human rights

Microsoft’s cloud and AI relationship with Israel’s defense apparatus has entered a new, contentious phase after recent reporting and company actions prompted an internal and external reckoning that has left engineers, customers, and human-rights advocates watching closely. Multiple accounts...

Microsoft has disabled specific Azure cloud and AI subscriptions used by a unit of Israel’s Ministry of Defense after an internal review found elements of investigative reporting that suggested Microsoft technology was being used to ingest, store and analyze large volumes of intercepted...

A new Principled Technologies (PT) study — circulated as a press release and picked up by partner outlets — argues that adopting a single‑cloud approach for AI on Microsoft Azure can produce concrete benefits in performance, manageability, and cost predictability, while also leaving room for...

Satya Nadella’s terse admission — “we can do better” — landed like a seismic aftershock inside Microsoft, crystallizing months of tension as one of the world’s largest tech companies simultaneously cut thousands of roles, tightened internal communications, and rolled out a phased requirement for...

The confrontation at Microsoft’s Redmond campus in August and the weeks of escalation that followed have turned a previously quiet internal dispute into what may be the most consequential labor story in the U.S. this year: current and former Microsoft employees organized under the banner No...

Israel’s reliance on commercial cloud and AI tools has crossed a new threshold: investigative reporting and follow‑up coverage show the Israeli military’s Unit 8200 used a segregated Microsoft Azure environment to store and process huge volumes of intercepted Palestinian phone calls, and that AI...

Microsoft’s decision to terminate multiple employees after an on‑campus sit‑in over alleged uses of Azure in Israeli military intelligence operations has turned a workplace protest into a major corporate governance and technology‑ethics crisis for the company — one that raises urgent questions...

Microsoft’s decision to terminate four employees after on‑campus protests over the company’s ties to Israel crystallizes a larger, unresolved crisis at the intersection of cloud infrastructure, corporate governance, and worker activism. Background / Overview In late August, demonstrators from a...

Microsoft’s Redmond campus erupted this week after a small group of protesters — including two current employees — forced their way into the executive suite and briefly occupied the office of company vice chair and president Brad Smith, an escalation that ended in arrests and immediate...

Microsoft confirmed it fired two employees after a group of protesters — including current and former staffers — broke into the Redmond office of company president Brad Smith and staged a brief sit‑in as part of an intensifying campaign over Microsoft’s ties to the Israel Defense Forces and...

Microsoft president Brad Smith’s compact public line — “some of what was reported needs to be tested” — is the latest punctuation in a rapidly escalating crisis for Azure, Microsoft’s relationships with the Israeli security establishment, and the cloud industry’s role in wartime intelligence and...

A sit‑in at Microsoft’s Redmond campus that ended with arrested protesters inside the office of company president Brad Smith has erupted into a global ethics crisis for the maker of Windows and Azure, exposing fundamental tensions between cloud economics, employee activism, human‑rights...

Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, told reporters from his office at the Redmond campus that the company will “investigate and get to the truth” after a Guardian-led investigation alleged that Israel’s Unit 8200 had used Microsoft Azure to store and process vast troves of intercepted Palestinian...

Microsoft employees have erected a protest encampment on the company’s Redmond campus, turning a high-profile workplace dispute over Israel ties into a public test of Microsoft’s ethics, governance, and operational transparency. protest is the latest escalation in a year-long campaign by...

Microsoft has opened an externally supervised review after investigative reporting alleged that Israel’s intelligence services used a bespoke environment running on Microsoft Azure to ingest, store and analyse very large volumes of intercepted Palestinian communications — a development that...

Microsoft has opened an externally supervised inquiry into allegations that Israel’s military intelligence used a bespoke area of Microsoft Azure to ingest, store and analyse enormous volumes of intercepted Palestinian phone calls — a development that escalates a months‑long policy, legal and...

Microsoft has opened a formal review into allegations that its cloud and AI technologies were used by Israeli security forces for large‑scale surveillance in Gaza and the West Bank — a development that escalates months of investigative reporting, employee protests, and policy debate about the...

Microsoft has opened an urgent external review after media investigations alleged that Israel’s Unit 8200 used a bespoke area of Microsoft’s Azure cloud to collect and store immense volumes of intercepted Palestinian communications—raising fresh questions about cloud governance, data residency...

Microsoft’s Azure cloud has quietly become the focus of one of the most consequential tech-and-human-rights controversies of the decade after investigative reporting alleged that Israel’s elite signals intelligence unit used a bespoke Azure environment to ingest, store and analyze enormous...

Microsoft has opened a formal inquiry after fresh reports allege that Israel’s elite intelligence unit used Microsoft Azure to store and analyse vast volumes of intercepted Palestinian communications, raising urgent questions about cloud governance, corporate responsibility, and the role of big...