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
Remember: today it’s “just” the Palestinians and you may not be affected or care. But tomorrow, it could be you.
Yep. If you ever shared a political opinion, that could put you on someone’s naughty list. If that someone gets a position of power and decides they want to attack, well, you could be the next metaphorical Palestinian.
Voting on Lemmy isn’t private (and is probably for sale on closed platforms) so just upvoting an opinion might be enough to get you on some lists.
Downvoted your comment just to be safe
Man, messed up innit. & how could it be made private without enabling a whole different set of bad actors (astroturfers, marketers, political axe grinders)
This is what I fear the most with these platforms. They have these shitty automated moderation systems that can just decide to delete everything you have there on a whim. Already common on places like youtube and facebook, but it just keeps getting worse. Every site is pushing users into signing in with their google/microsoft/whatever accounts.
Remember the guy who lost access to his smart home when amazon banned him for no reason?
It isn’t even on a whim. They get pressured to act on “anti semitism” and define that to mean anything that offends Zionists.
This is the final nail in the coffin for me. My next PC is going to be a Linux machine.
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The last time I used a Linux PC was around 2012 with something called “Egyptian Hax” that my sister set up because she wanted me to play NetHack, so a guide would be a great start. I’m aware that WINE has gone through some vast improvements, but beyond that I don’t really know where to start, what distro would be good for me, or anything else.
Edit: not getting mocked for admitting my ignorance would be a huge encouragement as well, tbh. It’s hard not to be resentful when a community is hostile to new members. Calling someone a slur for not already being a part of the in group is a great way to keep people from joining. 👍
Will believe it when it happens.
Have you considered that you don’t know me?
It’s not personal. I’ve just seen hundreds of people claim “that’s it, I’m installing Linux on my system tonight/this weekend!” In response to one of these articles. Very rarely do people seem to actually follow through.
If you do, great! Although already putting it off until your next system isn’t a good sign.
I’ve been vassilating on it for a couple years, actually. I was going to do it when I built a PC (I just had a laptop for college) but then my parents bought one for me while I was in the middle of figuring out what parts to get with my sister’s help. It’s probably my fault for telling them about it around my b.day, tbf. 😂 I used a partitioned system that she helped set up for me 10 years ago or something like that, but I wanted to make one that was just a Linux PC, and for the past few years the idea of installing Linux on my current computer just never occurred to me because my plan became obsolete. The brain is a funny thing.
Nice!
Why wait? Install it now. I would recommend Mint as a beginner distro.
Why do people keep recommending Mint as a starter distro? Maybe if your computer is a toaster, but it lacks tons of modern features. Seems like a one way track to people thinking Linux sucks. Fedora KDE edition is a way better beginner distro for a halfway decent PC.
Because the UI is similar to windows, so it will feel more familiar to (ex-)windows users
Damn, thats some google level behavior.
What the fuck, MIcrosoft.
No, it’s standard corp level behavior that’s beholden to government censorship and propaganda when it doesn’t fit the narrative. You can substitute any big tech company in the US for Google. They all do this. It’s why the government is not a fan of TikTok, they don’t have that same level of control over the flow of information.
that and it is quite literally spyware that sends all the consumer data to the CCP where they can adjust their own algorithms to show things that can sway the minds of people too young to think critically
it is quite literally spyware
So are Facebook and Instagram, which are apparently not a problem. Remember Cambridge Analytica?
where they can adjust their own algorithms to show things that can sway the minds of people too young to think critically
Every social media platform does this for maximum retention
to the CCP
What’s the CCP gonna do with it that’s worse than what Western companies do with it?
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Another reason to boycott Microsoft. Though I don’t expect other tech companies to be any better.
This is why America will crumble. In the USSR, the communist party was mostly Zionists. They’d purge the party from time to time and execute Russians in the party. They leeched on to America. They will leave when you are no longer relevant.
Oh stop it with this crackpot drivel.
I actually pity you. The BRICS have started a separate economic order. The world doesn’t want you anymore. Your economy is based on dollar hegemony. You’re all armed to the teeth. It’s gonna be wonderful.
Friendly reminder to not use freemail accounts (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc) for anything important. It’s very hard to get any sort of support as your account is seen as low-priority. Also, always use your own domain so that it’s easy to move to a different provider in the future, without having to change your email address.
