Latest news with #IbtihalAboussad
Morocco World
02-08-2025
- Politics
- Morocco World
Moroccan AI Engineer Ibtihal Aboussad Urges Muslims to Lead AI Revolution
Rabat – Moroccan engineer and AI expert Ibtihal Aboussad has called on Muslim communities to stop sitting on the sidelines and start leading in the world of artificial intelligence (AI). Speaking last week at the Muslim Council of Britain, she said that Muslims have a duty to understand and shape new technologies, especially as AI becomes more powerful and more present in daily life. 'AI is everywhere, so we cannot sit this one out,' she said. 'When social media exploded in the early 2010s, most Muslims and Muslim institutions were not ready,' Aboussad added, explaining that social media platforms began shaping how Muslim youth think. She added that humans began using AI in dangerous ways, giving the example of the Israeli Occupation Forces' genocidal war against Palestinians. 'And in Palestine, we're witnessing the most disturbing use of tech in modern warfare,' she said. 'So what is our response? Are we building the tools that protect them? Are we training our youth and our communities to understand these models? Are we developing alternatives to serve justice instead of oppression? Or are we sitting back and hoping that someone else will handle the technical details?' she questioned. The Moroccan engineer warned that ignoring AI could allow others to build systems that go against Muslim values, and that every delay means losing more ground. It's still possible to do things differently in the AI revolution Aboussad told the audience that Muslims are entrusted with truth and justice, and that this responsibility also applies to science and technology. She recalled that the Prophet told Muslims to change wrong with their hands. She also stressed that it's not too late. 'The great news is we are still early enough in this shift to do things differently. And we cannot let anyone tell us that tech is tech and business is business. We cannot let anyone convince us that technical work is morally neutral,' Aboussad explained. The young engineer, who studied at Harvard University and worked at Microsoft, has become known for speaking out about the ethical dangers of AI. Earlier this year, she made headlines when she interrupted a presentation by Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, accusing the company of being complicit in Israel's genocide against Palestinians. Tags: AIIbtihal AboussadMuslims
Morocco World
14-06-2025
- Business
- Morocco World
Moroccan Software Engineer Accuses UN of Whitewashing Genocide
Rabat – Moroccan software engineer and former Microsoft AI employee Ibtihal Aboussad is sounding the alarm about the United Nations' upcoming 'AI for Good' summit, scheduled for July 8–11. Aboussad accuses the UN of whitewashing tech companies' role in enabling Israel's AI-assisted genocide against Palestinians in Gaza by giving them a platform at the summit. 'These companies provide the cloud infrastructure and AI technologies that allow Israel to accelerate its genocide in Gaza and uphold its regime of apartheid against all Palestinians,' said Aboussad, naming Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, IBM, Cisco, and Palantir as examples of complicit corporations. She warned that unless these technologies are regulated, their weaponization poses a threat to all of humanity, denouncing the UN's collaboration with these firms as 'UNlawful, UNacceptable, and truly UNbelievable.' Backed by the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, No Azure for Apartheid, and millions across the globe, Aboussad is calling for global pressure on the UN and its member states to end partnerships with genocide-enabling tech companies wherever possible, and to formally designate and regulate AI and cloud computing as dual-use technologies subject to international regulation. Dual-use designation would mean recognizing that these tools—often marketed as neutral or humanitarian—can serve both civilian and military purposes, including surveillance, targeting, and warfare, just like nuclear materials or chemical agents. Such a classification would subject them to legal controls, export restrictions, and transparency requirements. 'I'm appalled that the United Nations, which is supposed to uphold international law, is now partnering with corporations that are openly violating it,' Aboussad added, urging summit speakers and supporters to either publicly endorse these demands or withdraw if the UN refuses to meet its legal and ethical responsibilities. This is not the first time Aboussad has made headlines for her outspoken support for Palestine. In April of this year, she was fired by Microsoft after publicly confronting company executives during a live presentation at their Redmond headquarters. Addressing Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman directly, Aboussad declared, 'Mustafa, shame on you. You claim to care about using AI for good, but Microsoft sells AI weapons to the Israeli military. Fifty thousand people have died, and Microsoft powers this genocide in our region.' Microsoft-enabled atrocities Aboussad, who directly witnessed Microsoft AI's provision of tools to the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and Israeli government to surveil and target Palestinians, called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to launch an investigation into corporate capture within the UN system and to sever ties with Microsoft's UN Affairs offices in Geneva and New York. 