- cross-posted to:
- microsoft@lemdro.id
- cross-posted to:
- microsoft@lemdro.id
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the email to Aboussad reads. “It is also concerning that you have not apologized to the company, and in fact you have shown no remorse for the effect that your actions have had and will have.”
Obviously there were going to fire these employees, especially the one who gave notice then did this.
But why the fuck would anyone be like “yOu DiDn’T eVeN aPoLoGiZe To ThE cOmPaNy”? That’s the stupidest god damn thing I’ve heard since “Liberation Day”
C-suits don’t live in the same world as the rest of us. Simple as that.
Because law. At every opportunity, make it seem like the employees were not blowing the whistle, but purposefully harming the company.
Hey, when’s the last time you showed remorse to your multi-trillion market cap employer? Next you’re gonna tell me something really outrageous like you didn’t even swear an oath of fealty to them.
“I’ll apologize when you apologize for building tools that killed children.”
Have you even said Thank You?!?
That email was almost certainly written by lawyers with the intention of supporting MS in court, should it come down to that.
that makes sense. i hate the fact that such a blatant play at covering your bases could hold up in any court. no matter the legal fineprint, it takes two functioning braincells to realise what’s going on here
Bingo. Lots of stupid things at this level boil down to legal protection. You’ll see it everywhere once you learn and look.
“Lucky we’re not countersuing! Oh the damages you are certain to be causing in the futureeee, the burns”
Actually now that I think about it maybe this was a multimillion dollar protest. The headlines have been published for and wide. I bet a few people spent more time feeling guilty than working right after as well - imagine one of them quitting. Still somewhat hard to believe it would lose them contracts but perhaps there will be potential customers who want to avoid connection with Microsoft until this blows over.
What about “you haven’t even thanked us!” to Zelensky?
Same energy.
But why the fuck would anyone be like “yOu DiDn’T eVeN aPoLoGiZe To ThE cOmPaNy”?
Frame the debate. MS doesn’t have to justify their profiteering if they can talk about the employee. The attention span of the public is limited.
Apologized? Did they berate her for not “wearing a suit” too?
Or speaking without permission with a vagina?!
The impertinence!
He’s not wrong, but ‘bringing your true self to work’ is something companies like to say but they don’t actually believe.
Exactly what a war profiteer would do.
the best thing i did was spend last month deleting the partitions in my desktop and laptop and installing mint.
Heck yeah. Once in installed Mint on my PC at home, it was only a matter of weeks before I double checked my backed up files and nuked my windows partition.
I still have the windows partition at work that I never use, and I have heard some bad stories about machines getting wiped when IT upgrades people to win11, so it might just have a little accident in its sleep.
I’ve been on Arch for a little while now, and Kubuntu before that. After Valve launched Proton on Steam, I found myself almost never booting into Windows. Once I ran out of disk space, it was an easy decision to completely purge Windows from my machine. Haven’t looked back in years.
Fuck Microsoft for trying to control my computer. Finally nice not having it reinstall Candy Crush after every update. And none of that copilot or online account bullshit.
That’s such a nice thing about Linux and FOSS in general. The issues you run into are different than what you may be used to with Windows, but at least the system and its developers aren’t working against you.
And if you don’t like the way one distro does things, you can switch to another one, and there are dozens to choose from. With Windows, of course there is only one distro, and if you don’t like it, too bad.
Mint is the best flavor of linux. I recommend it.
Heh, flavour
(I like Fedora, but it obviously doesnt taste as good)
I like Fedora
tip M’lady
(I’m using Bazzite, which is based on Fedora though)
I love my Pop OS
I’m actually allergic to mint. Can anyone suggest a version of Linux that doesn’t have any mint in it.
Fedora
I would say Ubuntu is the next best distro (if you want stability and easy of use)
I tried a variety of distros when I made the switch 9 or 10 years ago, Mint is by far my favorite. I’ve been running it continuously for at least the last 8 years.
