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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

#741

Post by meowface »

fsckboy wrote: post #684
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…

> I am not saying Israel is nearly as bad as Nazi Germany oh, that's generous of you

Nah, it's pretty undeniable. But this is mainly because Nazi Germany was singularly more of a force for evil than any other nation or organization in many centuries. They were uniquely horrible. So it's hard for anyone to be as bad as they were.

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

#742

Post by sir0010010 »

ycombigators wrote: post #698
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It would be pretty difficult for the IDF to increase their level of collateral damage.

In 1945, about ~90k people died over 2 days from the Tokyo Firebombing. Do you think it would be difficult for any modern millitary - that intentionally wanted to cause as much collateral damage as possible - to greatly exceed that number?

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

#743

Post by anramon »

amscanne wrote: post #727
tkel wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gaza Health Ministry only counts those that show up at hospitals. The first big Lancet study a year ago estimated 200k. I've seen more recent studies estimate higher, with an additional year of killings. Also, Israel has attacked or destroyed most hospitals in Gaza. So the Health Ministry's counting is obviously hindered.

I don't believe that what you're saying is correct at all. Only 34,344 of the GHM estimate are confirmed identities. The rest of either missing but presumed dead or gross adjustments. They are open about using "media reports to assess deaths in the north of Gaza". The Lancet study published in January 2025 estimated 70,000 as of October, 2024. This is higher than the GHM estimate, but I can't find anything close to y…

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/12/israeli-ex-com...

Or maybe that man is a hamas spy, right?

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

#744

Post by AtlasBarfed »

dmix wrote: post #348
tasn wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel (like many governments) is very Microsoft Windows centric, so if I had to guess it wasn't chosen due to technical merits but instead based on existing business relationships. Note: I've used Azure and it sucks. :)

Azure’s web app for managing servers is a nightmare Uses the same awful UI/plaform as their Xbox account settings Microsoft always somehow succeeds in spite of the quality of everything they build.

If the AI systems of these companies had 1/3 their hype, their craptastic admin consoles for their 100 billion dollar cloud companies would improve.

... any day now. aaaaaany dayyyy now. Yeah.

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

#746

Post by nailer »

Saline9515 wrote: post #580
nailer wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Judea became Palestine after the war in 115. Most of the population remained, stayed jewish, converted to christianism (which was just another jewish branch back then), or to one of the many other cults in the region. Their descendants are today's Palestinians. The fact that Samaritans, who are mentioned in the Bible, are still there is a good proof of this.

People didn’t refer to themselves as Palestinians until the 1960s. You can confirm this for yourself very easily.

The Arabs that lived in what is now Palestine simply called themselves Arabs, the same way that Arabs in Israel call themselves Arabs. British Palestine and Ottoman Palestine were multi ethnic states.

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

#747

Post by DSingularity »

js212 wrote: post #463
DSingularity wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s surprising because Israelis are very loud in their support for Netanyahu. Yeah, there are protests but it polling suggests that the overwhelming majority of Israelis support Netanyahu.

No they are not. It’s like 20%

Over 60% of Israelis believe there is nobody innocent in Gaza. That’s like the core operating principle of the Netanyahu-Smotrich-Ben Gvir government. The Israeli street is thoroughly behind the Genocide and the polling has been showing this for over a year.

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

#748

Post by clanky »

pron wrote: post #645
worik wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Even political Zionism is minimally defined as supporting "a home for Jews in Palestine"[1] Not only does it not require any ethnic exclusivity nor even for a national identity, it doesn't even require an independent state in the contemporary sense. Some of those who identify as Zionist take it to mean only that Jews should be able to live with some form of self-determination in Palestine, and so when they hear "anti…

What term do you think would be useful specifically to describe the very widespread tendency in much of Israeli society to view Jews as inherently superior and deserving of favorable treatment by the state? Jewish supremacy, maybe?

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

#749

Post by AzzyHN »

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…

Where does "most moral" come from?

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

#750

Post by grumple »

hashim wrote: post #379
grumple wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This war that European Jews started in 1948 when they decided to attack and invade Palestine spans 2 continents, and more if you include the various attacks elsewhere. This is extremely ignorant. Jews have lived in Israel continuously for 3000 years. The modern Zionist migration, which started in the late 19th century (far from the first such movement for the Jews, and far from the last we've seen globally for all…

No, it isn't ignorant, it's history, and pointing to other historical examples of colonialism and imperialism doesn't make modern colonialist states legitimate. Romans lived in the UK over a thousand years ago, but that wouldn't give their descendants in modern Italians the right to occupy the UK, and us native Brits would be well within our right to fight back any invading and occupying force whether the invading an…

> before the British put Israel there.

The British not only didn't put Israel there, they actually fought against the Jews and supported the Arab armies in 1948, after previously restricting Jewish migration during the Holocaust (contributing to many Jewish deaths). Modern Zionism began 30 years before the Brits took control.

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