- Microsoft employees discovered that company emails containing words like “Palestine” and “Gaza” were being blocked following protests against the company’s ties to the Israeli government. Protest group ‘No Azure for Apartheid’ has accused the company of censorship and retaliation.
Microsoft employees discovered that the company is blocking emails that contain words like “Palestine,” “Gaza,” and “Genocide” after a series of protesters disputed the company’s flagship Build event.
The protest group “No Azure for Apartheid” publicized the email restrictions via a social media post. The company confirmed to The Verge that it had implemented some changes to reduce “politically focused emails” within the company.
In a statement shared with Fortune a spokesperson for Microsoft said: “Sending unsolicited email to large numbers of employees at work is not appropriate. We have an established forum for employees who have opted into a variety of issues for this reason. Over the past couple of days, a number of emails have been sent to tens of thousands of employees across the company and we have taken measures to try and reduce those emails to those that have not opted in.”
“No Azure for Apartheid” called the development: “Yet another chapter in a long tale of Microsoft’s intimidation, retaliation, repression, and censorship culture.”
Tensions have been riding high within the company after a series of protesters, including at least one former Microsoft worker, disrupted the company’s Build event to oppose the company’s contracts with the Israeli government.
Microsoft fired one of the protesters, Joe Lopez, after he disrupted CEO Satya Nadella’s keynote and sent a mass email to employees. In the email, Lopez said his actions had been prompted by the “silence” of company leadership following previous protests over the company’s links to the Israeli government.
In a separate incident, Microsoft’s head of security for AI, Neta Haiby, accidentally revealed private messages about Walmart’s use of Microsoft’s AI tools after protesters interrupted her talk.
Haiby accidentally switched the screen she was sharing to display internal messages about Walmart’s upcoming use of Microsoft’s AI.
In one of the Teams messages, a Walmart AI engineer was quoted as saying: “Microsoft is WAY ahead of Google with AI security. We are excited to go down this path with you.”
Responding to the recent protests, a spokesperson for Microsoft previously told Fortune: “The safety and well-being of our employees, customers, and community remain our top priority. We support the right to peaceful assembly and ask that it be exercised respectfully.”
Protests at Microsoft
Microsoft has faced similar protests before. Just last month, ex-employees disrupted its 50th-anniversary event, denouncing the company’s AI chief, Mustafa Suleyman, as a “war profiteer.”
Last year, the company also dismissed two employees who organized a vigil for Palestinians killed in Gaza, citing breaches of internal company policies as the cause.
Microsoft has continually denied that its technology is used by the Israeli military to harm Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Earlier this month, the company published the results of an internal review that found “no evidence” of Microsoft’s Azure or AI technologies being used to harm people.
Protesters have rejected the review, however, criticizing its scope. Microsoft acknowledged in the review that it didn’t “have visibility into how customers use our software on their own servers or other devices.”
In his email to employees, Lopez accused Microsoft’s leaders of telling lies about Azure’s use in Gaza.
“Those of us who have been paying attention know that this is a bold-faced lie. Every byte of data that is stored on the cloud (much of it likely containing data obtained by illegal mass surveillance) can and will be used as justification to level cities and exterminate Palestinians,” Lopez wrote.