Yeah, it just works and you never have to use the command line.
Ah, yes, nothing quite like retaliating against someone who says you did a bad thing. Sure showed them!
Is anyone surprised? Maybe the surprising part is that she’s still alive and only got fired.
Don’t worry, she’s probably getting deported/disappeared soon.
I am pretty sure ICE and DHS are enroute to arrest her and deport her to El Salvador. Fucking gestappo c**ts. This is exactly what Rashida Tlaib, Jill Stein and Kshama Sawant wanted.
The fact that they’re asking her to apologize is Just ass backwards.
They should apologize, and look into the issue, and possibly, stop, war profiting.
That’s okay. They’re going to lose a lot of Windows users, forcing them to upgrade Perfectly good computers.
i agree with what you’re saying from an ethical standpoint. i think she’s right to protest.
but it’s not “an issue”, it’s a huge fucking client of theirs. from a business standpoint its a huge ask to fire a whole military as a customer.
“We cant stop selling to war criminals. They are among our biggest customers.”
Sounds more like a company that needs to be dismantled and have their leadership face prison sentences. Given the size of Microsoft they could take the hit economically w.o. much hassle. They dont have to be evil. They want to be evil. And we need to punish them for it by boycotting their shit as much as possible.
Surely there’s an option between “drop major client” and “punish the person pointing out problems”
So a choice between money and ethics.
There is never any question which one companies choose.
Certainly not the one with a carreer in scumbaggery.My point was that there are plenty of other options.
Disrupting a meeting like that was always going to end in getting fired.
Not only will they fire her, they will also be less willing to hire other Palestinians in the future.
I don’t know about Microsoft but a FAANG company I worked for had very well documented means of raising ethical or legal issues within the company. She just violated her employment contract and possibly her NDA with the company by doing this.
I don’t mean to say she is right/wrong. It is just that she did not follow the guidelines of the company she works for. Therefore she will be fired even if she is right/wrong.
It didn’t have to. You only expect it to because there’s a history of companies being shitty.
Can’t help but think of this book wrt your comment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
I wish that were the case. But I doubt most people will ditch Windows. They’ll just pony up for a new computer. They’ll certainly lose some users. But Windows will still remain as top dog, most likely. And I doubt that’ll ever change so long as traditional desktop computers and laptops still exist.
Windows isn’t the issue here. The war profiteering is coming from the AI and cloud divisions
Ok cool. But I was replying to the comment regarding Microsoft forcing new computers on people. So no need for the correction.
Well, what did they expect?
They probably expected their employer not to participate in genocide.
What a dummy, right?!?! \s
It was about sending a message.
What message was that? They work for Microsoft a company that has had DOD contracts for at least the last 25-30 years.
They were a war profiteer when this worker got their gig. Why is it a problem now?
Direct participation in the military systems for a genocide is a tad further than the military industrial complex.
The message is that people participating in genocide will not be made at the very least very uncomfortable for doing so.
They had IDF contracts for decades as well. Seriously if they had a problem with this and this is not a PR stunt by this person they are choosing an odd time to make this statement.
An active mass genocide is an odd time to make a statement?
Microsoft lied about not supplying the IDF military cloud in the past.
And AI is a far more direct contribution to genocide than excel support.
Plenty of reasons to do it now. And better now than tomorrow.
Yes because their military work has been public for decades and it isn’t as if the IDF just started becoming problematic in 2023.
Literally this
It’s like they are signaling to the world how virtuous they are
A kind of high ground moral messaging if you will
Exactly, I would get if you work for a company that just got involved in the military fields but this is microsoft.
Problems can be ongoing or increase in severity. Just because it’s been an issue for a while doesn’t mean it’s too late for change.
Also, some people don’t have the luxury to choose an ethical employer (if they even exist).
If you are in tech getting hired by microsoft you should have options
…maybe.
Or, hear me out, the dude specifically applied for Microsoft with the intention of changing shit.