'Let's remind him that Microsoft knowingly provides Israel with customized technology, including AI, that enables its atrocious crimes against Palestinians,' she said. BDS has identified Microsoft as one of the most complicit companies in Israel's apartheid regime and ongoing genocide in Gaza, accusing it of knowingly supplying technologies that facilitate war crimes, crimes against humanity, and grave human rights violations. Microsoft's complicity extends to deep collaborations with the IOF, Israeli ministries, and the Israeli prison system, which is notorious for documented, systematic torture of Palestinian detainees. 'Microsoft has failed its corporate obligation to prevent genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Its board of directors and executives may face criminal liability for this complicity,' BDS warned, citing the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) legally binding, provisional rulings. Aboussad concluded by reaffirming her belief that AI can be used for the good of humanity—if and only if it is properly regulated and governed by enforceable legal and ethical frameworks that prevent its weaponization. 'Let's regulate AI before it's too late. Palestinians and humanity cannot wait any longer,' she said. The AI for Good Global Summit brands itself as the UN's leading platform in showcasing how artificial intelligence can address pressing global challenges. First held in 2017, it is organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in collaboration with over 40 UN agencies and aims to promote AI applications aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—from healthcare and poverty reduction to climate action and gender equality. This year's program includes the grand finale of the Robotics for Good Youth Challenge, pitch sessions for women entrepreneurs from the Global South, and panels on AI in brain health, including Alzheimer's treatments—noble causes that risk being undermined by the summit's silence and whitewashing of AI's deployment in state violence and genocide.
The Guardian
11-06-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
As big tech grows more involved in Gaza, Muslim workers are wrestling with a spiritual crisis
Before Ibtihal Aboussad was fired by Microsoft for protesting the company's work with the Israeli military during a celebration of the firm's 50th anniversary, she sent two emails. The first went to all of her colleagues. She appealed to their universal humanity and urged them to stand against Microsoft's contracts to provide cloud computing software and artificial intelligence products to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). She sent the second to the 'Muslims at Microsoft' email list. Its subject line read: 'Muslims of Microsoft, Our Code Kills Palestinians.' With her email, Aboussad told the Guardian, she wanted Muslim staff of companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon to stop regarding the question of whether they organize against their employer's work with the IDF as an issue of secular or professional ethics. It was a question of Islam, of their faith, she argued. 'I wanted to say, 'Hey, remember, your rizq [livelihood] is from Allah,'' Aboussad said. 'It should be clean, and you cannot be contributing to oppression.' There's been protests within American tech companies against their contracts with Israel and its military since the start of the war in Gaza. There have been walkouts and vigils. Offices have been taken over and op-eds have been written. Some staff have resigned and some have been fired for their activism. But as the war endures and Palestinians in Gaza are being starved, forcibly displaced and killed, and the contracts have survived, there's a growing group of Muslim staffers who are unsure whether they can religiously justify working at companies that they view as effectively defense contractors. The Guardian spoke with nearly a dozen Muslim employees of major tech companies who've been grappling with the question, many of whom asked not to be named for fear of professional repercussions or because they are continuing to organize inside the companies. Several of the staffers have resigned or are in the process of resigning. Some said they aren't convinced that their employers have crossed a line that would force them to quit. Others worried that leaving the company would do more harm than good. Nearly all said that the public protest of Aboussad, and her co-demonstrator Vaniya Agrawal, has pressed the question. And at least for some, the footage of Aboussad – a hijab-clad young woman staring down Microsoft's AI CEO, Mustafa Suleyman, and calling him a war profiteer – has been activating. Organizers at No Azure for Apartheid (NoAA), the worker-led group at Microsoft that Aboussad belongs to, and whose name refers to Microsoft's cloud-computing platform, say that they've heard from more staffers looking to get involved with the group since Aboussad's action. And they've heard from more than a dozen workers looking to resign or lodge a protest, and several more who have already done so. Others are on the fence, with some in a constant spiritual crisis over whether they should resign. The reasons vary: some feel they can do more to agitate against these contracts from inside the company, others worry about being able to provide for their families and some worry about trying to find another tech job in a tough market. 'Honestly, I've been praying about what Allah wants me to do,' one Microsoft employee said. 'Because it doesn't seem like it's right for a Muslim to continue working for such companies. But if we leave, then there could be a pro-Israeli person who takes our spot, and then you're not serving the cause by doing this.' One Google worker said they decided it no longer feels halal to remain at the company. But their father doesn't agree: he argues it's their 'Islamic duty' to stay at the company because the role was a blessing from God. 