Microsoft employees have discovered that any emails they send with the terms “Palestine” or “Gaza” are getting temporarily blocked from being sent. Microsoft confirmed to The Verge that it has implemented some form of email changes. Details 👇 www.theverge.com/tech/672312/... - ThreadSky

tomwarren.co.uk • 9 days ago

Microsoft employees have discovered that any emails they send with the terms “Palestine” or “Gaza” are getting temporarily blocked from being sent. Microsoft confirmed to The Verge that it has implemented some form of email changes. Details 👇 https://www.theverge.com/tech/672312/microsoft-block-palestine-gaza-email

Comments

camerontalley.bsky.social•9 days ago

Suggest everyone spell it backwards to get through the censors.

denspier.mastodon.green.ap.brid.gy•8 days ago

@tomwarren.co.uk @mmasnick.bsky.social The proper response is of course to always start with “This mail is not about Palestine and Gaza.”

shawn1959.bsky.social•8 days ago

Not in any way justifying Microsoft's actions here, but I think they are coming more from a position of cowardice (not drawing the ire of the Trump admin and thus impacting the business) than from one of openly approving Israel's war crimes.

cassitastrophe.bsky.social•8 days ago

The BDS Movement is targeting Microsoft because of their long standing ties with the IDF. Whether Microsoft management approves or not is immaterial, the technology and services they are providing are powering the genocide.

michaelbprice.bsky.social•8 days ago

Incorrect. Many employees consider the emails harassment and have escalated the issue through HR. We employ thousands of Israelis and many more Jews.

shawn1959.bsky.social•7 days ago

In a company as big as Microsoft, I expect there are inappropriate mass Emails sent all the time (I saw it in my career). Only in the time of Trump would you see a company take steps like this on such specific subject matter.

michaelbprice.bsky.social•7 days ago

I mean, you can ignore first hand witness if you want. Jewish employees have been feeling harassed, and we have repeatedly escalated these through official channels. This change is 100% due to disruptions at company events. We asked for the emails to stop. Calls to escalate are calls to violence.

michaelbprice.bsky.social•7 days ago

And no, harassing emails from colleagues is not something that normally happens. Outside of these, I’ve received 0 in 3 years here.

andrewhepburn.bsky.social•8 days ago

Cowardice isn’t a defence in court

shawn1959.bsky.social•8 days ago

Agreed. Just saying that Microsoft's actions are probably driven by avoiding retribution by Trump than cheering on Israel.

aklim95.bsky.social•8 days ago

And we all know that he's a narcissistic psychopath running "the most powerful country on the planet" [citation needed] and people know he runs his presidency on fear. Cowardice is literally the only option to be, you know, alive in Trump's America. And everyone knows that.

andrewhepburn.bsky.social•8 days ago

That only works in the short term.

aklim95.bsky.social•8 days ago

Exactly. And yet the short term is still powerful.

bubberlumps.bsky.social•8 days ago

Sold my Series X some time after their last batch of layoffs and canceled GamePass after hearing about their use of AI in the genocide. Fuck Microsoft.

tunavomit.bsky.social•8 days ago

Hang on sorry I misread, genocide is fine if it don't annoy GamePass, not sure I agree.

tunavomit.bsky.social•8 days ago

A lot of those are words I never heard of can we just not give them our credit card numbers?

sjavik.bsky.social•9 days ago

Saw these on my way into work a couple days ago. When I left in the afternoon they’d been removed

tomwarren.co.uk•8 days ago

is that in Seattle?

mattbos.bsky.social•8 days ago

Appears to be Kingstreet Station in Seattle.

elmore.zone•8 days ago

Yep, sure is

sjavik.bsky.social•8 days ago

Correct

techfellow.bsky.social•8 days ago

The best approach would be to clear the air by dropping any interaction with IMOD

klb725.bsky.social•9 days ago

fuck microsoft. Piece of shit leadership

johnmckendry.bsky.social•9 days ago

This is just sad. I have never had a good word to say about Microsoft and plenty of bad ones, but I don't think they ever had a reputation for interfering with their employees' private lives. They could tough it out if they had any self-respect.

michaelbprice.bsky.social•8 days ago

And they aren’t. They are preventing people who are literally about to or
just have violated company policies about a respectful workplace from sending out harassing emails to company distribution lists with the company email accounts.

retroactivist.bsky.social•9 days ago

It’s crazy that people still use Microsoft or Google as an email provider after all of this publicly available evidence that they read the contents of your messages.

ivo-cavalcante.bsky.social•8 days ago

But but but... Free speech, no?

ethansoniclbpfan.bsky.social•9 days ago

Ignorant cowards

penguinpopup.dev•9 days ago

Old internet forum admins know, word filters always work

madamehardy.bsky.social•9 days ago

Ask Scunthorpe.

popezebbidiexii.bsky.social•9 days ago

the word and the town both have a cunt in the middle?

madamehardy.bsky.social•9 days ago

Yup. It happened a lot in the early days of form validation.

fennecfoxfanfare.bsky.social•8 days ago

Not just the early days - the Scunthorpe Problem still rears its head from time to time!

