Microsoft has fired two employees who organized an unauthorized vigil at the company’s headquarters for Palestinians killed in Gaza during Israel’s war with Hamas.
The two employees told The Associated Press they were fired by phone call late Thursday, several hours after a lunchtime event they organized at Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington.
Both workers were members of a coalition of employees called “No Azure for Apartheid” that has opposed Microsoft’s sale of its cloud-computing technology to the Israeli government. But they contended that Thursday’s event was similar to other Microsoft-sanctioned employee giving campaigns for people in need.
“We have so many community members within Microsoft who have lost family, lost friends or loved ones,” said Abdo Mohamed, a researcher and data scientist. “But Microsoft really failed to have the space for us where we can come together and share our grief and honor the memories of people who can no longer speak for themselves.”
Microsoft said Friday it has “ended the employment of some individuals in accordance with internal policy” but declined to provide details.
Google earlier this year fired more than 50 workers in the aftermath of protests over technology the company is supplying the Israeli government amid the Gaza war. The firings stemmed from internal turmoil and sit-in protests at Google offices centered on “Project Nimbus,” a $1.2 billion contract signed in 2021 for Google and Amazon to provide the Israeli government with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services.
Honestly I don’t know much about the war over there because I’ve been actively avoiding info about it (just got enough problems without piling on a war I have no skin in) but organizing unsanctioned political events on company grounds sounds like it’s looking for heat. That’s a publicity traded company but not a government entity so freedom of speech isn’t really a shield there.
Grieving murdered family and friends is political?
Daily reminder, you have freedom of speech in that the government won’t do anything about your speech, but you don’t have freedom from speech. Going out and protesting your employer and their business relationships can and will get you fired, no matter how just the cause.
Right, my daily reminder that the US doesn’t belive in human rights. Article 23 of the UN human rights declaration for anyone curious. This is also a fun, yet basic resource: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/countries-with-independent-national-human-rights-institution?time=latest
It’s sad that the west still glorifies this fucking homunculus that not only doesn’t try to adhere to any agreed principals and values, but actively goes against them. The republicans are against half the things written in there, while the dems “compromise” so hard that “barely making it” is the ultimate unachievable goal in the distance to aim towards. Fucking pathetic.
As always, fuck Microsoft. Literally been saying this over 30 years already.
Don’t use windows, switch to Linux. It’s free, actually reasonably secure, actually works, won’t spy on you, won’t force shit on you just to make you pay more.
Don’t use Microsoft azure. It’s overpriced and runs in Linux anyway.
Don’t use Microsoft 365 online shit. Outlook functions horrendously bad, teams is a sad joke. I unfortunately have to deal with teams every day because government customers thought it was a good idea and EVERY call there is some shit. People can’t get in, people don’t have audio, people ALWAYS have the wrong audio device selected no matter what and need to spend the first 5 minutes to get their audio and video working. It’s shit quality compared to zoom or Google meet or open source alternatieves…
Stop giving this piece of shit your money
Hold up. Azure runs on Linux? Lol could have guessed that, but still is funny.
Azure runs on windows. Hosts run a modified version of Hyper-V.
At least, they did last I checked.
I work at a place that uses Azure to run everything (not my choice…).
Everything we have runs on Linux containers, Linux Azure functions, and a VM that runs Ubuntu.
You can run Windows on Azure but you certainly don’t have to.
We have a similar mix, though I was referring to the underlying virtualisation providing their cloud hosting.
Microsoft should go macro-shaft themselves.
This seems like it should be more of a “write-up” type of offense, rather than skipping straight to terminating employment. This is a vigil, not a protest. Microsoft: “how dare you mourn those killed by a genocidal regime.”
BTW - what is everyone’s favorite non-MS suite of office programs? I’ve been using Only Office, but curious what others think.
In authoritarian environments, any compassion you show the declared enemy is a grave offense and needs to be punished severely.
100% LibreOffice https://www.libreoffice.org/
Seconded! Been using the suite for years and it rocks. It’s also multi-OS compatible, which is super handy.
We all knew that Microsoft wasn’t a good company. Let this news motivate you to switch to GNU/Linux.
For those who can’t for whatever reason, look into the LTSC version of windows at https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links
Open-source Windows and Office activator featuring HWID, Ohook, KMS38, and Online KMS activation methods, along with advanced troubleshooting.
No reason to give Microsoft any money, every reason not to
just deleted windows earlier and am no longer dual booting 👐 Linux is pain but the pain is worth it
I am waiting for the gaming industry to make it worthwhile. Anti cheat is a bitch
The goalposts have moved to hopefully their final position
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99% of my games don’t work! I’m not switching!
