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

  • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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    4 months ago

    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.

    • Snowflake@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      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.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        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.

        • Billy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 months ago

          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.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            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.

            • Billy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              4 months ago

              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.