In 2020, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's first virtual annual conference hit a snag when the Q&A platform's content filter blocked questions containing the word "bone".

madamehardy.bsky.social•8 days ago

That's both unfortunate and ridiculously prudish.

schroedinger.bsky.social•8 days ago

Fucking Hell

(both places)

penguinpopup.dev•8 days ago

Never forget. The worst fate a politician can suffer - buttbuttination

madamehardy.bsky.social•8 days ago

I *had* forgotten. Thank you.

schroedinger.bsky.social•8 days ago

Poor Rusty Kuntz

tunavomit.bsky.social•8 days ago

Thank god for the fucking internet lemme get myself more shadowbanned now via sarcasm. Free Palestine (not sarcastic).

megamaster1021.bsky.social•8 days ago

Israel depends on shit like this to feel powerful and important, so seeing people actually bend the knee for them is pathetic

hollyglightly.bsky.social•9 days ago

The way all levers of power are bringing themselves into a pretzel too erase #Gaza and #Palestine while losing the hearts and minds of a whole generation of people across the globe is crazy. How do they NOT see they're on the wrong and losing side?

postironicposadist.bsky.social•9 days ago

Why do you think they're working as hard as they are to ethnically cleanse Gaza and the west bank? They want to own both by the time today's young people have any power

totalnorm.bsky.social•8 days ago

Alarming. Microsoft, a company that can do so much good, continues to insist on providing support for this genocide. Microsoft is rich beyond anyone’s imagination. Microsoft would fine without Israeli money for Azure. Heartbreaking.

dyw.be•8 days ago

What about people living in towns:

Palestine, Texas
Palestine, Alaska

???

trishasnakes.bsky.social•8 days ago

East Palestine, Ohio too

rock3tpunch.bsky.social•8 days ago

I was told people in Democracy countries have "Free Speech"...🤭🤷

So companies in "Free Speech" countries took it upon themselves to censor free speech? Now why would they do that? 🍿☕

callmetrance.bsky.social•8 days ago

Free speech only applies to the government trying to stifle citizens. Like the ICE goons snatching students for the content of their essays.

w0nk3y.bsky.social•8 days ago

Microsoft is so fucked up.

Bought an SSD so i can finally learn what this Linux thing everyone keeps talking about is about.

soupness.bsky.social•5 days ago

Sure doing a lot to prove that you don't in fact care if your tech hurts people in Gaza.

kitty-wampus.bsky.social•8 days ago

Have they blocked "Kahanism"?

hazmatzero.bsky.social•8 days ago

I literally just cancelled my $20 GamePass ultimate and I’m selling my XSX. I’m glad they hiked the price, that should bring in a nice chunk of change.

Fuck you, MS.

erren.bsky.social•8 days ago

Boycott Microsoft.

tomwarren.co.uk•7 days ago

update: A Microsoft employee has just bypassed the company’s email block on the word “Palestine” to message thousands of Microsoft employees. The email subject line? “You can’t get rid of us” https://www.theverge.com/microsoft/673568/microsoft-palestine-email-block-defeated-employee

crankebastard.bsky.social•7 days ago

Count down to firing.

bettercallsouthpaw.bsky.social•7 days ago

Based.

mailia.bsky.social•7 days ago

I get the feeling that the HR department might be able to get rid of them.

blog.kilasuit.org•7 days ago

From the company maybe

From society and continuing their fight standing up not sitting back

Absolutely not

Also this could well be just a feature test exercise that we're getting a glimpse of externally

lone1183.bsky.social•7 days ago

pxnkcat.bsky.social•8 days ago

“Free speech”?! More like free censorship!

flamesofchaos.bsky.social•9 days ago

that's not cool Microsoft....

zodayn.bsky.social•8 days ago

Well, that's an automatic strike for anyone working at Microsoft whose last name includes Gaza. Can't do work if you can't write your own name in an email. 🤷

dcrusius.bsky.social•9 days ago

isnt it a direct attack to free speech?

mailia.bsky.social•9 days ago

Don't worry, all of Microsoft's American employees still have First Amendment protections. It's just that Microsoft doesn't need to give a shit about it since Microsoft isn't the government.