Microsoft is reportedly banning Palestinians in the U.S. for life for calling relatives in Gaza

Submitted ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Linkerbaan@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/microsoft-killed-my-online-life-microsoft-is-reportedly-banning-palestinians-in-the-us-for-life-for-calling-relatives-in-gaza

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

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Comments

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Kyrgizion@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Remember: today it’s “just” the Palestinians and you may not be affected or care. But tomorrow, it could be you.

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- BassTurd@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - Deebster@programming.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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.
    
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- smiletolerantly@awful.systems ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I have always been pro-privacy, but in a kind of lukewarm, “I wish someone would do something about this” way.
  
  What has finally pushed me to ditch services from large corporations over the past couple of years is not really a concern for privacy, its a drive for self-sufficiency.
  
  As basically the last stepping stone, as of a couple of weeks ago, my email, calendar and contacts are self-hosted, and it’s just… So freeing.
  
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- pineapplelover@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Image
  
  First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. —Martin Niemöller
  
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Bezier@suppo.fi ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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?

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- Mrkawfee@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It isn’t even on a whim. They get pressured to act on “anti semitism” and define that to mean anything that offends Zionists.
  
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  - UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The ADL is usually responsible.
    
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- 14th_cylon@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  well it wasn’t for no reason, it was for stupid reason, which is different, but i agree with your sentiment.
  
  if you are depending on a platform where you are the goods being sold, not the customer, you shouldn’t be surprised if you are taken of the shelf on a moment’s notice.
  
  everyone has a choice.
  
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  - Bezier@suppo.fi ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    well it wasn’t for no reason, it was for stupid reason, which is different
    
    Yeah, guess I ovesimplified a bit. For anyone not aware, it was one report of racism towards a delivery driver.
    
    The accusation was completely false, though even if the guy actually was a racist pos, remotely disabling devices he paid for and owns is not a good road to go on.
    
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  - Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I use Gmail, and am concerned about the same thing. But of the alternatives I don’t know any that have wide support for social logins, which are damn convient.
    
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dukethorion@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
So what you’re saying is, that there is now an easy way to delete your MS account?

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- smb@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  i am sure that only affects the data YOU can ever access, but never the data already stored for later abuse ;-)
  
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Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is the final nail in the coffin for me. My next PC is going to be a Linux machine.

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- todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Your current PC can become a Linux machine by lunchtime. What are you waiting for?
  
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  - Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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.
    
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  - I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Installed? Sure, you can do that by lunchtime.
    
    Getting it set up? Making sure all your drivers are working right? Troubleshooting issues? Finding alternatives to programs you need that don’t work on Linux? That will take much longer.
    
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  - Jrockwar@feddit.uk ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    If only I could install it on the Surface Pro X…
    
    Damn, they worked so hard to gain goodwill in the last few years and it seems they’ve set out to destroy it in record time.
    
    WSL and WSL2, Android Apps, working with Qualcomm to get their ARM computers to a credible state, the new Powershell and the push to open source so many things…
    
    And in the past 12-18 months they’ve been crashing and burning, either backtracking on those things or by starting new initiatives to become scummier and scummier. TPM, Copilot, the ad situation, abusing their position of power with office/teams, the giant safety holes in the Recall feature… But it seems every day there’s something new in the news. It’s never ending.
    
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- z00s@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Why wait? Install it now. I would recommend Mint as a beginner distro.
  
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  - djsaskdja@reddthat.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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.
    
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  - Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Noted, thank you!
    
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- i_have_some_enemies@welppp.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  “I will stop smoking next year”
  
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  - soloner@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Not even remotely comparable situations
    
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- ripcord@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Will believe it when it happens.
  
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  - Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Have you considered that you don’t know me?
    
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- zippythezigzag@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I just switched one of my PCs to Linux mint. I am not that smart with computers. I have never used Linux before. I have no experience in changing operating systems. All I did was buy a flash drive stick and used my phone to go to Mints website and follow their directions. That was a month ago. It was a great decision. Mint is amazing and im glad I did it. I am currently getting ready to switch both my wife and my gaming computers over to Mint as well.
  
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- i_have_some_enemies@welppp.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  You tried to be funny but you are actually disabled, even unable to install linux. Lol
  
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maxenmajs@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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”?