'He said this is self-sabotage,' the worker said. 'My parents are like, 'If you quit, how does that help the cause?' I don't think they understand that by quitting I am not trying to help the cause,' the Google staffer said. 'I'm at a [spiritual and moral] negative right now. I'm just trying to go back to neutral. Every day my work is actively harming people. I can't help people if I'm actively harming them.' The debate is not confined to the cafeterias of tech companies. Several tech workers said they have sought the spiritual insight of popular Islamic scholars, including Imam Omar Suleiman, the founding president of the Yaqeen Institute, a Texas-based Islamic research organization. Suleiman is actively engaging with Microsoft workers to help determine 'if there's any part of Microsoft that wouldn't be considered complicit in this', he said. The imam said he is still grappling with the question of whether and how urgently Muslims need to quit their tech jobs, leaving the workers to wrestle with it privately for now. 'More fields of employment are complicated than not,' Suleiman said. 'It's not always as straightforward as someone that works at a liquor store. It's someone that works at a grocery store [that sells alcohol].' Details of how big tech works with the IDF have long been murky, and many tech staffers had mostly accepted their employers' denials or defenses of these contracts. But recently, evidence that the tech industry's products have been used in Israel's violent campaign in Gaza, which the UN has concluded is consistent with 'the characteristics of genocide', has been mounting. Microsoft deepened its ties with the Israeli military in the wake of Hamas's 7 October 2023 attacks, according to a Guardian investigation reported in collaboration with +972 Magazine and Local Call, based in part on documents obtained by Drop Site News. Leaked documents indicated Microsoft has a 'footprint in all major military infrastructures' in Israel. The Associated Press has also reported that Microsoft technology has aided in Israel's surveillance of Palestinians. Microsoft has defended its contract with the IDF, saying that an internal investigation concluded the firm 'found no evidence' that its technology was used by the IDF to target or harm people. Microsoft's chief communications officer, Frank Shaw, reiterated those findings and said these reports 'are not accurate'. 'As we stated before in our blog, we have 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,' he said in a statement. The company's investigation did nothing to assuage workers. Hossam Nasr, an organizer with NoAA who was fired by Microsoft after organizing a vigil for Palestinians in 2024, argued there is no way to have an 'ethical' contract with a military 'whose leaders are wanted by the international criminal court for war crimes'. Google and Amazon both provide cloud services to the Israeli military and government under a $1.2bn agreement dubbed 'Project Nimbus'. Google has maintained that its technology is not aimed at military work, but reporting suggests the tech giant provides cloud services as well as advanced AI and machine learning tools that directly equip the Israeli military with various features including image and object detection and analysis. Google and Amazon did not respond to requests for comment. Many of the tech workers the Guardian spoke with said the recent revelations about the depth of their employers' work with the IDF and the lack of sufficient response to worker opposition to the contracts felt like a mask-off moment, one that left little doubt about their employers' roles in Israel's offensive and even less hope that the companies might stop working with the Israeli military. In April, the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement, which seeks to use economic means to protest Israel's occupation and siege of the Palestinian territories, added Microsoft to its list of companies to boycott, further pressing the issue for many Muslim tech workers. It was ultimately these revelations that moved Aboussad to stage her protest at Microsoft's 50th anniversary event in April. But there were other factors: in addition to becoming involved with NoAA in February 2025, Aboussad had also started wearing hijab at the end of 2023, and she felt a new responsibility as someone who was more visibly Muslim to represent her faith appropriately and stand in opposition to the company's contract with the IDF. In her email to Muslim staff, she included an essay written by Hasan Ibraheem, one of several Google workers fired for occupying the company's New York office the year before. The essay was meant to serve as a 'dire callout to our community', Aboussad wrote in the email. 'To my Muslim brothers and sisters, I offer this essay as a sincere naseeha [advice],' Ibraheem's essay began. Then he quoted from the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him): 'Whosoever of you sees an evil, let him change it with his hand; and if he is not able to do so, then with his tongue; and if he is not able to do so, then with his heart – and that is the weakest of faith.' Sign up to TechScape A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives after newsletter promotion Ibraheem's message was simple: Muslims have a religious obligation to stop oppression wherever they see it. Working at a company that contracts with the Israeli government as it continues its decimation of Gaza without doing anything to push back against those contracts was in violation of that obligation. Put bluntly, Muslims have two options, Ibraheem said: to either fight or quit. 