“The extraordinary decision by Microsoft to end [Israel’s] spy agency’s access to key technology was made amid pressure from employees and investors over its work for Israel’s military and the role its technology has played in the almost two-year [genocide] in Gaza.” The Guardian
Palestinians call for escalated BDS pressure on Microsoft since the company remains deeply complicit apartheid and genocide.
Feeling the spreading pressure worldwide, Microsoft has officially terminated access for Israel’s notoriously genocidal cyber-espionage agency, Unit 8200, to specific AI and Azure cloud technologies used to collect millions of Palestinian civilian phone calls. “According to three Unit 8200 sources, [Microsoft’s] cloud-based storage platform has facilitated the preparation of deadly airstrikes [during the genocide] and has shaped military operations in Gaza and the West Bank,” the Guardian reported in its initial investigation.
Microsoft remains a key technological pillar is Israel’s apartheid regime and its genocide in Gaza. It continues to equip the Israeli military, government and prisons with the technology used to commit war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
But this win means our collective pressure is working. Palestinians call for increased global BDS and shareholder pressure until Microsoft adheres to international law and ends all complicity in Israel’s atrocity crimes.
Using a customised and segregated section of Microsoft’s Azure platform to retain and analyze data using Artificial Intelligence (as a digital weapon), Israel has been able to intercept and record calls of every Palestinian. In response to public exposure and pressure, Microsoft has terminated unit 8200’s access to select cloud storage and AI services, making it the first giant tech company to terminate any services to apartheid Israel at least since the beginning of its Gaza genocide.
Now that Israel’s mass surveillance project can’t be stored on Microsoft’s Azure, Unit 8200 plans to transfer the data to the Amazon Web Services cloud.
Palestinians call for escalating pressure on all BDS priority tech targets– including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Palantir, and Cisco– and also on governments and international regulatory bodies to regulate AI and cloud technologies as dual-use (military/civilian).
Keep pressuring Microsoft to end all complicity!
As a consumer, boycott Microsoft products whenever possible and join the Xbox boycott.
Pressure your local government to divest from Microsoft, cut contracts with the company, organize to prevent the construction of data centers in your community, and campaign for community events to cut ties with Microsoft.
If you are a student or faculty member, join or start a campaign to pressure your university to cut ties with Microsoft by divesting from the company and ending institutional contracts when possible, and push to exclude Microsoft from career fairs. Peacefully disrupt Microsoft sponsored hackathons and events on campus.
If you are involved in a civil society organization, including trade unions, support the Palestinian-led BDS movement’s policy related work on regulating AI and cloud technologies as dual use by contacting [email protected].