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- Linkerbaan@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s completely normalized racism. America has been institutionalizing Islamophobia for years to justify their invasions of the middle east where we killed millions of ~~innocent civilians~~ “terorrists”
  
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  - UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/…/7644/
    
    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!)
    
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  - Snowflake@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Without America the Palestine people would have starved to death years ago. Their own Arabian brothers won’t even help them. America doesn’t need to institionalize islamaphobia when they do it themselves. 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. Nothing was needed to justify your made up war crimes in any of those countries because they all started the wars. Japan bombed pearl harbor. North Korea invaded South Korea. Vietnam Gulf of tonkin. Etc etc.
    
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- UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  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.
  
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- Maggoty@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Basically we spent 20 years fighting “terrorists”. So now it’s really easy to paint one side or the other as the “terrorists”. And thanks to Islamophobia pushed by mainstream TV shows and Movies, if you get painted as a “terrorist” then everyone in your country is also a “terrorist”.
  
  The word is in quotes because very few of the groups fought by regular forces (regular infantry as opposed to special operations) were actually international militant NGOs like Al Qaeda. Mostly they were local militias mad at the coalition forces for their own reasons, like “Why did you kill my kid in an airstrike!?!”, or “I like the Taliban because they pay me really good for the poppy you torched. Also, you torched my livelihood in a country that has no safeguards against starving to death.” And even the Taliban, ridiculously evil bastards that they are, were never an AQ like group. They were concerned solely with taking back Afghanistan.
  
  All of this nuance was lost on anyone who didn’t read the actual reports coming out of these countries though and many of those reports were classified. So all most people got was their favorite action and/or police drama shoveling the idea that all muslims are terrorists. With a side of Fox News villifying any brown people they could find.
  
  So now, Israel walks in, sees all this, screams “terrorist!” and shoots the nearest Gazan kid. Predictable results were predicted many times by academic scholars.
  
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- Snowflake@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Do you ignore the majority of Palestinians support Hamas? It’s factual reality the majority of Palestinians democratically voted and elected Hamas which ran on a destroy Israel agenda. In reality they asked and started this war due to that election. It’s not because it’s so easy to say they are antisemitic it’s because it is factually correct to say it.
  
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  - Linkerbaan@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Every sentence in your comment is another israeli propaganda lie congrats on a new record.
    
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  - ZeroHora@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    So all Americans are dickheads because Trump won democratically in 2016?
    
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  - NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    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!
    
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  - Maggoty@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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.
    
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  - bamboo@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    This guy answered “what would you do?” with “enthusiastically support the Nazis”
    
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- TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  I don’t understand why it’s so mainstream to equate Palestine with Hamas.
  
  Because the mainstream is unironically ignorant of the true political and social state of Palestinian society. They don’t realise that Hamas is an extremist Palestinian political party, while the actual moderate Palestinian faction worthy of support is the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. Show them this Wikipedia page of the ongoing civil war among Palestinians and you’d get cricket noises from the average perpetually online mainstream.
  
  Gaza is controlled by the Hamas, while the West Bank is controlled by PLO/Fatah. But no one in the mainstream in the Twiterrati, Facebook and other social media will know that, because they get junk food information from fake news and propaganda or their own bubble in those social platforms.
  
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  - NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The PLO isn't worth supporting at all. It's worth tearing down and starting over.
    
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  - Maggoty@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The PLO was voted out in Gaza because they were nothing but Israeli puppets. They actually lost the entire election, but Israel and the US blocked Hamas from taking control of the government in West Bank too. And now there’s this narrative that Hamas violently seized power without acknowledging that there was an election and the result was not honored without that seizure.
    
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- SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Many Palestinian protests have people cosplaying Hamas and waving Hamas flags.
  
  Hanging out with people that like to dress up as a member of a group that wants to kill Jews makes someone a little antisemitic I think.
  
  Denying that there’s an antisemitism problem in the Palestinian movement doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. In fact that’s the sort of attitude that allows it to persist.
  
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  - NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Denying that there's an antisemitism problem in the Palestinian movement doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
    
    Uh... Did you expect them to not be antisemitic. I mean it's not a good thing but what other outcome did you expect from 75 years of Apartheid and genocide?
    
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A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Damn, thats some google level behavior.

What the fuck, MIcrosoft.

