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

  • SSJMarx@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    It’s conducting war games that completely surround Taiwan.

    This is not a one sided provocation. We do war games with South Korea and Japan every year where we pretend to invade China and North Korea.

    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.

    The waters that China (both the PRC and ROC btw) claims were promised to them under an international treaty that predates the League of Nations China never agreed to cede those waters, other countries started sailing in them during the Chinese Civil War when neither side could enforce their claim, and the modern UN’s position is that China lost their claim through lack of enforcement.

    It’s sinking fishing vessels in international water

    You mean the one fishing vessel that sank in an accident? The Chinese crew was grossly negligent, sure, but you make it sound the PLAN is sailing around shooting at fisherman.

    It’s hacking the government systems of it’s neighbors

    We all do that. I agree it’s bad but there would need to be a mutual stand down agreement.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      We do not pretend to invade China. There is no plan to invade a country of a billion people with a Normandy style landing across the entire ocean. That’s a ridiculous claim. And as for planning to fight NK, you think maybe their constant nuclear threats against the US West Coast have anything to do with that?

      South Korea has been an ally for 70 years, we aren’t just going to leave them. Trying to make defending allies and aggressively going after the vessels of other countries in an insane claim of an economic zone equivalent is just ridiculous.

      According to China, the claims predate modern civilization entirely. That doesn’t make them true or consistent with international law.

      It wouldn’t matter if it was just one vessel, but no it’s not. And the Chinese Coast Guard didn’t play it off as an accident. They said the Vietnamese fisherman had refused to leave the area China was claiming. For more fuckery let’s look at them stealing military supplies from the Philippine Navy.

      Like I said above, the list goes on. And if all we ever do is conduct a war game to remind NK they aren’t shit we could never be as aggressive as China.