'If you do not organize, you must leave,' Ibraheem wrote. 'And even if you organize, your goal should be to eventually leave. Organizing does not absolve you of complicity indefinitely.' 'If you know that the company you work for is directly enabling harmful activities, then maybe your money is not completely halal,' Ibraheem said. Aboussad said that in the days after she protested in the meeting, she received dozens of direct messages on Instagram from other Muslim tech workers. Many said she inspired them to do more to oppose their company's actions, and some said they were even thinking of resigning, Aboussad recalled. One person said her demonstration 'removed any excuses' they might have made about not doing more to oppose their employers' work with the IDF. The debates aren't limited to the companies' US offices. For some workers at Microsoft's offices across the Middle East and north Africa, Aboussad and Agrawal's protest was one of the first times they were confronted with the depth of their employers' work with the Israeli military. For others, their concerns about their roles at the company had long been brewing. One worker, based out of Microsoft's Cairo office, told the Guardian she had been weary for months of what she saw as a vehement pro-Israeli stance in Microsoft's internal communications to employees and their lack of mention of the now more than 50,000 Palestinians who have been killed by the IDF. The first time she began to wonder whether she belonged at Microsoft as a Muslim was when the company fired Nasr and another worker after the two organized a vigil for Palestinians. Aboussad and Agrawal's protest about six months later helped her answer that question, she said. Their demonstration prompted about 100 employees in the Cairo office to take a day off in protest of Microsoft's work with Israel – an action that was just shy of striking, which is generally illegal in Egypt. On that day, she decided she would quit. 'The response of [Suleyman] and [Microsoft CEO] Satya [Nadella] was very dismissive,' she said. 'And I think Satya laughed, and that sort of made me feel like, no, I don't think I belong here, and me staying here is just supporting what they're doing.' None of the Google or Microsoft workers who spoke to the Guardian had any doubt about whether their employers were contributing to Israeli military operations. But some held out hope the company may switch strategies. One person who has worked at Microsoft for nearly a dozen years said they felt betrayed by the company, which sold them on its 2014 mission of 'empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more'. But they remain hopeful that internal pressure might force the company to change its policy on working with the Israeli government. 'I know during South African apartheid, the company did flip to the right side,' they said, citing Microsoft's decision to leave South Africa in 1986 in response to the country's laws enforcing racial discrimination. 'I hope that history repeats itself and they become the company where the culture is that you make everyone feel great.' Meanwhile, workers' protests have continued. At Microsoft, NoAA has disrupted at least two more company events, prompting the company to fire at least one of the workers, Joe Lopez. Another staffer, senior UX designer Jasmina Mathieu, resigned publicly, stating in an email to leadership and employees that she could no longer work at a company that directly or indirectly enables 'horrific actions done by Israel'. Since then, the Microsoft staffers said, they can no longer send emails to anyone, including human resources, that contained the words 'genocide', 'Gaza', 'Palestine' or even 'Vaniya Agrawal'. One worker with NoAA, Nisrine Jaradat, was able to get around the block and send an email to all Microsoft staff decrying the policy that 'utterly and completely discriminate[s] against an entire nation, an entire people, and an entire community'. Jaradat called on her co-workers to either organize against the company's work with the IDF or quit. 'If you choose to leave Microsoft to no longer be complicit in genocide do not go quietly,' Jaradat wrote. Many workers have consulted with local religious leaders and scholars but have not been given a clear response. 'We've been wanting to get an opinion that says, you know, 'Just quit, you should not be working here,' but we did not,' one Microsoft worker said. 'They just say it depends on the situation.' Imam Omar Suleiman has been helping people figure out whether working at certain companies is halal or permissible for the entire 20 years he's been a religious leader. Over the last two years, Muslims tech workers from around the country have reached out to Suleiman's Yaqeen Institute with the same question: can I still work at a tech company that is helping power the Israeli military? For Suleiman, tech has been one of the hardest fields to navigate 'because you have Muslims that work at various levels and tech companies are involved in this genocide to varying extents', he said. What Suleiman and the Yaqeen Institute – where Aboussad now works – ultimately decide matters a great deal to tech workers of a certain age. The institute is well regarded among millennial Muslims in the US for its easy-to-digest content on how to understand and apply the teachings of the Qur'an. Suleiman's videos have garnered him more than 3 million Instagram followers. Nearly every tech worker who the Guardian spoke to cited Suleiman's speeches shared on social media as inspiration for why they want to leave Google or Microsoft. Yet