negative potential is infinite. When the www started someone attempted to convince me that you should never interact using computers unless there is no other choice. Turns out he was right, you are not going to buy me beer, invite me, introduce me, collaborate or help me. The new contract is useless.

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#137

Post by sshine »

bhouston wrote: post #8

Was this decision made in Redmond or in Israel? Microsoft has offices in Israel and these offices are likely responsible for things happening in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. Israel is currently at "war" with Gaza and having Israeli employees of Microsoft having the ability to disable anyone's account calling civilians in Gaza is pretty horrible. Is Microsoft via Skype and Hotmail participating in what Israel's lea…

[flagged]

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#139

Post by aranelsurion »

slibhb wrote: post #53
jimnotgym wrote: post #6

These companies want to become as ubiquitous as a public utility. Therefore they should be regulated like a public utility

Regulations are why Microsoft is banning users who call Gaza. The real solution here is to use Signal (or something like it). And I don't mean to criticize Microsoft or regulations. Microsoft is faced with an impossible task here, I assume they're doing the best they can.

I don’t think that’s the real solution.

To be able to come up with a solution you’d first need to be aware of a problem, which in many such cases you wouldn’t be, until one day you are banned and lose all your accounts, and solutions in hindsight won’t help with that.

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#140

Post by helpfulContrib »

invalidname wrote: post #56
bhouston wrote: post #8

Was this decision made in Redmond or in Israel? Microsoft has offices in Israel and these offices are likely responsible for things happening in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. Israel is currently at "war" with Gaza and having Israeli employees of Microsoft having the ability to disable anyone's account calling civilians in Gaza is pretty horrible. Is Microsoft via Skype and Hotmail participating in what Israel's lea…

It has R&D centers and local business centers. Skype is not in Israel and there's no reason for a VoIP solution to route through a country local facility. The "complete siege" ended ages ago. Israel provides power, food etc.

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