FastMail and MXRoute are good options. MXRoute has good Black Friday sales and all their plans include unlimited email address and domains (you’re just limited by total disk space).
Microsoft’s paid plan is decent too. $70/year for a personal account or $100/year for a family account (up to 6 people) and it includes the Office suite, 1TB cloud storage, and email.
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”?
I don’t understand why it’s so mainstream to equate Palestine with Hamas
Decades of Islamophobic propaganda combined with a strong American economic interest in Israel might have played a role.
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.
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Without America the Palestine people would have starved to death years ago. Their own Arabian brothers won’t even help them.
Iran won’t help Palestine, but also Iran is the shadowy hand behind Hamas.
Egypt won’t help Palestine, but the CIA/MI5 need to coup the elected government every decade or three when it gets to Muslim Brotherhood-y.
Lebanon won’t help Palestine, but Israel says there are tunnels into Gaza from Lebanon so they need to start bombing again.
Turkyie won’t help Palestine, but the IDF had to murder Turkish aid workers in 2010 to prevent their aid flotilla from reaching the shore.
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Your point being what? That they fund Hamas so they’re helping?
Uh… Literally yes. Palestinian Islamist resistance is the only notable resistance movement in Palestine.
Somehow Egypt helps them by having secret govt backed coups? Instead they could have just taken in refugees but why would they do that? They’ll just have a coup instead.
My man the Egyptian government is an American puppet what are you talking about?
So Lebanon helps the Palestine people by building tunnels where Hamas stored weapons and hostages?
Literally yes. See above.
So Palestinians are Hamas?
Why is Iran not helping Fatah?
Their support of Hamas is on ideological grounds. Israel is holy waqf land that belongs to Muslims and should be cleansed from Jews.Even when Egypt had sovereignty over Gaza they made sure to prevent Palestinians from going to Egypt.
Tunnels from Lebanon… to Gaza…? Where’d you read that?
Hezbollah begun bombing Israel in support of Hamas. They’re also funded by Iran (much more than Hamas though).
Meanwhile Palestinians live in camps in Lebanon. Some of those walled and surrounded by watchtowers.
They have less rights there than anyone else (including refugees and migrant workers), despite living there for 3 generations at this point.Turkey under Erdogan has been mostly hosting Hamas leaders while bombing Kurds in Syria.
I don’t think much needs to be said about Assad.
The only country in the area which actually helped Palestinians was Jordan. Although that also changed for a while after Black September.
Most of UNRWA’s funding over the years has come from the EU and USA.
Israel is holy waqf land that belongs to Muslims and should be cleansed from Jews.
That’s crazy because I’ve heard Israelis assert the exact opposite.
Most of UNRWA’s funding over the years has come from the EU and USA.
There’s a certain dramatic irony in funding UNRWA, paying Israel to bomb UNRWA, and then claiming you’re the only folks providing aid to Palestinians.
That’s crazy because I’ve heard Israelis assert the exact opposite.
Yes, religious extremists exist also in Israel.
There’s a certain dramatic irony in funding UNRWA, paying Israel to bomb UNRWA, and then claiming you’re the only folks providing aid to Palestinians.
I’m not the one who wrote USA is the only one providing aid.
What you quoted is the reality. The bulk of the funding over the years has been from the USA and the EU.
LO-fuckin-L at using Gulf of Tonkin, a well known false flag operation meant solely to draw the US into a protracted conflict we had no business being in. 🤡
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Right?! Could you imagine if some country attacked one of our naval ships and we didn’t do anything about it?
Hold on, I need my popcorn for this!
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Ohhhh got it, only one false flag attack was committed by the US. That means the war in Vietnam was justified.
To be clear regarding “false flag” operations for anyone unaware: this entails attacking our own military in order to provide spurious cassus belli to enter a conflict we had no valid reason to enter. In this case, a civil war on the other side of the planet, in a bay we should never have been in to begin with.
How stupid does a person need to be to think that, not only was the war in Vietnam justified, but that the Gulf of Tonkin false flag incident is that justification?
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We help our allies and protect democracy in the region.
LMAO. Your military protects interests of the billionaires and their economy. It has fuck all to do about democracy.