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- archchan@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - DeVaolleysAdVocate@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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
    
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- AWittyUsername@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah what are people going to do when Google starts banning accounts for using ad blockers?
  
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  - explodicle@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That’s probably when I’ll finish de-Googling entirely.
    
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- dinckelman@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  All of these are a shit stain from the same asshole of corporate USA
  
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- CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  What the fuck, MIcrosoft.
  
  Ok, honest question. Are you surprised?
  
  If it was any other company I would be. But it’s Microsoft.
  
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  - A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yes.
    
    I’m no microsoft fanboy, but I am shocked that they would do this.
    
    This is the kind of shit google does on the regular, Never heard of Microsoft doing anything like this before.
    
    And as I’ve said in response to instances of google doing this, I’ll say it again here. This continues to highlight the dangers of having all your eggs in one companies basket, by choosing comfort and convenience you’ve given your entire digital life over to a company that has no compunctions against metaphorically guillotining it for any reason they want.
    
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autonomoususer@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Meanwhile we get banned here for saying war crimes bad.

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- prole@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Here? On Lemmy? Where did you get banned for saying that?
  
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  - irreticent@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Imaginationland.
    
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  - Honytawk@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Hexbear and Lemmy.ml
    
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- Woht24@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  How dare you speak ill of Daddy War Crimes
  
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- UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - uis@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    You can’t say war crimes are bad, because that helps Trump win.
    
    So am I supposed to root for Putin now?
    
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- cro_magnon_gilf@sopuli.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’ve mostly seen comment removals. Mods seem to use the option to remove comments instead of the downvote button… I tried to make a forum for mod abuse and discussions about how forums are moderated, but so far nobody is using it.
  
  Post to !mods@sopuli.xyz if you notice patterns of that sort of thing, maybe we can get it going.
  
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  - todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I have some notes:
    
    None of what you’ve posted in that community includes enough context for me to make an informed opinion about the mod actions themselves.
    
    The first post you made 7 months ago includes a screenshot, but it doesn’t include the OP, so I have no idea what the Mod is even reacting to. For all I know I might agree with them. You also say it is on the “main meme sub”, but I have no idea what that means, you really need to indicate the exact community you are talking about.
    
    The next two posts don’t include anything tangible. No screenshots, no permalinks, not even usernames for the allegedly misbehaving mods. Only one of them actually says what community you’re talking about.
    
    None of what you’ve posted so far constitutes a “pattern” either. You’re mostly just complaining about one-off disagreements that you’ve had with Mods. This isn’t really doing anything to help hold mods accountable.
    
    And in your posts so far, you make a lot of extremely suspect complaints:
    
    In your first post you claim that a mod removed a meme for being “not funny to feminists”, which kinda sounds like code for “sexist meme”. You then go on to say that the mod “is surprisingly tolerant for a feminist”.
    
    In your second post you say that a mod “removed comments that weren’t feminist”, and sarcastically bemoan “so much for politics”.
    
    In your third post claim that a mod removed a comment for “not voting left”, but then go on to complain that others in the thread (not mods) called this person a Nazi. I don’t see what any of the other users comments have to do with anything if your goal is to hold mods responsible, but it’s also fairly telling that you think being called a Nazi is disagreeable, but won’t provide the context…
    
    Quite frankly you come across as a anti-feminist shitlord who has decided to be a busybody and make a whole community for you to be butthurt about feminist and anti-fascists mods. The reason nobody else contributes to the community you started is because you’ve set the bar so miserably low.
    
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anticurrent@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
They don’t want the stories of the Israeli atrocities commuted in Gaza to be leaked to the world.

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dan@upvote.au ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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.

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.

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- SulaymanF@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Why would I give Microsoft money if they’re behaving like this?
  
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  - dan@upvote.au ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That’s a reasonable question.
    
    A lot of people are already paying Microsoft, either for OneDrive space or for Office. In that case, you may as well use what you’re already paying for. They’re also much more likely to provide support if you’re a paying customer.
    
    I wasn’t saying to give Microsoft money, I was just saying that their paid plans are good value, particularly in the case where you need Office.
    
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- Wilzax@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Or if you have a little more money, there’s the Proton pass which comes with VPN, Email, Drive, Calendar, and Password Manager. All protected under swiss privacy laws. They have a free tier of their drive with 5GB storage so you can collaborate on other people’s documents without needing to pay yourself, and they have a $120/yr US Tier for 500GB for 1 person, and a $288/year US Tier for 3TB for up to 6 people. If you don’t need that much storage and don’t care about anything other than the email, they have a 15GB plan with just email and calendar for only $48/yr US.
  
