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Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

(www.theguardian.com)
873 points helsinkiandrew | 1 comments | 25 Sep 25 15:06 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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politelemon ◴[25 Sep 25 16:11 UTC] No.45374648[source]▶
I am seeing several kneejerk "Microsoft bad" reactions here, which HNers don't do for many other companies. I encourage many of you to read what is written.

They listened to their internal staff and stakeholders and public pressure, and did terminated the contract instead of ignoring it or doubling down.

That is a good thing.

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nashashmi ◴[25 Sep 25 16:32 UTC] No.45374974[source]▶
The Guardian last month reported a meeting between Microsoft CEO and Unit 8200. That means this comes from high level and they did not cancel because of protestors but because of media publicity.
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t-writescode ◴[25 Sep 25 16:58 UTC] No.45375435[source]▶
Did the protestors help the media publicity?
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colpabar ◴[25 Sep 25 17:16 UTC] No.45375754[source]▶
I really wonder if a company like microsoft has any real concern over people tweeting negative things about it. It seems like companies are finally realizing a lot of it can just be ignored, but with microsoft specifically, what’s the risk? Who in a position to deny ms enough money that they’d care or even notice is going to decide to do it based on people protesting?
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squigz ◴[25 Sep 25 17:30 UTC] No.45376016[source]▶
The problem here is thinking that the only form of protest anyone ever engages in is tweeting things. Some people stop supporting companies they disagree with, both individually and, if they're able, with their own company.
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1. hashim ◴[25 Sep 25 18:28 UTC] No.45376888{5}[source]▶
Not just some people - a lot of people, and an increasing amount of people in the last year or so, including whole countries like Ireland, Spain and Slovenia. See the BDS movement/website/Facebook pages. As a lifelong Windows user I've been seriously considering moving to a Linux distro for my next desktop. I'll need to dig into the news some more, but this decision more than likely means I can stick with Windows.