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About half of my games don’t work, I’m not swiching!
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20% of my games don’t work but the ones that do are all perfect, I’m not switching!
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10% of my games don’t work and Valve is pushing for functioning anticheat with EasyAntiCheat and BattleEye, i’m not switching!
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You are here → 0.1% of my games don’t work because of holdout companies being assholes and going out of their way to specifically block Linux despite the massive success of the Steam Deck, I’m not switching!
At some point you have to ask yourself if it’s the companies thats holding you back or if it’s really actually you who are holding yourself back. Switching is gonna always require some kind of sacrifice or another, and currently that sacrifice has never been this minimal.
Either that, or you are just the kind of person who enjoys being a contrarian and has no interest in actually contributing anything meaningful.
Well, actually Linux is shit productivity-wise. Setting up the system and messing with it is easy and fun, trying new open-source alternatives is great, and all my games work without a hitch. I just can’t seem to find the time to get actual work done !
/sSo which Linux distribution is the most pro-Israel?
I think that I need a little more convincing.
(Obligatory and huge /S)
(Also probably Oracle Linux because of course)
Interestingly, the Linux foundation had to remove several Russian maintainers recently because of the sanctions.
I have not looked into the details on the matter, but from what I gleaned it seems like they did not want to (don’t punish the individual for the sins of their government), but were made to. Linus Torvalds apparently made a statement on the matter that I still need to go read.
I could be very very wrong on this and am open to being educated.
I did a quick Google and this came up.
I still dualboot because I have games that don’t work right, but every instance of that in my case seems to be problems with DXVK. In some cases, but not all, I’ve noticed it severely degrades performance, and in others, it seems to break certain features, such as streaming video. I actually had one game that I finished about 90% of before I encountered a sequence with a projector playing a video with important information. That would only display on Windows without DXVK, which was… unpleasant.
Of course, the most extreme DXVK problem I ever encountered was about two years ago, but I can’t remember what game it was. What I do remember, however, is the extreme and rapid flashing it caused as the visuals horribly corrupted. IMO, DXVK functionality seems to still be one of the bigger hurdles.
So the projector thing isnt from DXVK, but rather from the Windows Media Foundation library. Basically, there are a bunch of video codecs that are completely illegal to reimplement locally because of the patents on them.
The good news is that Valve is working on a major workaround, and just pushed it out to Proton Experimental recently. They’ve had okay-to-good support for video codecs up until recently (they pushed out some fixes for it right around after you had that problem), and now it should be moving towards great-to-perfect.
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No it literally doesn’t work it’s not compatible. Also don’t be a bitch Linux does not have the same perfect out of box play. Every game I can just run it without needing to worry about it being compatible. You literally need to use Proton which is *hint *hint compatibility layer that is not 100% compatible. There are games I literally can never play because it’s Linux. Also I have to manually add scripts to the startup which is not beginner friendly. Troubleshooting took me more time than windows ever did so no excuses from you Linux lovers I never once needed to troubleshoot running the OS from start. Also if you are using a 4K screen in 2024 not a single one of them works except for a few like Pop to me this is the only embarrassing part.
Honestly it sounds like you suck more than linux does, because I have never had any of those problems. My 4k monitors have all worked perfectly, and with wayland i have a successful mixed resolution/scaling/refresh rate setup.
If anyone is being a bitch, its you. You sound salty as fuck. I kind of hope you don’t switch so the linux community doesnt have to put up with your awful attitude.
Oh, and no shit you need Proton. Thats not even worth discussing.
Yeah because you use the few distributions that work with 4k like I explained. There are enough that literally don’t work because you need a 1920x1080 or similar monitor to then switch DPI to make 4k compatible.
I thought your first post was slightly aggressive but this post goes too far. We should be preaching the ethics of free software first; while always remembering everyday ethics so we don’t end up as hypocrites.
From what I’m hearing, Microsoft wants to ban anti-cheat and plenty of other kernel-space software. They are possible security issues (along with all of Windows).
My post you are replying to is absolutely aggressive and was 100% intended to be at the time. I am calmer now though.
The original post was not written with any aggression in mind. Could you expand on how it sounded that way? I didn’t feel any aggression until they started namecalling and making unfactual claims.
Average response when I ask for help with linux on forums. Also pot meet kettle on the attitude dude.
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No it literally doesn’t work it’s not compatible. Also don’t be a bitch…
That is a really interesting way of asking for help. Next time I need help, I’ll try being obstinate and predetermining that the thing I need help with just doesn’t work while calling them a bitch and see how that goes.
I usually try actually asking for help and refrain from calling the person I’m talking to a bitch.
