Above photo: Democracy Now.
Employees of the software giant have protested its role in powering the Israeli military’s slaughter of civilians in Gaza.
Microsoft has implemented a policy blocking employee emails containing the words “Palestine,” “Gaza,” or “genocide” on its internal Exchange servers, Drop Site News reported on 22 May.
According to No Azure for Apartheid, a group of pro-Palestine Microsoft employees, an automated filter silently prevents such emails from reaching recipients.
The filter became effective on Wednesday following Microsoft’s Build developer conference, which faced repeated disruptions by the activist group, Drop Site added.
Microsoft has faced internal dissent from employees upset over the company’s collaboration with the Israeli military in its ongoing war on Palestinians in Gaza, which scholars widely consider genocide.
Employees have protested the company’s provision of cloud services and other critical infrastructure used by the Israeli military.
Ahead of the annual Build event, which is aimed at developers and tech enthusiasts worldwide, the company issued a report claiming that an internal investigation found that Microsoft’s operations did not harm civilians in Gaza.
Microsoft has provided technology to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, “offering them tailored proposals and significant discounts on cloud and AI services. These deals, negotiated and escalated over months, positioned Microsoft as a key technology provider during Israeli military operations in Gaza,” Drop Site wrote, based on a review of internal company documents.
Microsoft did not dispute the authenticity of the documents cited by Drop Site and acknowledged providing Artificial Intelligence (AI) services to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, but nevertheless claimed it had conducted a review finding “no evidence that Microsoft’s Azure and AI technologies, or any of our other software, have been used to harm people.”
Days after the start of the Israeli offensive in Gaza in 2023, Microsoft began seeking new contracts with the Israeli army, anticipating major military spending. Microsoft quickly became one of the Israeli military’s top 500 global customers.
In April 2024, The Guardian and +972 Magazine reported that, according to Israeli intelligence sources, the military’s bombing campaign in Gaza used a previously undisclosed AI-powered database that at one stage identified 37,000 potential targets based on their apparent links to Hamas, according to intelligence sources involved in the war.
The intelligence sources claim that Israeli military officials permitted large numbers of Palestinian civilians to be killed in attacks on targets identified by an AI system known as Lavender.
“The machine did it coldly. And that made it easier” to kill civilians, one intelligence officer stated.
On Monday, a Microsoft employee who disrupted CEO Satya Nadella’s keynote speech at the flagship Build conference was fired.
During a speech by Jay Parikh, head of CoreAI, on Tuesday, a worker shouted, “Jay! My people are suffering! Cut ties with Israel! No Azure for apartheid! Free, free Palestine!” before he was removed by security.
