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2025-05-24 Fifth Column

Microsoft Faces Ultimatum From Lawyers: Address ‘Widespread Anti-Semitism’ or We’ll See You in Court
16. May
[FreeBeacon] Microsoft has refused to allow Jewish employees to establish a 'resource group' to combat anti-Semitism, the Louis D. Brandeis Center wrote Monday

A legal organization accused Microsoft of violating federal anti-discrimination laws and contributing to "widespread anti-Semitism" in its workplace, warning it will sue unless the tech giant fixes the problem.

The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under the Law wrote in a Monday letter to Microsoft that its refusal to allow employees of all races and ethnicities—including Jews—to establish resource groups is illegal.

Microsoft currently funds nine Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), which host educational events and provide a channel through which employees can communicate concerns about workplace discrimination to corporate leadership. Existing ERGs include "Asians at Microsoft," "Blacks at Microsoft," "Hispanic and Latinx Organization of Leaders in Action," and "Indigenous at Microsoft."

Brandeis Center director of corporate initiatives and senior counsel Rory Lancman wrote in the letter that the climate at Microsoft demonstrates why the lack of a Jewish ERG—which would help resolve issues of anti-Semitism—is an issue.

An "Interfaith ERG" at Microsoft included non-Jewish employees who told their Jewish coworkers that they "should expect people to blame Jews for what Israel was doing" and that they should stop complaining about anti-Semitism because "Christians and Arabs face more and worse in the world" and "there were so many countries where Jews were the majority," Lancman noted.

Immediately after Hamas’s October 7 attack against Israel, Microsoft employees used the company’s internal messaging platform to write slogans like "from the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free," accuse Israel of being an apartheid state, and deny a Jewish right to self-determination, according to Lancman.

The Brandeis Center pointed to other incidents in the letter, including graffiti on campus, inappropriate speakers at employee events, and anti-Israel protests and disruptions, arguing that company policy has left Jewish employees at a disadvantage and "allowed anti-Semitism to fester at Microsoft."

The Brandeis Center asserted that Microsoft is discriminating against employees who do not fall under any of the nine ERG categories.

"Jewish and non-Jewish employees must be provided ERGs on the same terms and conditions as other employees at Microsoft regardless of their ethnicity or shared ancestry," the letter reads. "It’s the right thing to do, and it’s the law."

Lancman told the Washington Free Beacon that Jewish employees desire their own ERGs because "they don’t feel they have the tools to effectively address" workplace anti-Semitism, noting that diversity, equity, and inclusion offices are often responsible for "encouraging or fomenting that anti-Semitism."

Microsoft, the Brandeis Center wrote in its letter, objects to a Jewish ERG because it characterizes Jews as a religious group, not an ethnic one. Lancman, describing an "unwillingness of corporate America to accept Jewish identity on the terms that their Jewish employees understand Jewish identity," told the Free Beacon that the law is clear.

"Jews are an ethnicity under the law, and ethnicities are protected by federal, state, and local anti discrimination laws," he added. "So our message to Microsoft is, insofar as you're going to have ethnicity-based employee resource groups, then you need to allow your Jewish employees to have them."

Microsoft denies claim its AI tech was used by IDF during war to target Gazans
18. May
[IsraelTimes] Tech giant says that after a thorough review, in response to protests from workers, it found no evidence that its Azure and AI tech have been used to plan strikes in Gaza

US tech giant Microsoft denied claims that artificial intelligence and cloud-based computing technologies it supplies to the Israeli military have been used to target people in Gaza amid the ongoing war with the Hamas terror group

In a blog post last week, Microsoft acknowledged that it provides Israel’s Defense Ministry with “software, professional services, Azure cloud services and Azure AI services, including language translation,” and has helped in efforts to locate and rescue Israeli hostages.

Countering growing criticism, the tech giant disclosed that following internal and external reviews, including interviews with dozens of employees, it “found no evidence that Microsoft’s Azure and AI technologies, or any of our other software, have been used to harm people or that IMOD [Israel’s Ministry of Defense] has failed to comply with our terms of service or our AI Code of Conduct.”

However, Microsoft acknowledged that it was not privy to exactly how its programs were used.

“It is important to acknowledge that Microsoft does not have visibility into how customers use our software on their own servers or other devices,” Microsoft said. “Nor do we have visibility to the IMOD’s government cloud operations, which are supported through contracts with cloud providers other than Microsoft.”

The formal acknowledgement came in response to a group of its employees continuing to publicly protest Microsoft’s contracts that provide AI and cloud computing services to the Israeli military.

In April, Microsoft fired two protesting employees who interrupted AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman’s remarks at the company’s 50th-anniversary celebration, accusing the tech giant of selling “AI weapons to the Israeli military.”