for Suleiman, who recently gave an impassioned speech, or khutbah, at a Virginia mosque urging congregants to 'have some dignity' and quit their jobs at arms manufacturers, whether Islam requires that these tech workers leave their jobs with the same urgency is still an open question. Like Suleiman's example of a clerk at a grocery store selling alcohol alongside fruits and vegetables, it is not as clearcut if coding productivity tools poses the same grave transgression as building a bomb. Suleiman and others at the Yaqeen Institute are working on developing a general framework that will help Muslims decide whether they can religiously justify working at any of the tech firms contracting with the IDF. That framework will be published as a resource for both local imams as well as individuals in the midst of a spiritual crisis about their jobs. Suleiman looks at cases from many different sides. Staff have to ask themselves personal questions. Islamic religious law advises all Muslims to leave something that causes them doubt for something that doesn't. But, he cautions, many cases are complicated. You might be the primary breadwinner of your household, have an employer-sponsored visa or be working at a part of the company that you feel doesn't have anything to do with the products the firm builds for militaries, such as LinkedIn. One also has to evaluate whether you're having a positive impact by staying in the company. 'There's room for the person who holds back the hand of the pharaoh from inside the pharaoh's court,' Suleiman said. 'But they have to demonstrate how exactly [they are] minimizing that harm without at any point becoming a mouthpiece for oppression.' And they need to evaluate the workings of their companies, he said. Do they produce haram, or impermissible, products, like alcohol or weapons used to kill people? In those cases, 'they need to leave their job and they need to find a different job depending on what layer they participate in and how much need they have', Suleiman said. Or is the company based around usury or interest-based transactions, which are also impermissible in Islam? In those cases, you can still work at the company, but you should up your charity to offset those haram transactions. While Islamic jurisprudence has an established structure to make these decisions, Suleiman says tech remains a complicated matter to locate within that framework. The imam said he is still in the discovery phase on how the roles workers find themselves in at these companies align with their religious duty. 'It's very hard to compare something that's just purely generating weapons of mass destruction and a tech company that has a wide array of businesses, but also happens to be manufacturing for a genocide,' he said. 'It's hard for me to figure out when that line disappears.'
Morocco World
25-04-2025
- Business
- Morocco World
Indie Game Pulled from Xbox in Protest of Microsoft's Role in Gaza Genocide
Rabat — Indie game label Ice Water Games has pulled its project Tenderfoot Tactics from the Xbox store, citing support for the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which added Microsoft's Xbox to its priority boycott list earlier in April. 'We hope that Microsoft will listen to the voices of their workers and customers and stop all business with the criminal Israeli military, which we have watched conduct an open genocide in Gaza over the last 18 months,' the label stated via social media. On April 7, BDS designated Microsoft a priority target, calling it 'perhaps the most complicit tech company in Israel's illegal occupation, apartheid regime, and ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza.' The movement has accused Microsoft of deep integration with the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and prison system — pointing to the company's Azure cloud and AI services, which are used by the IOF and are integral to the technological machinery driving Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza. 'After 34 years of direct complicity with Israel's military, the Israeli army now relies heavily on Microsoft to meet the technological needs of its genocide and apartheid regime,' BDS declared in a statement. Calling on global consumers to boycott Microsoft's gaming products, BDS laid out different levels of action — from canceling Xbox subscriptions, boycotting flagship titles such as Call of Duty, Minecraft, and Candy Crush, to boycotting all of the company's products. Microsoft's addition to the BDS priority list came in the wake of the firing of Moroccan engineer Ibtihal Aboussad, who confronted company executives about its involvement in Israeli atrocities during a live presentation at Microsoft's Redmond headquarters. 'Mustafa, shame on you,' Aboussad told Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman. 'You claim to care about using AI for good, but Microsoft sells AI weapons to the Israeli military. Fifty thousand people have died, and Microsoft powers this genocide in our region.' In February, the Associated Press released an investigation exposing how US tech firms have been aiding Israel in accelerating its kill-chain capabilities in Gaza and Lebanon. The findings revealed that Microsoft and OpenAI technologies have become increasingly embedded in Israel's indiscriminate killing of Palestinains since October 2023. At least 50,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 113,000 injured since the start of Israel's genocide on Gaza almost 19 months ago. These numbers are conservative estimates based on health facility records, while thousands remain buried under rubble or have been obliterated beyond recognition by Israel's weapons.