Do you think a non-executive hire has that ability? That’s a stretch IMO
Ethical options?
Not surprising, also seems like lawsuit material.
In terms of Microsoft suing her?
I guess it would depend on her contract, as Microsoft do profit from war so I would doubt a libel type case would get far.
Other way around.
What grounds would she have to sue?
More importantly, with what money? Mega corporations can afford to draw out lawsuits until the end of time (or until the judge gets annoyed), but individuals can’t.
If she has a lawsuit i would be happy to bolster her legal fund and i am sure many other people too.
The fact that it’s in retaliation for her speaking out about human rights violations, when they have a clear policy against retaliating against employees who speak out about human rights violations
As enraging as this whole story is, I don’t think there’s any coming back from ‘you’re a war profiteer’
Yeah, I assume the now-former employee acted with full expectation of losing her job over this. She succeeded at bringing attention to something many people (myself included) hadn’t heard about before, so she at least accomplished that much.
“I’m not interested in arguing” -someone who knows they’re in the wrong, but still holds the power
There is no such thing as “free speech” under capitalism.
sounds like you don’t know what free speech is
Shhhhh… Get out of here with your nuance. Let them screech about the bad private company violating the First Amendment.
It makes the monkeys feel better.
Edit:
Let them screech about the bad private company violating the First Amendment.
How many billions of dollars in government contracts do you need to receive before the line blurs? Microsoft might as well be a subsidiary of the Federal Bureaucracy, given the role it plays in national security, infrastructure, and data management. The US government is its biggest client by far.
Jerk harder!
That was the opposite of nuance. It was pedantry that deliberately missed the point.
It doesn’t seem they are using free speech in the same sense as the American first amendment (they may not be from the USA). But i would argue that if companies want to play politics, run countries, and be that integrated in people’s lives then free speech as a concept should extend to companies.
As a not-American we don’t say we have freedom of speech, we say we have protected speech and that is more inline with what you want
Microsoft has policy that prevents it from retaliatory actions against human rights violations. Court should rule Microsoft violated its own policies…
prevents it from retaliatory actions against human rights violations
They can’t retaliate if someone violates human rights?
They’re referencing what the second protester (Vaniya Agrawal) mentioned in her email:
Know that Microsoft’s human rights statement prohibits retaliation against anyone who raises a human rights-related concern: Human rights statement | Microsoft CSR
The Microsoft Global Human Rights Statement has a “Foundational principles” section that says:
Our commitment to human rights defenders: Our commitment to respecting and advancing human rights includes respect and support for the work of human rights defenders around the world. Human rights defenders are people who, individually or with others, engage in activities and advocacy that contribute to the protection of human rights and the rule of law, good governance, tolerance, and diversity and inclusion. Human rights defenders face persistent physical, social, economic, and psychological threats. Microsoft does not tolerate threats, intimidation, retaliation, physical, legal or cyber-attacks against human rights defenders. This commitment extends to all human rights defenders, including those working on issues related to Microsoft and those exercising their rights of freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, including to challenge or protest aspects of our own business.
Microsoft is clearly declining to fulfill its commitment as it is written in its statement.
Scumbags
But wasn’t she profiteering as well since Microsoft paid her wages and benefits? I’m confused.
She didn’t know that to start. She learned and she took action. I think the Verge had another article on her that described how she was initially excited to work for them and then realized that the circumstance.
Yeah she was working on AI auto-transcription for audio thinking ‘this will help people sort audio! Yay’ and found out it’s ‘it’ll help them sort audio of Palestinian phone calls so we can forward locations to the Israelis for bombings! No!’ Like how dynamite was supposed to be for construction and then it got turned into bombs.
How would you even screen tech work to make sure you’re not contributing to genocides by applying? Only apply to companies that explicitly say ‘Free Palestine’ on their profiles? Do they even exist in the USA? Not to mention she familiarized herself with the policy supporting human rights concerns before sending that message. The one that in a sane world would have prevented any of this from even happening (Microsoft’s involvement anyway).