A group of workers has been raising concerns within the company for months, calling Israel’s fighting against Hamas a “genocide” and accusing Microsoft of complicity in it. Israel has strenuously denied all accusations of genocide.

“We’ve heard concerns from our employees and the public about media reports regarding Microsoft’s Azure and AI technologies being used by the Israeli military to target civilians or cause harm in the conflict in Gaza,” Microsoft said. “We take these concerns seriously.”

The worker protests followed an investigation by The Associated Press, which claimed earlier this year that AI models from Microsoft and OpenAI had been used as part of an Israeli military program to select bombing targets during the multi-front war against terror groups in Gaza and Lebanon.

The AP’s investigation cited exclusive details drawn from internal company data and documents, including that the alleged usage of AI models by the Israeli military through Azure increased nearly 200 times after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 onslaught — in which thousands of terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages — triggering the war. The report claimed that the IDF uses Azure to transcribe, translate and process intelligence gathered through mass surveillance.

“It is worth noting that militaries typically use their own proprietary software or applications from defense-related providers for the types of surveillance and operations that have been the subject of our employees’ questions,” the tech giant stated. “Microsoft has not created or provided such software or solutions to the IMOD.”

Microsoft pointed out that beyond “the commercial relationship with the IMOD, [it] provided limited emergency support to the Israeli government in the weeks following October 7, 2023, to help rescue hostages.”

“We believe the company followed its principles on a considered and careful basis, to help save the lives of hostages while also honoring the privacy and other rights of civilians in Gaza,” the tech firm said.

Microsoft currently operates development centers in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Nazareth with most of its 3,000 employees working on projects including cybersecurity, AI technologies, big data and healthcare, as well as sales and marketing.

The company opened a local branch in Israel in 1989, and established its first R&D center in Israel, its first outside the US, in 1991.

“Microsoft has long defended the cybersecurity of the State of Israel and the people who live there,” the tech firm said. “We share the profound concern over the loss of civilian life in both Israel and Gaza and have supported humanitarian assistance in both places.”

Microsoft fires employee for interrupting CEO’s speech to protest AI tech for IDF
23.May
[IsraelTimes] Microsoft has fired an employee who interrupted a speech by CEO Satya Nadella to protest the company’s work supplying the Israeli military with technology used for the war in Gaza.

Software engineer Joe Lopez could be heard shouting at Nadella in the opening minutes Monday of the tech giant’s annual Build developer conference in Seattle before getting escorted out of the room. Lopez later sent a mass email to colleagues disputing the company’s claims about how its Azure cloud computing platform is used in Gaza.

Lopez’s outburst was the first of several pro-Palestinian disruptions at the event that drew thousands of software developers to the Seattle Convention Center. At least three talks by executives were disrupted, the company even briefly cut the audio of one livestreamed event. Protesters also gathered outside the venue.

Microsoft has previously fired employees who protested company events over its work in Israel, including at its 50th anniversary party in April.

One more, at 10:20 a.m. EDT:

Microsoft bars employees from using words ‘Palestine,’ ‘Gaza’ and ‘genocide’ in internal emails: report
[NYPost] Microsoft has barred its employees from using the words “Palestine,” “Gaza” or “genocide” in its internal email system as the tech giant looks to crack down on unrest within its ranks following protests of the company’s ties to Israel.

The company has quietly implemented a filter on its internal Exchange email system that blocks messages containing the politically charged words without notifying the sender or recipient, according to a report by Dropsite News.

“Sending unsolicited email to large numbers of employees at work is not appropriate,” a Microsoft spokesperson told The Post.

“We have an established forum for employees who have opted into a variety of issues for this reason.”

The spokesperson said that “over the past couple of days, a number of emails have been sent to tens of thousands of employees across the company and we have taken measures to try and reduce those emails to those that have not opted in.”

Microsoft has been roiled in recent months by demonstrations staged by a group of employees sympathetic to the Palestinians.

The activist group known as “No Azure for Apartheid” has been demanding that management sever ties with the Israeli government and military.

Microsoft Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform and infrastructure, offering a wide range of services including computing power, storage, databases, networking, artificial intelligence, and analytics.

An investigation by several news outlets revealed that Azure platform was utilized by various branches of the Israeli military — not only for administrative purposes but also for combat and intelligence activities.

Leaked documents indicated that Microsoft entered into deals worth approximately $10 million to provide thousands of hours of technical support during the Gaza conflict.

Microsoft employees who count themselves as members of “No Azure for Apartheid” told Dropsite News that they first noticed the filters on Wednesday — just days after they staged a protest which disrupted the company’s annual Build developer conference.

According to the group, terms such as “Israel” or altered spellings like “P4lestine” are not flagged, raising concerns that the company is selectively silencing one side of the debate.

Posted by trailing wife 2025-05-24 2025-05-24 03:12|| || Front Page|| ||Comments [34 views ] Top
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