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
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"?
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.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2007/07/gary-hart-lynne-cheney-and-war-with-china/7644/
Early in 2001, the commission presented a report to the incoming G.W. Bush administration warning that terrorism would be the nation's greatest national security problem, and saying that unless the United States took proper protective measures a terrorist attack was likely within its borders. Neither the president nor the vice president nor any other senior official from the new administration took time to meet with the commission members or hear about their findings.
The commission had 14 members, split 7-7, Republican and Democrat, as is de rigeur for bodies of this type. Today Hart told me that in the first few meetings, commission members would go around the room and volunteer their ideas about the nation's greatest vulnerabilities, most urgent needs, and so on.
At the first meeting, one Republican woman on the commission said that the overwhelming threat was from China. Sooner or later the U.S. would end up in a military showdown with the Chinese Communists. There was no avoiding it, and we would only make ourselves weaker by waiting. No one else spoke up in support.
The same thing happened at the second meeting -- discussion from other commissioners about terrorism, nuclear proliferation, anarchy of failed states, etc, and then this one woman warning about the looming Chinese menace. And the third meeting too. Perhaps more.
Finally, in frustration, this woman left the commission.
"Her name was Lynne Cheney," Hart said. "I am convinced that if it had not been for 9/11, we would be in a military showdown with China today." Not because of what China was doing, threatening, or intending, he made clear, but because of the assumptions the Administration brought with it when taking office. (My impression is that Chinese leaders know this too, which is why there are relatively few complaints from China about the Iraq war. They know that it got the U.S. off China's back!)
I don't understand the overarching point of this comment.
Military Industrial Complex needs to be fed.
In reply to a conment about racism and Islamophobia, mentioning that "Liz Cheney thought we'd be going to war with China" doesn't really track.