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

    • atrielienz@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      What if you changed that statement to all conservatives instead of all Americans? Because not all conservatives support Trump or voted for him in 2016. But he is now representative of them.

      Like. Hamas wouldn’t exist without the actions of Israel. And that is exactly why so many Palestinians have thrown their support behind Hamas. But that doesn’t mean Palestinians, Hamas, or even conservative Americans are a monolith.

      The point is rather that the group is being labeled in such a way to discredit efforts to give Palestinians the human rights everyone should have. It’s the same thing that happened with the Black Community in the US and the black Panthers. This has been a thing for centuries with just about every grass roots or guerilla militia in existence. At some point if you buck the ruling classes power, you become a target and the propaganda follows.

      • ZeroHora@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        I don’t know why you replied to me.

        I agree with you is impossible to say ALL people from a country is something based on who wins a election. Sometimes the winning candidate doesn’t have the majority if you count the opposition + people who do not vote.

        My original comment is sarcastic, it seems that I need to add /s to be clear.