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Microsoft is reportedly banning Palestinians in the U.S. for life for calling relatives in Gaza

A BBC investigation reveals that Microsoft is permanently banning Palestinians in the U.S. and other countries who use Skype to call relatives in Gaza.

Reportedly, Microsoft has been banning and wiping the accounts of users who have leveraged Skype to contact relatives in Gaza. In some cases, email accounts over a decade old have been locked, destroying access to banking accounts, OneDrive storage, and beyond.

United States resident Salah Elsadi lost his account of over 15 years in the dragnet. “I’ve had this Hotmail for 15 years. They banned me for no reason, saying I have violated their terms — what terms? Tell me. I’ve filled out about 50 forms and called them many many times.” Eiad Hametto from Saudi Arabia echoed the report, “We are civilians with no political background who just wanted to check on our families. They’ve suspended my email account that I’ve had for nearly 20 years. It was connected to all my work. They killed my life online.”

Many of the users affected by the bans expressed that Microsoft may be falsely labelling them as Hamas

Andromxda , (edited )
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Fuck Microsoft and all Big Tech corporations

Kyrgizion ,

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>
Prandom_returns ,

REGULATE MONOPOLIES

bamboo ,

While I agree enthusiastically, does Skype even have a dominant market position, let alone a monopoly?

uis ,

Ok, oligopoly. Happy?

Prandom_returns ,

I’m talking Microsoft. Having this much control over means of communication is alarming. And Microsoft continues to grow.

Hypothetically, I wonder if they can just block Microsoft accounts alltogether, denying access to (now, kind of mandatory MS account) Windows machines.

dev_null ,

Why does it matter? If they ban your Microsoft account because you had an upside down Xbox sticker on your fridge, is it relevant if Microsoft has a monopoly on sticker manufacturing?

Skype doesn’t matter because they don’t ban you from Skype, they ban you from everything, including things they do have a dominant market position on. And also from Skype, which doesn’t matter as much.

bamboo ,

When I posted that comment I was thinking specifically about Skype, not MS as a whole. I agree MS is well more than large enough that it needs regulation.

oo1 ,

It’s the “bundling” angle again, very hard to prove the dominant position. But them linking it all to the one account is an important feature that ties the bundle together.

Hotmailer ,

This is why America will crumble. In the USSR, the communist party was mostly Zionists. They’d purge the party from time to time and execute Russians in the party. They leeched on to America. They will leave when you are no longer relevant.

HereIAm ,

Oh stop it with this crackpot drivel.

Hotmailer ,

I actually pity you. The BRICS have started a separate economic order. The world doesn’t want you anymore. Your economy is based on dollar hegemony. You’re all armed to the teeth. It’s gonna be wonderful.

ytg ,

Surely the US government won’t like that if they’re US citizens, right?

bamboo ,

They’re brown citizens though, so the US won’t do anything to help.

NoneOfUrBusiness ,

That sort of thing is only important when the other side is not Israel. See: USS Liberty, Shireen Abu Aqleh.

anticurrent , (edited )

They don’t want the stories of the Israeli atrocities commited in Gaza to be leaked to the world.

autonomoususer ,

Microsoft are terrorists.

Tja ,

Microsoft is a private company and they can ask you to leave, no reason given, anytime.

And they have a history of over 30 years of being evil, manipulative and anticonsumer. If you base your online life on the good will of Microsoft you will be very disappointed sooner or later.

KillerWhale ,

Why do people sprout this bullshit. You can’t discriminate against a protected class that includes race, gender, age, disability, national origin, religion,

rottingleaf ,

What’s the funniest (and saddest) is when people who are supposedly against private discrimination repeat this when it fits them.

autonomoususer ,

They already do.

Tja ,

They aren’t. The are discriminating “for no reason at all”. Feel free to sue them. Godspeed.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Unfortunately, I don’t have standing as I’m not a Microsoft customer or Palestinian, nor do I have relatives or any contacts for that matter in Gaza.

Tja ,

Having relatives anywhere is not a protected class, to begin with.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Surely if I have relatives that are a protected class, I’d also likely be a protected class as well, no? Especially if I was kicked from their platform specifically because of the protected class…

But that’s irrelevant because I’m nowhere close to having standing to sue. The closest thing is that my SO is an naturalized citizen from another country, but that country is only marginally closer to Gaza than where I am.

Maggoty ,

Uh so where do we go for email that’s not a private company and not something that requires tech knowledge to setup your own email server?

Tja ,

Where do i buy a car that’s not a private company? Where do I get internet service?

You can’t. Choose a reputable one. And pay for it, so you are a customer, not the product. Aaaaand I lost 95% of lemmy.

AWittyUsername ,

Nowadays we are the customer and the product. Paying doesn’t guarantee you anything.

Tja ,

Of course it doesn’t, I said that just above. Gets you a better chance tho.

TrickDacy ,

Uh, why would they do this?

Neon ,

Probably because they were warned that Hamas or another Terrorist organization out of Gaza is planning Terror Attacks on Europe or the US

So they just cut off any Communications.

bamboo ,

Alternatively the company is run by a bunch of racist pricks who support the genocide of Palestinians like you do

Gestrid ,

Every now and then, I’m reminded that Skype is somehow still alive.

paf0 ,

Probably the first time they have paid attention to Skype.

johny ,

Could it be that our ally is running an extermination campaign against a civilian population? No, that’s impossible. They all have to be terrorists, and contacting terrorists is against our terms of service.

masquenox ,

Just capitalism playing along with genocide - no different than they did seven decades ago.

Spacehooks ,

It’s all to stop terrorism!

So much bs in the name of justice is just laziness

jdeath ,

don’t ever forget that microsoft is evil

autotldr Bot ,

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!

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