Digital Rights Weekly Update: 23 - 29 May

Civil Society & Human Rights Groups Condemn Microsoft’s Discriminatory Censorship on Palestine

7amleh

7amleh and MPower Change call on Microsoft to stop censoring their workers’ speech. It has recently come to light that Microsoft implemented a change to its internal email system blocking messages with the word “Palestine”, “Gaza”, or “Genocide” in the subject line. Initial reporting suggests that no such blocker is in place for “Israel”, showing concerning signs of a discriminatory, anti-Palestinian bias. According to Microsoft workers, the company claims they are limiting "political speech" on internal emails. But the censorship is targeted, and currently the blocked terms include "Palestine," "Gaza," "apartheid," and "genocide,". Meanwhile, phrases such as "Israel," "IDF," "abortion," "Ukraine," "Russia," "gun control," "North Korea," and other political terms are not being blocked, showing a clear discrimination in the ways Microsoft is actively censoring what is considered acceptable speech. 

Bluesky urged to review 'punitive' policies towards Palestine content

MIDDLE EAST EYE

Users of Bluesky are calling for the social media platform to review its content policies as a growing number of accounts allege censorship and suppression of posts related to Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza. Social media users accuse the platform of disproportionately labelling Palestinian voices as “spam” and suspending accounts sharing footage from Israel's assaults or fundraising links for those living in the besieged enclave. Users describe having their accounts wholly shut down, being blocked from creating new accounts, and having features heavily limited after posting about Gaza or making remarks critical of Israel. "Palestinians in Gaza are facing an unprecedented level of violence and censorship in addition to unstable access to the outside world via the internet," says a Change.org petition launched earlier this month. "Bluesky has been contributing to the censorship and human connection through its moderation services," the petition continues, calling for the platform to "stop IP-blocking Palestinian accounts" and "stop suspending and deleting Palestinian accounts", among other demands.

Palestinians' Voices Silenced by Microsoft Communications 

Insidetelecom

Microsoft workers began noticing that emails containing the words “Palestine, Gaza, genocide, apartheid, and IOF off Azure” were not being delivered to them even when part of regular work or human resources reports. Recordings provided to CNBC show that workers tested and confirmed that Microsoft Palestine outlook emails with no such words were sent as normal but those containing them were not. Staff members complained on statement boards, demanding the reason why such words as “Israel” passed through while “Palestine” and “Gaza” did not. One employee spoke out, asking, “Is the company abandoning the campaign of inclusivity or is this targeted to attack Palestinians and their supporters?” “To set the record straight, emails are not being blocked or censored, except when they’re being sent to huge numbers of random distribution groups. There is a short delay, and the team is working to minimize that” Microsoft’s communications chief Frank Shaw told staff. Microsoft has also faced protests over the Israeli military’s use of its AI technology. An employee disrupted CEO Satya Nadella’s address with the words, “How about you show them how Microsoft is killing Palestinians?” And the employee was later fired for misconduct for speaking up about Microsoft Gaza emails.

Have you looked at images of Gaza on Google Maps? You should

The Guardian

Forensic Architecture’s report states that they found “eight instances where the Israeli legal team misrepresented the visual evidence they cited, through a combination of incorrect annotations and labelling, and misleading verbal descriptions” – a very long way of saying: “They lied.” One example of these misleading verbal descriptions: Israel’s team presented the ICJ with what they described as “evidence of a rocket launched from next to Gaza’s water desalination facility”. Forensic Architecture noted that “the highlighted feature is more likely a crater caused by an air drop munition from an Israeli strike”. More recently, a Sky News analysis of video footage taken from one of the many hospitals in Gaza that have been bombed contradicted Israel’s claim that it was targeting a Hamas “command and control centre” underneath a hospital. Israel published a video taken from an aerial surveillance aircraft with a highlighted building marked as “European Hospital”. Sky News, however, showed that the building was actually a school and the “command center” appeared to be a drainage ditch.