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Microsoft faces growing unrest over role in Israel's war on Gaza: ‘Close to a tipping point'
For the second time in the last month, Microsoft employees disrupted high-level executives speaking at an event celebrating the company's 50th anniversary on 4 April, in protest against the company's role in Israel's ongoing siege on Gaza. The AI executive Mustafa Suleyman was interrupted by the employees Ibtihal Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal. The two were fired within days. The Microsoft president, Brad Smith, and the former CEO Steve Ballmer were shouted down at Seattle's Great Hall on 20 March by a current and former employee. The March event was preceded by a rally outside that also included current and former employees of the tech giant. Protesters projected a sign on to the hall's wall saying: 'Microsoft powers genocide' – a reference to Israel's extensive use of the company's AI and cloud computing services since 7 October 2023, as 'the IDF's insatiable demand for bombs was matched by its need for greater access to cloud computing services,' the Guardian reported. Related: Revealed: Microsoft deepened ties with Israeli military to provide tech support during Gaza war The rally and disruption were the latest of a growing number of protests in which employees at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington state, have urged the company to cut ties with Israel, after discontent around the issue among some of them simmered for a year-plus on company message boards, in emails and on calls with what the company calls 'workplace conflict' team members. Taken together, the protests suggest that more will follow, as well as employees deciding to leave the company altogether, according to present and past employees who spoke to the Guardian. Microsoft did not reply to a request for comment. The series of events echoes those at other tech companies, including Google, where employees have likewise protested against the company's ties to Israel and been fired. In February, Google changed its AI guidelines, removing commitments not to use artificial intelligence for surveillance or weapons. The former Microsoft software engineer Hossam Nasr described the situation at the company as 'very close to a tipping point'. He highlighted the recent events, a 24 February demonstration at the company's first in-person town hall since early in the pandemic and a 24 October lunchtime vigil for the tens of thousands of Palestinians that Israel has killed in the last 18 months, as examples of rising discontent. The February demonstration was short-lived: as the Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, began talking up new products, five employees stood on a platform above, exposing lettering on their T-shirts that spelled out the words: 'Does Our Code Kill Kids, Satya?' Within minutes, several men quietly ushered them out of the room. As for the October rally, Nasr and researcher and the data scientist Abdo Mohamed helped organize the event; both were fired shortly afterward. The dismissals, together with a spate of recent, in-depth articles about Microsoft's role in Israel's siege on Gaza, have helped galvanize those in the company who are concerned about the issue, according to Nasr, the former employee Aboussad, and two current employees who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. Aboussad told the Guardian she had grown increasingly conflicted in recent months as a software engineer working in AI. After several years at the company, she said, recent reporting 'showed [me] more and more Microsoft's deep ties to the Israeli government'. An AP report on the use of US-made AI in Gaza, including Microsoft's, was the 'last straw because it showed that AI is being used to target and murder Palestinians … I began thinking, there's no way I can stay at Microsoft and have clean hands,' Aboussad said. The software engineer said it was impossible to know if her work was deployed in Gaza, since the company 'anonymizes' all contracts with the Israeli government. At the same time, she said: 'I'm not confident my paycheck doesn't originate from money that comes from the Israeli government.' Within days of speaking to the Guardian, Aboussad was fired. A half-dozen or so colleagues have told her they were thinking of leaving the company, she said. Before the recent, in-person protests, Microsoft employees had been mostly weighing in online about Hamas's attack and Israel's ongoing retaliation. Some discourse on Microsoft's Viva Engage company message board grew contentious. One employee posted: 'There is no symmetry between people who educate their children on [sic] schools to murder Jewish people and people that are just defending themselves.' Several pleas for compassion for Palestinians were met with the blunt epithet 'terrorist supporters'. Employees concerned about the fate of Palestinians or critical of Israel have also been complaining about what they viewed as a double standard since shortly after 7 October. They allege Microsoft censors their viewpoints in internal forums but does not treat supporters