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lost_faith , to aboringdystopia in Microsoft is reportedly banning Palestinians in the U.S. for life for calling relatives in Gaza

FFS. What a piece of shit company. Guess we know who they side with.

Spacehooks , to technology in Microsoft is reportedly banning Palestinians in the U.S. for life for calling relatives in Gaza

It’s all to stop terrorism!

So much bs in the name of justice is just laziness

jdeath , to technology in Microsoft is reportedly banning Palestinians in the U.S. for life for calling relatives in Gaza

don’t ever forget that microsoft is evil

Bezier , to technology in Microsoft is reportedly banning Palestinians in the U.S. for life for calling relatives in Gaza
@Bezier@suppo.fi avatar

This is what I fear the most with these platforms. They have these shitty automated moderation systems that can just decide to delete everything you have there on a whim. Already common on places like youtube and facebook, but it just keeps getting worse. Every site is pushing users into signing in with their google/microsoft/whatever accounts.

Remember the guy who lost access to his smart home when amazon banned him for no reason?

Mrkawfee ,

It isn’t even on a whim. They get pressured to act on “anti semitism” and define that to mean anything that offends Zionists.

UltraMagnus0001 ,

The ADL is usually responsible.

Silverseren ,

Not under their new owner, since he's the one that pushed for the definition change in the first place, among many other blatantly biased changes to the ADL in the past decade.

NoneOfUrBusiness ,

The ADL has always been like this. Remember when they defended Apartheid?

14th_cylon ,

well it wasn’t for no reason, it was for stupid reason, which is different, but i agree with your sentiment.

if you are depending on a platform where you are the goods being sold, not the customer, you shouldn’t be surprised if you are taken of the shelf on a moment’s notice.

everyone has a choice.

Bezier , (edited )
@Bezier@suppo.fi avatar

well it wasn’t for no reason, it was for stupid reason, which is different

Yeah, guess I ovesimplified a bit. For anyone not aware, it was one report of racism towards a delivery driver.

The accusation was completely false, and even if the guy actually were a racist pos, remotely disabling devices he paid for and owns is not a good road to go on.

14th_cylon ,

Yeah, guess I ovesimplified a bit. For anyone not aware, it was one report of racism towards a delivery driver.

ok, that doesn’t even make sense, but it shows how wildly different and random the “reasons” can be.

i was thinking about the case where guy took a photo of some rash on his son’s penis to send it to a doctor and some automated system flagged it as child pornography.

brbposting ,

EFF: Google’s Scans of Private Photos Led to False Accusations of Child Abuse

Based on NYT reporting: A Dad Took Photos of His Naked Toddler for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal.

Wild. Obviously I want treatment for all the sick people abusing kids but that automated flagging was not the way.

Google Photos: showing your son’s penis rash to underpaid randos but calling the cops on you

14th_cylon ,

underpaid randos

while you are technically correct, i would refrain from disrespecting these poor people.


Facebook content moderators in Kenya call the work ‘torture.’ Their lawsuit may ripple worldwide

By EVELYNE MUSAMBI and CARA ANNA Published 9:52 AM GMT+2, June 29, 2023

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — On the verge of tears, Nathan Nkunzimana recalled watching a video of a child being molested and another of a woman being killed.

Eight hours a day, his job as a content moderator for a Facebook contractor required him to look at horrors so the world wouldn’t have to. Some overwhelmed colleagues would scream or cry, he said.

apnews.com/…/kenya-facebook-content-moderation-la…


wired.com/…/meta-kenya-lawsuit-outsourcing-conten…

www.bbc.com/news/technology-57088382

brbposting ,

I remember that story. Thanks for that perspective - certainly, no disrespect is intended. In the context of people who should ever see your child in the nude, social media company employees are strangers which I used a synonym for. Strangers who aren’t paid enough for what they do. “Underpaid randos” sounds OK at the moment but I’ll sleep on it.

14th_cylon ,

no disrespect is intended

i didn’t mean to accuse of anything, it is just morbidly interesting how many layers there are to this modern dystopia we are being lured into right now.

before reading that story, i wouldn’t give content moderators second thought as well.

Modern_medicine_isnt ,

I use Gmail, and am concerned about the same thing. But of the alternatives I don’t know any that have wide support for social logins, which are damn convient.

