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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

#771

Post by amscanne »

anramon wrote: post #743
amscanne wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It’s literally the same numbers as the posted ones, and exactly aligned with what I’m saying.

> The current official toll is 64,718 Palestinians killed in Gaza and 163,859 injured, since the start of the war on 7 October 2023

You may have been misled by the headline “X killed or injured”.. those are two different things, and we’re talking about the number killed.

I don’t know if those numbers are accurate (the article about the IDF solider claims it is), but I’m not even questioning that. The GP is claiming that an order of magnitude more people have been killed than even GMH claims.

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

#772

Post by komali2 »

skinkestek wrote: post #287
komali2 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no justification for Israel's occupation and apartheid of Palestine. The attacks on civilians are unjustifiable as well but the trigger for them wasn't random - Hamas never would have come to power if Israel didn't occupy Palestine, let alone fund Hamas with the explicit stayed goal by Benjamin Netanyahu to divide Palestinian politics. Look to Israel, the source of decades of suffering for everyone in the re…

That would be a valid point if they were guilty of "occupation and apartheid of Palestine" and the situation wasn't just a military administration of land that has been unclaimed since 1917 and the collapse of the Ottoman empire.

Yes, I know you're deeply steeped in Israeli propaganda, that doesn't mean you have to function as a mouthpiece for it.

Hopefully you have decades left in your life. One from now, I would be immensely grateful if you emailed me and let me know your perspective on your past-self's defense of genocide.

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

#774

Post by tfourb »

jlawson wrote: post #759
fjdjshsh wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what is your point. The Israeli military could throw a few atomic bombs and wipe out the entire population in Gaza. That they don't is a sign of restraint for you?

The point is that they could do similar attacks to the Tokyo firebombing (or much worse), but choose not to. Yes, that is a sign of restraint, obviously.

80% of buildings in Gaza are destroyed. There are well documented cases of arbitrary killings of civilians and attacks on hospitals. IDF is routinely demanding entire cities to be evacuated, knowing that not all people can comply with such an order. Multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity investigations have been opened by national and international prosecutors.

It is very obvious that the only restraint that the IDF is showing is that they do not kill every single civilian on sight.

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

#775

Post by reverius42 »

AzzyHN wrote: post #749
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?

Per Wikipedia, the idea that the IDF is the "most moral army in the world" comes from Colonel Richard Kemp, a retired British army officer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_of_arms

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

#776

Post by [deleted] »

AzzyHN wrote: post #749
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?

[deleted]

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

#777

Post by clanky »

jlawson wrote: post #759
fjdjshsh wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what is your point. The Israeli military could throw a few atomic bombs and wipe out the entire population in Gaza. That they don't is a sign of restraint for you?

The point is that they could do similar attacks to the Tokyo firebombing (or much worse), but choose not to. Yes, that is a sign of restraint, obviously.

The only thing it's a sign of is that the Israelis face restraints from political and PR pressures that did not apply to bombing Tokyo.

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

#778

Post by MomsAVoxell »

Waterluvian wrote: post #195
nashadelic wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've been raising the alarm for months. If this extreme action is what it took Microsoft to look into genocide and then terminate the contract, it was absolutely the right call

Not that you're implying this, but making an "absolutely the right call" does not in any way shield one from consequences. Heck, it's usually because one will be punished that doing the right thing is in any manner noble. Otherwise it's just meeting minimum expectations as a human.

After all, why would anyone want to work for a company which actively supports genocide.

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

#779

Post by not_a_bot_4sho »

MomsAVoxell wrote: post #538

Too little, too late. The whole world knows that Microsoft has blood on its hands.

Yeah, not really. Kind of the opposite: they took action after investigation.

The assertion that Microsoft knew what it's customers were doing, that it was inspecting customer data and workloads, comes from ignorance of how cloud providers work.

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

#780

Post by pcthrowaway »

sc68cal wrote: post #756
meowface wrote: post #738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Israel end the occupation of Gaza between 2005 and 2023? They still put up a blockade, but they didn't occupy it.

Israel may have withdrawn from Gaza and forcibly removed their settlers, but they did not end the occupation since they created a naval blockade and control all entrance and exits from Gaza and decide what is allowed in for two decades

I'm not sure why you were downvoted. Israel's position is that the ended they occupation. The United Nations on the other hand, still considered Gaza occupied under international law this whole time.

The only way one could argue that it is no longer occupied is to say there wasn't a continuous Israeli military presence of boots on ground inside of Gaza. It was still being surveilled by satellite and the entire perimeter, people venturing too far at sea from the coast would be shot, drones would occasionally bomb people, everything and everyone going in and out was controlled by Israel (until Hamas tunnels were built), all cell phones allowed in contained surveillance technology, a fence with military outposts was constructed on the perimeter, and Israel bombed the one airport they tried to build.

So arguing it was "no longer occupied" after they pulled out the settlers is disingenuous, unless you're trying to argue that it couldn't be both an occupation and a concentration camp.

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