Relax. Choice of operating system is entirely a personal one and you’re turning it into some kind of obligation.
There’s no goalposts to move because it’s not a debate. You’ve never spoken to that person before and all you know about them is that they don’t personally feel ready to switch. Don’t be cringe
It can be a political decision tbh.
its a personal decision that can be made for political reasons i.e. none of your business quite frankly, and i say this as a Linux user myself
I think that talking about how you want to switch but then claim the thing you want to switch to sucks because of totally fabricated reasons is cringe.
I don’t think everyone should switch, but i do think that people walking around spouting out bullshit that they clearly have no idea about should be called out and shut down.
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How do people have the time to organise vigils and get into “coalitions” and politics in the workplace?
Granted I don’t work at Microsoft, but I feel me and everyone around me is overworked enough that when we have the time to stop working… We head home (or close the laptop if WFH) and rest, not engage in additional activities in the workplace.
For every hour of work/coding I do, there is probably 4 to 5 hours of waiting for shit to automatically compile, fetch, build, release, apply, get reviewed, approved, and deployed. The downtime is immense, I spend it helping other people with shit or planning company potlucks (I don’t work for Microsoft).
In giant companies, there’s a lot of wasted time and money.
IDK about you but half of the time I’m at work I’m not actually working. I have like 4 hours of insane productivity, but don’t know which 4 hours those will be.
Unionize
remember this when they talk about being gay friendly or anything else even remotely “woke”
I don’t expect companies to be doing that much anymore.
Why would you organise this on company headquarters without the consent of the company?
If you tell your employers that you hate the way they operate, what do you think is going to happen?
This is a Neoliberal anthem: rights are for citizens; employees need to sit down and STFU.
Why do we reject tyranny.gov, but embrace tyranny.com?
You can go on a protest whenever you want. Don’t expect your employers to be enthusiastic about it if you organise one in your workplace, however.
This.
It’s called a protest. Social movements protest to get a message across.
You think they’d get permission?
Also, this isn’t really a protest… A vigil. Microsoft is a trash corporation. None of this is surprising.
Well, given the kind of company, it’s not like you’d obtain a consent if you asked. They’re too busy getting that Israeli money.
If you work for a company, you’re a representative of that company. If you disagree with the businesses they work with, don’t work for that company.
Or if you really have a problem and want to express yourself, don’t do it at your workplace. It’s stupid.
If you work for a company, you’re a representative of that company.
I’m not. Corporate is paying for my work (and barely, at that, given current rates), not for my ethics or for my ethical standing before other people who might not work at the company. If you believe otherwise, you might have been brainwashed by corporate-paid education.
It’s literally how employment works. Unless you’re self-employed, you represent the people who pay you.
They didn’t even hand me a uniform or a qt cap, and they work with Node.js despite several warnings; I ain’t representing shit.
no I fucking do not you bootlicker
Last I checked we sell our labor power, not our entirety of our existence.
Ppl seem to rly want slavery modes of labor back again. Sad
Lol, what?
You represent your employers at work, not every waking hour.
I’m sorry that the facts don’t fit your narrative. It must be frustrating.
I never understand how people are surprised with this sort of thing happens.
They did something on company property that the company probably would not approve of and got let go for it. And it sounds like they seem to think they company should be providing space to do it.
People really should learn to keep their political opinions out of the office where your opinions might run counter to the person that controls your ability to pay your bills.
They are right, why da fck someone organize a political vigil on a work place? People need to start using their brains
Political vigil… for genocide victims… for people murdered in a genocide… I guess having a holocaust remembrance day at work is a political act now?
Is the only vigil that’s not political is for American white men that died?
Bro dont organize nothing in your work place, its common sense. You want a vigil? Nice, go to a public place and do it, first you are trying to drag the company to your fight and maybe the company just dont want to take sides, second: what is your target audience? The people that you can talk to on the rest room of the company? Cmon…
Bro dont organize nothing in your work place, its common sense.
I understand your sentiment, but you’re basically asking people to be only protest in places it’s easier to ignore
You know full well this wouldn’t have happened if this was any other vigil not for black or brown people. Specifically not Palestine as well.
But yeah, obey the masters. Make them more money. As they siphon your wage and downright steal from you. Hope it works out in the long run and doesn’t come to a singularity or some other dystopian reality. Not like we don’t already live in one.
You know full well this wouldn’t have happened if this was any other vigil not for black or brown people. Specifically not Palestine as well.
Yep. The pro-Israel bias of those in power in the U.S. is absolutely disgusting. A vigil for other groups would have been no problem.
When the workplace is assisting the genocide of the people the vigil is for.