But keep guzzling whatever you already are, those braincells aren’t going to repeat propaganda by itself.
🤡 👟👟
You heard it here first folks, war crimes don’t exist if they burn your flag!
Lol fuck off with that hard angle, also the Gulf of Tonkin was a false flag.
Haha that was funny. Mentioning the Gulf of Tonkin incident as justification for war and really meaning it
The fun thing with Tonkin is it doesn’t even need to be a false flag, it can credibly be explained by a bad radar return. I don’t know which is is a worse basis to get 400,000 Americans Killed? (Including Agent Orange and Suicide numbers)
You can look into any Islam media and you would find they actively burn u.s. flags on state media and call for our destruction.
Well yes. Do you have any idea how much US neo-colonialism has harmed the Middle East over the past 70 years? Your country supports ISIS for fuck’s sake go touch some grass.
Also why do you think their Muslim brothers won’t help them? Surely not because most of the Arab world is run by American puppets.
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.
So what you’re saying is: Lynne Cheney has been wrong for 23 years so far.
Plenty of folks on here have bought into the China Boogeyman narrative. Her family’s propaganda has been devastatingly effective. We likely will be at war with China in another generation, given our current trajectory.
China isn’t blameless. Factory and camp narratives aside, their naval actions are bellicose.
Why would China engage in military conflict with the USA when they can just sit back and watch the USA collapse on its own?
their naval actions are bellicose
The atrocities that western nations have had to commit to keep a foothold in places like Osaka, the Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, and India really disqualify any of these folks from claiming another country is “bellicose”. We’re still out in Oceania committing genocides of native peoples, to this day.
That’s before you get into some belly-aching about a Chinese warship sailing through the Straight of Taiwan, as though its not American property.
Hahaha. First of all this is old, there’s not any bases in Afghanistan anymore. Second, this is the same propaganda Russia runs with about NATO. They do belligerent stuff and then complain when their neighbors ask the country with a bigger stick for protection. Also, did someone include HK in this graphic? I know there’s lots of US bases in the Pacific, but I think someone is gilding the lily.
But also no, it’s not just about sailing a ship through Taiwanese waters. We do the same thing to China all the time, just to remind them that under international law that’s okay.
It’s conducting war games that completely surround Taiwan.
It’s claiming a ridiculous area for it’s EEZ, far larger than international law allows and completely disregarding any potential EEZ for other countries in the area.
It’s sinking fishing vessels in international water
It’s hacking the government systems of it’s neighbors
The list goes on…
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Do you ignore the majority of Palestinians support Hamas?
Imagine supporting the only viable resistance organization when you’re subjected to a slow-burn genocide. The humanity!
They didn’t actually support Hamas in 2023, until Israel bombed them into the stone age and supported shifted. Which is the same phenomenon we’ve seen in every war with a massive bombing campaign since 1936. They did vote democratically, and that vote was blocked by Israel and the US. The platform though was a moderate one in which they drew a line between Israel and people. They very much want to destroy the country but they believe they can live with the people as long as there’s not an apartheid power structure. A line they still have in their doctrine today, a line people like you blithely ignore. Also that election was nearly 20 years ago. Are you admitting that Hamas and Israel were already at war? Usually the party line is there was peace and doves and olive trees until the barbarous Hamas blew it all up. And the people in Hamas are also semites. They are literally semites.
Every sentence in your comment is another israeli propaganda lie. None of them are factually correct. Congrats on a new Hasbara record.
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As if I needed another reason to hate Microsoft.
Time to build federated alternatives.
To email? Has being possible to host your own email server for decades. Don’t need to over complicate it with federation, also what would that even look like?
No, Skype.
Email is the original federated social network.
REGULATE MONOPOLIES
Meanwhile we get banned here for saying war crimes bad.
You can’t say war crimes are bad, because that helps Trump win. Trump will do more war crimes. Ergo, saying war crimes are bad means you’re in favor of war crimes.
You can’t say war crimes are bad, because that helps Trump win.
So am I supposed to root for Putin now?
You need to root for Joe Biden, because he is the only man who has ever beaten Donald Drumpf.
If you are not rooting for Joe Biden, you are anti-American.
Can I root for Bernie and begrudgingly vote for Biden at least? This lesser of two old white evils shit is exhausting
Nobody is stopping you.