  This is not an ad, I am a real person with no connection to Proton except a deep respect for their business, and an even deeper hatred for Microsoft
  
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  - dan@upvote.au ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I think Proton is a good choice. I’ve heard good things about them.
    
    For me personally, I’d be worried about putting all my eggs in one basket. For example, I like having my password manager (Bitwarden) entirely separate from everything else. I know that’s not how the general population thinks though, so I think all-in-one solutions like Proton (and also Microsoft’s and Google’s paid suites) definitely have their place.
    
    Do Proton have a larger plan with just email and calendar?
    
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- LoreleiSankTheShip@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Some sites and services won’t accept accounts with e-mails outside of the mainstream ones though.
  
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  - dan@upvote.au ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Do you have an example?
    
    FastMail is definitely mainstream though. It’s pretty popular and has been around for 25 years.
    
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- capital@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Fastmail is the shit. I feel it’s really underrated. Everyone on Lemmy just knows about Proton.
  
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- bitwolf@lemmy.one ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  MXRoute looks awesome! I just switch one domain to them to try.They have a lifetime plan right now that looks nice.
  
  I was eager to replace the email bundled with my registrar. Speaking of, could you recommend a registrar that has a similar experience to these?
  
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SeattleRain@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Stallman was right again.

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paf0@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Probably the first time they have paid attention to Skype.

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StaySquared@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Guess that officially adds Microsoft to the BDS list? Unless it’s already on the list.

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autonomoususer@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Microsoft are terrorists.

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Spacehooks@reddthat.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It’s all to stop terrorism!

So much bs in the name of justice is just laziness

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masquenox@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Just capitalism playing along with genocide - no different than they did seven decades ago.

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jdeath@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
don’t ever gorget that microsoft is evil

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NutWrench@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
As if I needed another reason to hate Microsoft.

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Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Fuck Microsoft and al Big Tech companies

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TrickDacy@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Uh, why would they do this?

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Gestrid@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Every now and then, I’m reminded that Skype is somehow still alive.

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autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:

Today, BBC News put out an investigation having spoke to 20 Palestinians living abroad who claim Microsoft has permanently banned them from their systems for calling relatives in Gaza.

Skype might have fallen out of favor for general messaging purposes over platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram, but it remains an affordable service for calling cell phones directly via the web.

Many of the users affected by the bans expressed that Microsoft may be falsely labelling them as Hamas, the terror group behind the notorious October 7 massacre that killed hundreds of concert goers near Re’im in Israel.

Microsoft declined to respond to the accusation, but claimed that it doesn’t block calls or ban users based on geographical location.

“Blocking in Skype can occur in response to suspected fraudulent activity,” a Microsoft spokesperson told the BBC — potentially implying there’s more to the story.

But given how much of our online life is basically handed over to big corporations like Microsoft, who are under no obligation to guarantee access to these services, it is alarming how they can just ban you with no real explanation or transparency.

The original article contains 647 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 71%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

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johny@feddit.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Could it be that our ally is running an extermination campaign against a civilian population? No, that’s impossible. They all have to be terrorists, and contacting terrorists is against our terms of service.

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smb@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
one does not become dependent on tech giants without a critical loss at some day, no matter whats the “reason” for it and they tend to do weird stuff within or without laws…

For others or for a new start and how to avoid such in the future (maybe “migrate” your relatives to secure services “before” you get ripped off):

get your own domain like somestupidtext.info make sure the toplevel (.info .com .net or whatever) has laws that let you effecticely reclaim your domain if one of the providers block something or fail to do their job. also make sure you do not fall into only-first-year-very-cheap traps for domain prices. maybe check that the toplevel domain is not one regulary found to be used by spammers and thus maybe blocked by some providers.

use one company only for DNS related things, maybe name.com, but there are plenty others and lots of generic hosting providers also provide dns-only hosting.

get some provider to host email for your domain or run your own emailserver and set mx records to that mailserver.

configure and change valueable services to your email addresses under your domain

make sure you have a local(!) copy of all your emails that automatically updates itself, if you can, at least daily, offlineimap checked in into a git repo could do a good job

if one provider sucks, change it and leave the rest as is.