I’m confused.
Yes - you are confused.
It’s possible to not realize you’re complicit or not realize the depth of it.
When this happens like it did, you do briefly become someone who is getting blood money. She took this chance to interfere with their event.
I’m confused.
I bet.
Linux isn’t perfect but I don’t have to put up with that kind of bullshit from the makers of my OS. Glad I switched long ago and never looked back (except for the Windows laptop I keep around for games)
Biggest turn off for Linux is all the insufferable Linux bros on Lemmy that make me want to avoid anything Linux. I instinctively roll my eyes when I hear the name alone now
I think everyone goes through a zealot period where they have discovered it and want the whole world to get on board. Now the setup works great for me and I do not care who else in the world uses it. My limited exposure to Windows 11 is infuriating and I’m eternally grateful to open source devs that I have a relaxing and functional Linux environment.
Just out of curiosity, what games do you need a windows machine to play that proton can’t make work on Linux?
A lot of games I want to play with mods, the authors only release Windows installers. A great example is Battletech, the HBS remake. There’s a “BTA advanced” mod I like to run and it takes a lot of screwing around to get it to work properly in Linux, but it’s a few clicks on Windows. I will agree Proton has come a LONG way and some titles are perfect, but I get so little gaming time that when I sit down, I don’t want to fucking around with swapping various Glorious Eggroll versions of Wine, or wondering which version of .net I need to get the game to run under Linux. On Windows it “just works”.
I do have a few titles I play on Linux, but I keep that laptop around just for gaming because I don’t want to mess around. Anecdotally I would say 90% of my games work absolutely perfectly with Proton and it’s mostly mods that screw up the experience.
Yup 100% on point with that. I’d say for me its 95% of my games work absolutely fine through proton. But I have a 500gb windows partition for the 5% that don’t.
One of my frustrations is, if I want to try some dozen games on Itch.io, they all come down as EXEs and it’s not clear how I could quickly set them up for Proton. I understand the 20-clicks method of setting up one game off of Steam, and Lutris helps with well-known launchers like Ubi Connect. But for independent authors, needing to do setup for every EXE is a heavy dealbreaker.
Have you tried using Bottles? Has a default Bottle for “games”. Run the .exe file in the Bottle and it should work.
I was just going to suggest this. Most small indy games from places like itch.io I play using Bottles and it works very well.
When I review itch games I always advocate for native Linux support. If the devs see it, they will do it. The ones I talk to who haven’t don’t want to put in the effort to learn how to compile it for Linux if barely anyone would use the port.
For me, its Battlefield. Most of them no longer work on Linux due to EA Anticheat
It’s so freaking annoying that these anti cheats don’t ever work with Linux… I wonder if steam did their own anti cheat that worked for Linux they could get those games to run on it, but it’s a pipedream, it’s too complex and it’s much better to keep the Linux portion of the market growing through making it more accessible to normal users and then getting the anti cheat companies interested in making a version for Linux instead
Thankfully one of the larger anti cheats (EasyAntiCheat) now has native support for the Linux kernel and enabling it is literally just a button for developers. But the problem still lies with kernel level anticheats… in an ideal world we just wouldn’t use anticheats that have to embed themselves in the system so deeply.
In an ideal world the anticheat would be 99% server-side and connections would be done through multicast.
I don’t know why people put up with BS just to play some game.
I guess the neurons that activate in their brains are the same that activate in the brains of smokers that are aware that smoking causes cancer, yet they do it anyway.
VR is still 99% windows right now, and if people dont appreciate the value of an affordable in-home holodeck after all this time i dont know what to say anymore
Meh, I found VR a gimmic…
It was pita to setup, gave me headaches (from wearing the kit), and “the best” game (Half Life Alyx) had complicated dynamics… so I already forgot what I was supposed to do (after Windows Updates, VR updates, approx. 2 reboots needed… Not to mention Windows updates fkd up my Linux multiboot few times…)
