Microsoft blocks emails containing terms related to 'Gaza,' 'Palestine,' 'genocide'

Microsoft employees announced Thursday that emails containing the terms "Gaza," "Palestine," and "genocide" are being blocked from being sent to anyone inside or outside the company, as protests over the company's connection to Israel intensified.The company's protest group, "No Azure for Apartheid," announced the email restrictions in a social media post on Thursday.

"Microsoft fires Joe Lopez for disrupting Genocide-profiteer Satya Nadella during Microsoft Build Keynote speech and bans words like 'Palestine', 'Gaza' and 'Genocide' in all company emails!!!" the group said.

"Yet another chapter in a long tale of Microsoft's intimidation, retaliation, repression, and censorship culture," they added.

Meanwhile, Microsoft confirmed to The Verge magazine that it has imposed some changes to reduce “politically focused emails” within the company.

On May 19, Joe Lopez, a firmware engineer on the Azure hardware systems team and member of activist group No Azure for Apartheid, interrupted CEO Satya Nadella's keynote address at the Build 2025 conference in Seattle.

"Satya! How about you show how Microsoft is killing Palestinians? How about you show the Israeli war crimes are powered by Azure," he shouted.

"As a Microsoft worker, I refuse to be complicit in this genocide," Lopez declared before being removed from the event. He was joined by a former Google employee who had previously protested that company's cloud contracts with Israel.

Following his removal, Lopez emailed thousands of Microsoft colleagues expressing dismay over the company's ongoing contracts with Israel's Defense Ministry.

"I can no longer stand by in silence as Microsoft continues to facilitate Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people," Lopez wrote, dismissing Microsoft's internal reviews as inadequate and calling for greater transparency.

"Leadership rejects our claims that Azure technology is being used to target or harm civilians in Gaza. Those of us who have been paying attention know that this is a bold-faced lie," the email said.

The demonstration is part of a larger campaign called No Azure for Apartheid, which is made up of both current and former Microsoft workers who are against contracts that they say facilitate mass surveillance and AI-powered communication monitoring in Gaza.

Microsoft acknowledged providing AI and cloud services to Israel's Defense Ministry, but denied that its products were used to attack people.

The business claimed to have conducted both internal and external investigations and discovered "no evidence to date that Microsoft's Azure and AI technologies have been used to target or harm people in the conflict."

The dispute arises due to Israel's blockage of humanitarian supplies from entering Gaza since March 2, worsening the situation that affects 2.4 million Palestinians who are solely dependent on such relief.