14th_cylon , (edited )

it doesn’t have to be clean cut.

i have my personal and important mails in my private mailbox, on my own domain. i use gmail as a backup and spam mail, i use it everywhere where i assume the mail can go to some spam database sooner or later.

so if i lost access to it one day, i would lose history of some confirmations from various eshops and shit like that, but nothing that would really cripple me.

i would definitely not put my family photos there and hope they stay there forever.

which are damn convient

and that’s how they get us…

Modern_medicine_isnt ,

Yeah, see that is the issue. The social logins (though not for anything real money related) and the photo backups are so well integrated. Nothing really competes. My personal emails are even less of a concern to me than the rest.

sunzu ,

Look into zero knowledge email providers

Kyrgizion , to technology in Microsoft is reportedly banning Palestinians in the U.S. for life for calling relatives in Gaza

Remember: today it’s “just” the Palestinians and you may not be affected or care. But tomorrow, it could be you.

BassTurd ,

Yep. If you ever shared a political opinion, that could put you on someone’s naughty list. If that someone gets a position of power and decides they want to attack, well, you could be the next metaphorical Palestinian.

Deebster ,
@Deebster@programming.dev avatar

Voting on Lemmy isn’t private (and is probably for sale on closed platforms) so just upvoting an opinion might be enough to get you on some lists.

brbposting ,

Downvoted your comment just to be safe

Man, messed up innit. & how could it be made private without enabling a whole different set of bad actors (astroturfers, marketers, political axe grinders)

smiletolerantly ,

I have always been pro-privacy, but in a kind of lukewarm, “I wish someone would do something about this” way.

What has finally pushed me to ditch services from large corporations over the past couple of years is not really a concern for privacy, its a drive for self-sufficiency.

As basically the last stepping stone, as of a couple of weeks ago, my email, calendar and contacts are self-hosted, and it’s just… So freeing.

pineapplelover ,

https://lemm.ee/api/v3/image_proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-content.duckduckgo.com%2Fiu%2F%3Fu%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.ushmm.org%252Flcmedia%252Fphoto%252Flc%252Fimage%252Falpha%252Fusma0084.jpg%26f%3D1%26nofb%3D1%26ipt%3Deaa9580a0a53552af645b321eeebf63370a33d506ac3b459bb590f191c609a5f%26ipo%3Dimages


<span style="color:#323232;">First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">—Martin Niemöller
</span>
autotldr Bot , to technology in Microsoft is reportedly banning Palestinians in the U.S. for life for calling relatives in Gaza

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Today, BBC News put out an investigation having spoke to 20 Palestinians living abroad who claim Microsoft has permanently banned them from their systems for calling relatives in Gaza.

Skype might have fallen out of favor for general messaging purposes over platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram, but it remains an affordable service for calling cell phones directly via the web.

Many of the users affected by the bans expressed that Microsoft may be falsely labelling them as Hamas, the terror group behind the notorious October 7 massacre that killed hundreds of concert goers near Re’im in Israel.

Microsoft declined to respond to the accusation, but claimed that it doesn’t block calls or ban users based on geographical location.

“Blocking in Skype can occur in response to suspected fraudulent activity,” a Microsoft spokesperson told the BBC — potentially implying there’s more to the story.

But given how much of our online life is basically handed over to big corporations like Microsoft, who are under no obligation to guarantee access to these services, it is alarming how they can just ban you with no real explanation or transparency.


The original article contains 647 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 71%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

CMLVI , to games in Xbox Game Pass is getting MAJOR changes, with a new tier without day one games, and a range of price increases
@CMLVI@lemmy.world avatar

Nah. I’m staying at my current stage, paying for Live and then doing the extra $5 for Game Pass…shit tier? Idk what it’s called now. I don’t need to play CoD on day 1.

skozzii , to games in Xbox Game Pass is getting MAJOR changes, with a new tier without day one games, and a range of price increases

Last day 1 game I tried to play on game pass was starfield, and the queue was so long everytime I tried to play I was unable to play for hours and stopping using the service all together which sucks because I have another year or more left.

LunarLoony ,
@LunarLoony@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Apologies for being out of the loop, but… queue? Isn’t it single-player? Or were they throttling downloads?

Tobiuchiha7 ,

Probably Streaming instead of downloading the game.

Tattorack , to games in Xbox Game Pass is getting MAJOR changes, with a new tier without day one games, and a range of price increases
@Tattorack@lemmy.world avatar

I’m sticking to Humble Monthly.

