Volish staff say that emails containing the words are either heavily delayed or not delivered at all. According to a post by the No Azure for Apartheid campaign on Medium, emails referring to the movement or former employee organiser Vaniya Agrawal were affected, with delivery taking 24 hours or more or simply not arriving.
The campaign is calling for Microsoft to stop providing its Azure cloud platform to the Israeli military. Interestingly, emails containing alternate spellings like “P4lestine” reportedly go through without issue, which workers see as a sign of keyword-based filtering.
Microsoft’s Chief Communications Officer Frank Shaw told The Verge that mass internal messages were inappropriate. “Emailing large numbers of employees about any topic not related to work is not appropriate,” Shaw said. “A number of politically focused emails have been sent to tens of thousands of employees across the company and we have taken measures to try and reduce those emails to those that have not opted in.”
The employee group claims the delays are part of what it calls “Microsoft’s systematic censorship of speech related to Palestinian rights and discrimination against Palestinian workers and their allies.”
Tensions escalated earlier this week when Joe Lopez, a now-former Vole interrupted CEO Satya Nadella’s keynote at the company’s Build conference. “Satya! How about you show how Microsoft is killing Palestinians? How about you show the Israeli war crimes are powered by Azure. As a Microsoft worker, I refuse to be complicit in this genocide. Free Palestine!” Lopez shouted.
CNBC later confirmed Lopez was terminated for “misconduct resulting in the violation of company policy and our expectations of a respectful workplace.” Agrawal had already been fired in April after staging a protest at Microsoft’s 50th anniversary bash.
In the No Azure for Apartheid statement, Lopez doubled down. “Workers have a duty to speak out when they notice that their labor is being used to harm people,” he said. “Restricting communication like this is an erosion of our ability as Microsoft workers to freely discuss company policy and strategy. It is extremely concerning that this is the route that leadership is taking.”
