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.
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.
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 ;-)
I love these ideas but self hosting is simply not a solution for average citizens who aren’t skilled at such things. To them it would be like paving their own highway with bridges and also maintaining and policing them. It might be easy for you and me, but that’s because we have training and experience and we chose this way. It’s not a justifiable opportunity cost for most people.
I think a different kind of org than the googles metas and Microsofts of the world is in need, like a compute & communications co-op that can actually compete on that level of capability offerings, accessibility, performance and security.
This is the final nail in the coffin for me. My next PC is going to be a Linux machine.
Your current PC can become a Linux machine by lunchtime. What are you waiting for?
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. 👍
Don’t let the gatekeepers put you off. The Linux community is quite helpful if you can get past their garbage. Every guru was once a noob 👍
Start with Linux Mint. It should be a very pleasant and straightforward experience right out of the box, and is just in general very beginner friendly. I recommend to create a live USB (basically, download the ISO from the Mint website, then use something like Balena Etcher to put it on a USB stick). You can then boot off that stick, and try Mint out to your heart’s content, without risking your Windows install or data at all.
Can I ask, what are the programs you wager you’ll have to emulate through wine?
I’m saving this so I can look at it again this weekend.
I’m not one for making bets unless I know something that I suspect someone else doesn’t, but I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the games I have on steam need wine to run on Linux. My understanding is that wine is a compatibility layer, hence the name, correct?
Ah, good news in regards to gaming, esp. Steam gaming!
Steam invested quite a bit of energy into “Proton”, essentially a new kind of compatibility layer. If you remember tinkering around with wine and winetricks from years ago, that’s basically gone nowadays.
For most games, just go into the Steam settings for that game, and under “Compatibility”, check the box.
Then click download, and play. That’s it for most games 🎉
Also check out protondb.com - it’s basically a community-sourced database cataloging how well Steam games work on Linux.
Good luck on your Linux journey, and feel free to ask questions if something comes up! :)
And if you’ve been letting Steam store your save data, you should find that your save files for most games will still be available in Linux! Mileage will vary per game of course, but jumping between OSes has been pretty seamless for me!
I got a steam deck last fall and so far the only game I’ve run into that doesn’t work with my windows cloud save is Dark Souls 2
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? Especially for someone who has never used Linux before? That will take much longer.
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.
I use Mint and I like it. It does everything I need it to do.
What keeps people away from Linux, or at least it helped keep me away, were people arguing with each other about distros like a mini-OS war within the OS wars and it makes the whole thing sound like it’s a lot more trouble than it’s worth.
Most people’s computers are “toasters” because most people’s computers are used for things like web browsing, word processing and maybe a few games. They don’t need the modern features, they need something that works better than a Chromebook and isn’t super bloated.
Do you know what also keeps people away from Linux? Being told that Linux Mint is a good distro for beginners, and then going to the Linux Mint website and finding that there are three different flavors, Cinnamon, XFCE, and MATE, and not knowing what any of that means because you’re a beginner. Beginners don’t benefit from incomplete information that requires prior knowledge, and every time I see “use Linux Mint” without any clarification on Desktop Environments, I see a jerk who doesn’t know what “beginner” means.
As someone who did exactly this, the differences are spelled out pretty clearly for “Linux beginners”. System reqs and included features all there to read…
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I remember when I was first learning linux, I found this super evangelistic website explaining how totally easy it is to use linux nowadays (this was about 15 years ago, so that was a fucking lie).
They gave some basic task as the first example of something you might need to do, and they said, no shit, “It’s easy! Just open up the terminal and type…” and I closed the website.
Not because I couldn’t do that instruction, I was working in IT and I already maintained multiple linux servers, but because of how utterly unhinged that instruction was. I didn’t know if their information would be useful, but I did know that I couldn’t trust their judgement anymore. You cannot tell people an OS is “easy” and “for everyone” then transition straight into “open up the terminal” in the same goddamn breath. They didn’t even explain how to open up the terminal, because of course it’s different everywhere and they wanted universal instructions.
I really, really want to make linux work for me. I have four linux machines in my home, although three of them are raspberry pis, and i have tried it in laptops and on my main machine many times over the years, always finding it more trouble than it’s worth. But I have never seen any indication that the community has ever moved on from, “It’s easy! Just open up the terminal…”
Statements dreamed up by the utterly deranged.
Because the UI is similar to windows, so it will feel more familiar to (ex-)windows users
As if I needed another reason to hate Microsoft.
Probably the first time they have paid attention to Skype.
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
they can adjust their own algorithms to show things that can sway the minds of people too young to think critically
Ironic. You’re literally commenting on companies adjusting their algorithm to create a narrative and censor something your government doesn’t like.
Think critically next time. You’re not smart as you think you are.
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The hell do you think the data from American companies goes‽ Snowden literally told us the US govt is doing the same thing…not saying they should, just asking where is the outrage that we’re being spied on by our own government… It’s plenty there when we’re being spied on by China… And quite frankly I feel like China can do a lot less to me than home can.
