Technology

This week, dozens of Microsoft employees occupied the company's east campus in Redmond, Washington in protest against the use of Azure and generative AI technologies by the Israeli military, during their on-going assault on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

This follows an announcement from Microsoft that they would commission another "external" inquiry into their business relationship with Israel's armed forces, after the Guardian and other papers reported on an alleged collaboration with one particular intelligence division, Unit 8200, that has seen Israel gather data from phones and store it on Microsoft servers overseas.

Amongst other things, the surveillance data is reportedly being used to target airstrikes in the course of an invasion of Gaza that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands, the majority of them civilians. Microsoft declined to comment on the recent Guardian allegations concerning Unit 8200 when approached by RPS, but have previously insisted that their own internal reporting has found "no evidence to date that Microsoft’s Azure and AI technologies have been used to target or harm people in the conflict in Gaza."

The protest at Microsoft's campus was brief. According to the Guardian, current and former staff declared one area a 'Free Zone', and occupied it with placards that read "Join The Worker Intifada - No Labor for Genocide" and "Martyred Palestinian Children's Plaza".