In the wake of recent protests at launch events, Microsoft has taken a drastic step to restrain the spread of political opinions within its employee network. Based on media reports, it is said that Microsoft is blocking emails that contain several sensitive words like ‘Palestine’,‘Gaza’ and ‘genocide’. The blockage seems to be in effect for all emails circulated internally as well as externally. Microsoft has also confirmed the same.
The blockage comes in the wake of protests that Microsoft has faced at some of its recent product announcement events. The Microsoft Build event saw a Palestinian tech worker disrupt the presentation on the second day and the following day, two former employees repeated the same.
Microsoft has acknowledged having contracts with Israel related to cloud and AI services but denied any participation of its services in tools used to target people in Gaza. Despite the declaration, the protests continue at Microsoft.
Microsoft blocks political emails
Several employees and a protest group have reported blockage of emails containing sensitive words related to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Gaza. The No Azure for Apartheid (NOAA) group reports that emails containing the word ‘Israel’ as well as decoy words like ‘P4lestine’seemed to be unaffected by the blockage. “NOAA believes this is an attempt by Microsoft to silence worker free speech and is a censorship enacted by Microsoft leadership to discriminate against Palestinian workers and their allies,” says NOAA organiser Hossam Nasr.
In a separate conversation with The Verge, Microsoft officially confirms such measures to reduce politically focused emails within the company. “Emailing large numbers of employees about any topic not related to work is not appropriate. We have an established forum for employees who have opted in to political issues,” said a Microsoft spokesperson to the publication.
“Over the past couple of days, a number of politically focused 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,” added the spokesperson.