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?
What the fuck, MIcrosoft.
Ok, honest question. Are you surprised?
If it was any other company I would be. But it’s Microsoft.
Yes.
I’m no microsoft fanboy, but I am shocked that they would do this. Everyone should be shocked. To be anything but shocked is to be complacent.
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.
Stallman was right again.
Always has been.
So what you’re saying is, that there is now an easy way to delete your MS account?
i am sure that only affects the data YOU can ever access, but never the data already stored for later abuse ;-)
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”?
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.
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!)
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.
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…
Why would China engage in military conflict with the USA when they can just sit back and watch the USA collapse on its own?
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.
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. 🤡
I mean sure maybe the August 4th incident was overblown but the August 2nd 1964 incident did happen where our ship was attacked by Vietnam torpedo boats. Maybe you get attacked and don’t do shit at all about it who is the real clown there?
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!
The 6 day Israel-Arab war. A casualty was encourred and Israel pleaded it was an accidental casualty of war. They made concessions.
The gulf of tonkin. Not a casualty but a calculated attack.
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?
Vietnam torpedo boats attacked our ship on August 2 1964. Deny that fact as much as you want. Our ship was in international waters when attacked. There were multiple justifications to get in that war I don’t really care to get into them. Tldr: We help our allies and protect democracy in the region.
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.
🤡 👟👟
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.
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.
Iran won’t help Palestine, but also Iran is the shadowy hand behind Hamas.
Your point being what? That they fund Hamas so they’re helping?
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.
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.
Lebanon won’t help Palestine, but Israel says there are tunnels into Gaza from Lebanon so they need to start bombing again.
So Lebanon helps the Palestine people by building tunnels where Hamas stored weapons and hostages?
Turkyie
I recall the Turkish police raiding those same charity offices accusing them of being linked to Islamic terrorists.
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.
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?
That aside, Hamas is the only viable resistance group in Palestine, other than maybe PIJ (which is more extremist). What do you expect them to do?
Edit: Oh I misread and thought they were talking about the resistance movement in Palestine. Nevermind this guy is just making shit up.
Please point to where the anti Israeli movement hates All Arab and Hebrew speakers?
Jews are not the only semites and yes everything I’ve seen in the US is directed at the country, not the people.
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.
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.
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!
So all Americans are dickheads because Trump won democratically in 2016?
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.
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.
Every sentence in your comment is another israeli propaganda lie. None of them are factually correct. Congrats on a new Hasbara record.
From river to sea, right? They can’t even make it past the river though.
Use matrix.
Matrix originating from israel does sketch me out a bit since they are famous for spyware. Do source code reviews check out?
What else should we use?
Signal is decently rated. it is still a little more centralized than Matrix but that also makes setup easier. I’m not a cybersecurity guy though so I have no idea what’s actually good and what’s not, I just go by recommendation from people on the interwebs.
It’s fully end-to-end encrypted by default, and it also encrypts and minimizes metadata. It’s also completely free & open source, and I don’t think they have ever terminated an account for any reason other than spam. These are the things that actually matter.
REGULATE MONOPOLIES
While I agree enthusiastically, does Skype even have a dominant market position, let alone a monopoly?
I’m talking Microsoft. Having this much control over means of communication is alarming. And Microsoft continues to grow.
Hypothetically, I wonder if they can just block Microsoft accounts alltogether, denying access to (now, kind of mandatory MS account) Windows machines.
Uh, why would they do this?
Probably because they were warned that Hamas or another Terrorist organization out of Gaza is planning Terror Attacks on Europe or the US
So they just cut off any Communications.
Meanwhile we get banned here for saying war crimes bad.
Here? On Lemmy? Where did you get banned for saying that?
Imaginationland.
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 [email protected] if you notice patterns of that sort of thing, maybe we can get it going.
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.
Those are great notes, thank you! It’s kind of a low-effort community though, I must confess. I figured if more people wanted to be part of it, it could become more serious with better formatting. Since that hasn’t happened, I just threw in some stuff now and then to have any content at all.
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.
But yeah, you’re right that might have meant I set the bar low. I was never much of a content creator. As for anti-feminism, yeah I am anti feminist. Not because I don’t support and respect womens rights, but because under the guise of feminism, men become second-class citizens, due to the unfaultering belief that women always deserve more, and that being a man is a sin that should be punished. But that’s not what the community is about. Anybody is free to post there.
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.
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.
Why would I give Microsoft money if they’re behaving like this?
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.
In this article Microsoft is locking out paid customers. Which does make a good case for them.
Ah, I didn’t realise it affected paid custokers Thanks for the info.
Fastmail is the shit. I feel it’s really underrated. Everyone on Lemmy just knows about Proton.
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
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?
I think Proton is a good choice. I’ve heard good things about them.
Well they have been behaving just as Microsoft has been doing if we’re complaining about these kinds of behaviours. Handing over information about environmentalists and freedom fighters to repressive governments, etc.