the setup alone already shows the provider, that only gov (of that toplevel domain) can effectively block you, as when the email provider tries to block you, you find a new one and change MX records (and obviously cancel and stop paying the blocking one), if the DNS provider tries to block you, you get a new provider and transfer the domain to it, if that fails a lawyer could help) also the small providers have usually no way to know what you do on another account at another company, only if you put your whole life into the hands of the few known big evil ones, you are that vulnerable to the chaos they produce.

also setting up recovery addresses (if possible) is a good idea, like when one email is unusable for whatever reason, the provider already has a known email address from you to start a recovery process, of course that second email address MUST be out of reach of the provider of the first one, that is, if you have somemailprovider.com address and one at microshits, then microshit buys somemailprovider.com, you have to change everything from that somemailprovider.com to a new one just to stay secure. due to this, your own domain with a connected email service of a random hosting provider comes in handy as you would not have to change all the email adresses but only that random email provider. also if skype/zoom etc does not work for you, there are plenty of other ways to do video talks on the internet. i prefer to be independent for same reasons even though i haven’t been blocked yet, i just saw the signs of possible approaching evil because of the shitflow big evil tech produces all the time just to flush their believers view of what would be possible down the drain and choosed independence ahead of losses. following signs like leaving companies with red flags (like just too big, like already robbed their users, like give a shit on their users security, like give a shit on their bugs and blame users while their own big-tech-company-network is pwned by someone unknown for month and such) a more privacy aligned messenger that supports videocalls would be for example matrix, there are multiple clients to choose from and lots of providers to choose from (also self hosting or becoming a provider is possible while for talking to each other it is NOT necessary to use the same provider, but again self-hosting of course is most-secure) one cannot do things securely without knowing a bit about what it is. to learn more about dns, email, matrix or other topics the internet is full of informations, sometimes wikipedia is very helpful and linux user groups exist for talking about stuff and helping each other. the type of support is different and -as i see it - much more efficient, but different, there is no one to do it for you (or you get into the very same dependency trap again) but you are encouraged to learn what it takes to do so and do it yourself.

example prices from a random dns provider: .de 10€ / year .eu 16€ / year

random mail provider imap email 100GB storage 3 € /month

that is having more control over your email than when using big tech, may cost you more or less 4€ per month (and maybe the learning time to set everything up). for matrix server one might use managed services, looking around i found etke.cc with 5€ as a base minimum when you provide your own VPS for it, but with many other options too. maybe the free hosting announced by element.io where i did not look into yet is an option too. i prefer my own domains and servers, but just using separate hosting companies for dns, email and matrix gives a whole lot more control while still beeing a simple and adjustable setup. while matrix does not lock you in into one instance from the beginning (i can chat/call from/to my own account/server to any other account on other servers while beeing able to try this out using a multi-account-client that connects to all acvounts/servers at the same time) they now have bridges so one can use the same client to chat with others on telegram or whatsapp (and others) too, so this is rather the opposite of vendor lock-in. while a matrix hoster could still block your account in error and if you did not use your own domain for your matrix account at the hoster, you could connect to your friends again from another account at another hoster as you would still have their matrix adresses stored in your client. however to securely use matrix one should read about its security mechanisms and what backup keys are and why one should validate new connections.

if you had the loss, at least take advantage of the message/lesson: big tech is too powerful and thus insecure. maybe do three steps in parallel: choose and migrate to smaller providers, more providers each for different things, if one f**ks up, everything else stays in place, thus less stressful on problems. second step in parallel: get yourself into DIY your digital life. every little step into independence is a step more powerful while removing the very same power from big tech to attack the stability of your digital life. third step in parallel: share your problem including the possible solutions, which you choosed and how it went to those you think might take advantage of that information ;-)
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Prandom_returns@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
REGULATE MONOPOLIES

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PanArab@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Another reason to boycott Microsoft. Though I don’t expect other tech companies to be any better.

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Fijxu@programming.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Use matrix.

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vga@sopuli.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
What confirmation do we have that this person did not deserve this ban?

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sol6_vi@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Looks like I dumped msft at the right time. What ass hats.

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ytg@sopuli.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Surely the US government won’t like that if they’re US citizens, right?

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Hotmailer@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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.

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