of Israel the same. One employee who spoke with the Guardian shared screenshots of emails from members of the company's 'Global Employee Relations Team', whose job is to handle 'complex and sensitive matters, conduct investigations and manage workplace conflict', according to Microsoft. One email details an employee complaint over the use of terms such as 'ethnic cleansing' on Viva Engage, to describe Israel's actions in Gaza. Another message underlines the need to follow 'company values' like 'respect and kindness to each other' when posting about Israel and Gaza or the West Bank. On 16 November 2023, Microsoft blocked employees from posting in the message board's 'All Company' channel altogether, which broadcasts to all of Microsoft's 400,000 employees and vendors. The tenor of online, internal activism changed over the course of 2024, said Nasr. In the months following 7 October, many employees with concerns about events in Gaza focused on Microsoft's public statements and circulated a petition urging the company to publicly call for a ceasefire. But their attention gradually turned to the company's own business practices, he said. By mid-year, Nasr and others were organizing 'No Azure for Apartheid' a reference to Microsoft's Azure suite of cloud computing and AI products. The group gathers signatures from fellow employees on a petition urging the company to cancel its cloud computing and AI contracts with the Israeli military and to disclose its ties to the country's government. In the new year, documents obtained by Dropsite, an independent news outlet, revealed 'a 'gold rush' among tech companies seeking to provide services to the Israeli military'– including Microsoft. Dropsite shared the documents with the Guardian, leading to another story, and with +972 magazine, an Israeli outlet. A month later, on 18 February, the AP published its own reporting. This run of detailed, in-depth reporting fueled the simmering concerns among some Microsoft employees. The day after the AP's investigation published, according to screenshots of Viva Engage messages, an employee asked senior leadership about the articles, wondering whether 'Microsoft has completely abandoned its … Human Rights Statements?' The post notes that Microsoft's human rights commitments include 'champion[ing] the positive role of technology across the globe' and 'reduce[ing] the risk of harm'. 'However, this AP investigation clearly shows the AI technology we provide directly enables Gaza's destruction,' the post reads. By the next morning, the post was removed from the chat. The handful of articles has been 'absolutely critical' to offline organizing efforts, said Anna Hattle, who has been with the company nearly five years. This is particularly true since 'a lot of tech workers exist in a bubble, and Microsoft wants to keep it that way. An employee who doesn't know their work is being used for AI weapons isn't going to do anything about it.' At work and at rallies, she said, 'individual conversations with [fellow employees]' helps spread information contained in the coverage. Nasr said that No Azure for Apartheid also worked with Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) to add Microsoft to its list of boycott campaigns. BDS announced the campaign 3 April, highlighting how the 'Israeli army relies heavily on Microsoft to meet technological requirements.' At the same time, one Microsoft employee told the Guardian she was 'exhausted' by the struggle to draw attention to what she sees as a betrayal of the company's stated values in its contracts with Israel. As an example, she cited an event in which the Palestinian journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin was invited in November 2023, to speak to employees. Israeli employees filed reports alleging that the organizers were antisemitic, and the company cancelled the event. She also pointed to the back and forth on Viva Engage, including one screenshot that showed an employee calling Palestinians 'Killers. Terrorists. Monsters.' Other employees have already left. On 4 December, Angela Yu sent an email to nearly 30,000 employees announcing her resignation. 'I joined Microsoft with the belief that my work will advance technology 'for the good of humanity',' she wrote. Yu highlighted the recent reporting on Microsoft's ties to Israel and said: 'It hurts my conscience to know that the products you and I work on are enabling the Israeli military to accelerate its project of ethnic cleansing.' Yu went on to urge anyone reading to sign 'No Azure for Apartheid's' petition. She noted that the company had dropped business contracts for ethical reasons before – including in 1986, when it cut ties with South Africa over apartheid. At the time, Microsoft's global sales were about $100m, according to contemporaneous news coverage – or less than the current value of one contract between the tech company and Israel's ministry of defense. The 'exhausted' employee said these numbers point to the difficulty of protesting against Microsoft's presence in Israel. The company is 'a money machine', she said. 'All they care about is money. AI and work, work, work.'
