this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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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

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[–] [email protected] 320 points 9 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 62 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] 184 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 54 points 9 months ago (3 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 131 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So what you're saying is, that there is now an easy way to delete your MS account?

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[–] [email protected] 96 points 9 months ago (12 children)

This is the final nail in the coffin for me. My next PC is going to be a Linux machine.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (6 children)

Why wait? Install it now. I would recommend Mint as a beginner distro.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (8 children)

Why do people keep recommending Mint as a starter distro? Maybe if your computer is a toaster, but it lacks tons of modern features. Seems like a one way track to people thinking Linux sucks. Fedora KDE edition is a way better beginner distro for a halfway decent PC.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago (6 children)

I use Mint and I like it. It does everything I need it to do.

What keeps people away from Linux, or at least it helped keep me away, were people arguing with each other about distros like a mini-OS war within the OS wars and it makes the whole thing sound like it's a lot more trouble than it's worth.

Most people's computers are "toasters" because most people's computers are used for things like web browsing, word processing and maybe a few games. They don't need the modern features, they need something that works better than a Chromebook and isn't super bloated.

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 9 months ago (21 children)

I don't understand why it's so mainstream to equate Palestine with Hamas. It's as if there is an actual conspiracy going on to to support this genocide. Is it because it's so easy to say you're antiemetic if you oppose "the Jews"?

[–] [email protected] 51 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (49 children)

It's completely normalized racism. America has been institutionalizing Islamophobia for years to justify their invasions of the Middle East where we kill millions of ~~innocent civilians~~ "terorrists"

Before the 2000's a lot of that manufactured hate was directed towards Asians because we needed to justify war crimes in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Laos etc.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago

I don’t understand why it’s so mainstream to equate Palestine with Hamas

Decades of Islamophobic propaganda combined with a strong American economic interest in Israel might have played a role.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago

Basically we spent 20 years fighting "terrorists". So now it's really easy to paint one side or the other as the "terrorists". And thanks to Islamophobia pushed by mainstream TV shows and Movies, if you get painted as a "terrorist" then everyone in your country is also a "terrorist".

The word is in quotes because very few of the groups fought by regular forces (regular infantry as opposed to special operations) were actually international militant NGOs like Al Qaeda. Mostly they were local militias mad at the coalition forces for their own reasons, like "Why did you kill my kid in an airstrike!?!", or "I like the Taliban because they pay me really good for the poppy you torched. Also, you torched my livelihood in a country that has no safeguards against starving to death." And even the Taliban, ridiculously evil bastards that they are, were never an AQ like group. They were concerned solely with taking back Afghanistan.

All of this nuance was lost on anyone who didn't read the actual reports coming out of these countries though and many of those reports were classified. So all most people got was their favorite action and/or police drama shoveling the idea that all muslims are terrorists. With a side of Fox News villifying any brown people they could find.

So now, Israel walks in, sees all this, screams "terrorist!" and shoots the nearest Gazan kid. Predictable results were predicted many times by academic scholars.

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 9 months ago (7 children)

Damn, thats some google level behavior.

What the fuck, MIcrosoft.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 9 months ago (1 children)

No, it's standard corp level behavior that's beholden to government censorship and propaganda when it doesn't fit the narrative. You can substitute any big tech company in the US for Google. They all do this. It's why the government is not a fan of TikTok, they don't have that same level of control over the flow of information.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (4 children)

that and it is quite literally spyware that sends all the consumer data to the CCP where they can adjust their own algorithms to show things that can sway the minds of people too young to think critically

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago

it is quite literally spyware

So are Facebook and Instagram, which are apparently not a problem. Remember Cambridge Analytica?

where they can adjust their own algorithms to show things that can sway the minds of people too young to think critically

Every social media platform does this for maximum retention

to the CCP

What's the CCP gonna do with it that's worse than what Western companies do with it?

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

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

[–] [email protected] 59 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (23 children)

Friendly reminder to not use freemail accounts (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc) for anything important. It's very hard to get any sort of support as your account is seen as low-priority. Also, always use your own domain so that it's easy to move to a different provider in the future, without having to change your email address.

FastMail and MXRoute are good options. MXRoute has good Black Friday sales and all their plans include unlimited email address and domains (you're just limited by total disk space).

Microsoft's paid plan is decent too. $70/year for a personal account or $100/year for a family account (up to 6 people) and it includes the Office suite, 1TB cloud storage, and email.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Why would I give Microsoft money if they’re behaving like this?

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 9 months ago (16 children)

Meanwhile we get banned here for saying war crimes bad.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Here? On Lemmy? Where did you get banned for saying that?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago

Imaginationland.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago

How dare you speak ill of Daddy War Crimes

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 9 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 53 points 9 months ago

Probably the first time they have paid attention to Skype.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Guess that officially adds Microsoft to the BDS list? Unless it's already on the list.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 months ago (12 children)
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[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

don’t ever forget that microsoft is evil

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (2 children)

As if I needed another reason to hate Microsoft.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Fuck Microsoft and all Big Tech corporations

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Uh, why would they do this?

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago

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

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