For two days, some of Microsoft’s employees had been protesting against the use of Microsoft’s technology by Israel’s military during the Gaza war. While on day one about 35 protestors had left the Microsoft campus on being asked to dismiss, on the second day the demonstrators refused to leave. They reportedly became aggressive on being asked to leave the Redmond campus of the tech major, in Washington. Cops had to intervene when some of the protestors even threw red paint over a sign bearing the Microsoft logo, to symbolise the bloodshed caused in Gaza and Microsoft’s hand in the same. They resisted the police despite being warned of arrest, and therefore, were taken into custody for trespassing.
While the demonstrators had demanded that the company should immediately stop doing any business with Israel, Microsoft had promised to review the manner in which its technology is being misused by the Israeli military. The first review had not revealed any such misuse of tech, as per Microsoft. But the protests had continued and further reports made specific allegations of Azure— Microsoft’s cloud-computing platform—being used for transcription, translation and processing of intelligence.
The firm has reportedly sought the help of a law firm to look into media reports that say Azure is being used to store data pertaining to phone calls obtained by keeping a watch on Palestinians in Gaza. Such mass surveillance, as per Microsoft, is not permitted by the terms of service of the company. Therefore, the matter will have to be thoroughly investigated to see if the allegations of misuse of tech are true. The report of the second review has yet to be officially revealed.