Suavevillain , to games in Xbox Game Pass is getting MAJOR changes, with a new tier without day one games, and a range of price increases
@Suavevillain@lemmy.world avatar

I got a Steam Deck at the right time. I’m over paying for subs. I’ll just play more single player stuff.

detinu ,

The steam deck is definitely my best purchase in a long time. So many games in my library that I can play now if I don’t want to sit at my PC after working on my PC.

Game changer for me.

EncryptKeeper , to games in Xbox Game Pass is getting MAJOR changes, with a new tier without day one games, and a range of price increases

It is absolutely beyond me how there is a single soul that didn’t know where this was going the very day Gamepass was announced lol

Katana314 ,

I’m still glad I paid for it when it was a good deal. It’s not like I was committed. The unsubscribe button is pretty easy, and I don’t need to play a lot of those singleplayer games anymore.

lorty ,
@lorty@lemmy.ml avatar

You can just drop the sub now that it isn’t worth it.

EncryptKeeper ,

Don’t need to, never had it lol

johannesvanderwhales ,

I think people just expected them to wait until it had a larger subscriber base to make these changes. This seems like it will really kill growth.

zaemz ,
@zaemz@lemmy.world avatar

Larger?! Doesn’t it already have like 30 million subscribers already? That seems pretty solid to me ha

johannesvanderwhales , (edited )

Does that include xbox gamepass core customers? Because that’s basically an entirely different service, and it’s also something you’d expect a very high adoption rate of among Xbox console owners, given the platform’s historical emphasis on multiplayer games. There’s also rather a lot of people who stacked many months of gamepass for quite cheap.

While the platform has certainly seen some success, it’s hardly in a dominant position, so making moves that make the value proposition of the service look worse is surprising.

kaffiene ,

So? No one is forced to continue paying

EncryptKeeper ,

What does that have to do with what I said?

kaffiene ,

Your post was a strawman

EncryptKeeper ,

Not in the slightest.

kaffiene ,

It 100% is. You criticise people for a viewpoint which no one was expressing

EncryptKeeper , (edited )

I did no such thing lol. People had to be surprised by this turn of events based on the response to it in this very thread. Whether or not people are forced to continue paying for it has nothing to do with anything I said, speaking of straw men.

Janovich ,

I got a ton of hate online when they announced the Activision deal and I said that though they’d get COD for “free” but they would almost immediately start hiking the price a lot. This has been obvious but some people refuse to think MS wasn’t going to try and recoup their $70B?

lazycouchpotato , to games in Xbox Game Pass is getting MAJOR changes, with a new tier without day one games, and a range of price increases
@lazycouchpotato@lemmy.world avatar

Xbox takes a 30% cut from devs, has ads on its console and wants to charge a subscription for online gaming (now raising its price by 25%). Can’t triple dip like this, Microsoft.

Haven’t renewed PS Plus either since its price hike. Just gonna play disc games on my PS5 till the end of its lifespan.

CarbonatedPastaSauce ,

Are you me?

Same situation. No PSN renewals, when my Gamepass expires later this year that’s it. I’m good with Steam. These consoles got too greedy.

technomad , to games in Xbox Game Pass is getting MAJOR changes, with a new tier without day one games, and a range of price increases

Pass.

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@quokk.au avatar

Game.

Tronn4 ,

Set.

EvilBit ,

Derek.

AlexanderESmith , to games in Xbox Game Pass is getting MAJOR changes, with a new tier without day one games, and a range of price increases

lol I just cancelled last month. Good timing.

ms_lane , (edited )

Yeah about to cancel myself.

edit: Aaaand it’s gone. Hasta la vista Microsoft.

Aielman15 , to games in Xbox Game Pass is getting MAJOR changes, with a new tier without day one games, and a range of price increases
@Aielman15@lemmy.world avatar

Lol, enshittification came faster than expected. At least Netflix was successful before the price hike, and then decided to be greedy because their user base was willing to pay.

On the other side of the fence, Xbox Series consoles tanked harder than XOne (which was already a colossal failure) and Game Pass subscribers fell short of corporate expectations every year since its inception. And they decide that this is the best time to double the price of the service? Good luck with that decision, Microsoft.

Who is gonna pay $15/month for a catalog of old games? Old games are already cheap enough that you can buy them directly and still “profit” over keeping an ongoing subscription. And $20/month for day one games? At that price, you’re better off just buying the damn game. GP was already hard to justify at its previous price, but this new price point is egregious.

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