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This article is part of our Opinions section, where we invite industry professionals to share their views on the most pressing technology questions of our time.
Microsoft has cracked down on Palestinian protests among its ranks, reportedly firing multiple employees for taking part in direct action against the company over its links to the Israel military.
That comes at the same time as Microsoft has pledged to ensure “human rights” and has an ongoing investigation into the use of its cloud computing platform Azure for surveillance, weapons targeting and more in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Last year, a petition made the rounds of Microsoft employees and former staffers, sparking the creation of an activist group called No Azure for Apartheid. Among other things, the group has called for Microsoft to cut its contracts with Israel’s military and government. That has not happened, and the response from activists has continued to ramp up, leading to at least four people recently fired.
Of course, it’s hardly the first time employees have tried to get Big Tech companies to behave. It sometimes works: in 2018, Google backed down from the Project Maven contract with the Pentagon after 4,000 employees signed a petition against it.
Or consider when Microsoft staff signed an open letter objecting to the company taking on a $10 billion cloud contract with the Pentagon known as JEDI. But Microsoft kept the partnership until the project was itself cancelled.
There’s plenty of reasons for Microsoft staffers to be angry with their employer, beyond the company generally working with the Israeli military. After all, that’s true with many tech companies, and Google and Amazon staffers have protested their employers’ Nimbus cloud contract with the Israeli government too.
Indeed, in July, UN rapporteur Francesa Albanese called out tech companies for “profiting from genocide”, noting in a report that Microsoft stepped in to help prop up Israeli military systems in October 2023 when its “internal military cloud overloaded.” But Microsoft was far from the only company named and shamed.
However, a few weeks later, a report by journalists including The Guardian revealed the Azure cloud computing platform is being used to collect and store millions of mobile phone calls made by Palestinians.
The Israeli military had a slogan for the plan: “a million calls an hour”. Sources said that information gleaned from the surveillance project was used to plan bombing targets. More than 60,000 people have been killed by the Israeli military in Gaza since October 2023, when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel killing 1,200 people.
That report also claimed that the data held on Azure is used to drum up reasons for arrest – even after the person is picked up or killed by the military. At the time, Microsoft said it was not aware of its system being used in this way, and would investigate.
No Azure for Apartheid has called for Microsoft to remove the Israeli military from Azure, disclosing all ties to the government and military, a call for a ceasefire, and protecting employees when they speak out. “We refuse to be complicit.”
In March, employees showed up at a company conference wearing shirts that said: “Does our code kill kids, Satya?” In April, two members of the group disrupted a talk given by DeepMind co-founder and the head of Microsoft’s AI, Mustafa Suleyman, chucking a keffiyeh at him. Both were fired. In May, a virtual protest took over Microsoft’s Build conference, with messages about Gaza and Microsoft’s role in the genocide taking over the livestream comments.
Alongside that, employees have taken action less publicly, sending mass emails protesting the contracts, refusing to work and setting up out-of-office messages, and more. In retaliation, Microsoft has reportedly banned terms like “Gaza” and “genocide” from internal emails.
And then came August, and that report about Azure and the call collection. Protestors set up a “liberated zone” at Microsoft’s Redmond campus, though it was quickly shut down by police. Days later, 18 staffers and ex employees were arrested for disrupting the headquarters. Last week, news came of more employees fired by Microsoft.
Microsoft said in a statement seen by Reuters that the demonstrations had “created significant safety concerns.”
After a protest targeted his office, Microsoft President said: “We respect the freedom of expression that everyone in this country enjoys as long as they do it lawfully.”
Microsoft has said it has engaged external lawyers to run a review into the reports of Azure being used to store mobile phone data of Palestinians. “We’re committed to ensuring that our human rights principles and our contractual terms of service are upheld in the Middle East,” Smith said in a statement posted to social media.
“It was about three weeks ago that The Guardian reported a specific allegation regarding the use of Azure by the Israeli military, but two weeks ago we launched a formal investigation. We have a world-class team. We are working every day to get to the bottom of what is going on and we will. And we will uphold our human rights principles and our terms of service.”
The company has yet to reply to my request for comment.
