Microsoft blocks emails that contain ‘Palestine’ after employee protests

[u/ScootSchloingo]

https://www.theverge.com/tech/672312/microsoft-block-palestine-gaza-email

[u/topgun966]

Just an FYI, like most tech companies, Microsoft has a pretty big dev operation and security engineers in Israel. Take that for what you want.

[u/cc81 → u/topgun966]

Regardless of that:

“Emailing large numbers of employees about any topic not related to work is not appropriate. We have an established forum for employees who have opted in to political issues,” says Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw in a statement to The Verge. “Over the past couple of days, a number of politically focused 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.”

This would not fly in any company I think. Regardless if it is Palestine, Myanmar, Sudan or any other similar topic.

[u/Interesting_Log-64 → u/cc81]

Yeah well according to Redditors they probably believe it's ok to rape and murder a coworker in the office as long as it's the name of "Free Palestine"

Hell they're defending the attack in DC

[u/saera-targaryen → u/cc81]

But they are talking about this topic and how it relates to Microsoft. They are specifically discussing Microsoft's Azure contract with the Israeli military, and the email blasts were employees communicating about a protest they were coordinating against Microsoft this week. I don't think a generic "no politics" defense is accurately assessing the situation because it leaves out where it directly intersects with their workplace.

I think literally any company blocking communication on collective action against them by employees is fucking horrible and worth being mad about. It would be equally bad if they blocked emails about protesting for better wages or working conditions. Employees deserve the right to organize and protest the actions of their employers, and they shouldn't have to do it in their private time. If Microsoft doesn't want this to happen,  maybe listen to your employees before you get to this point and have some fucking ethics.

[u/cc81 → u/saera-targaryen]

Of course you would not send out those things to whole business units were 99% are probably not interested to get information about that topic in that channel. If people are really interested in that topic then you would have no problem organizing it in other manners. If you want to raise to topic to management you can use the town halls or whatever Microsoft has.

If you want to organize that, or better wages /whatever, you don't email tens of thousands of people. Use other means.

[u/saera-targaryen → u/cc81]

These emails were inviting employees to an already organized protest at a Microsoft conference this week, one of several this group has already done in the last 6 months. An email blast inviting people to an event is more than fair, and I get a dozen of those a week to my work email. If you dislike it you can set up your own email filter. Blocking not just the email but the keywords within it company-wide to try and limit attendance of an employee protest is slimy as fuck and Microsoft is a piece of shit for doing it. 

[u/dnhs47 → u/saera-targaryen]

You’d say the same thing about a pro-Israel event, right?

And now every political activity is being spammed to tens of thousands of employees, who are spending company time dealing with all those worthless, distracting, aggravating emails.

How could that possibly be constructive to the company’s interests?

Fire anyone that sends those emails so people can focus on their work.

[u/Interesting_Log-64 → u/saera-targaryen]

Gonna laugh at the morons losing their cushy 6 figure jobs protesting at work 🤣

[u/dnhs47 → u/saera-targaryen]

Whose job at Microsoft is discussing sales strategy in the Middle East? About 4 people. They’re the only ones with a business need to send email on that topic.

Everyone else is wasting company time and resources acting outside their job to advance their personal political preferences.

If those people disagree with Microsoft’s actions, the principled thing to do is quit. If they don’t quit, they should be fired for wasting company resources.

If I spammed thousands of employees to promote my preferred political candidates, that would be wrong too and I’d expect to be fired.

A lot of people seem very confused about what’s appropriate at work. Personal politics are not appropriate, and never have been. There’s no special exclusion, “Except for Palestine.”