SPECIAL ISSUE: Blood in the Cloud — Boycott Microsoft Now
From productivity tools to targeting civilians: the dark side of Microsoft’s cloud.
I don’t usually publish outside my regular schedule. But what was revealed this week is too urgent, too enraging, and too morally repugnant to wait until Thursday.
This is not a think piece. This is not analysis for the sake of understanding. This is a call to action — to everyone reading — to stop funding and enabling a company complicit in the machinery of surveillance and occupation.
The Bombshell
On August 6, The Guardian and +972 Magazine revealed that Microsoft’s Azure cloud has been the backbone for Israel’s Unit 8200 to conduct mass surveillance on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
This isn’t speculation or rumor. It’s documented:
Over a million phone calls are intercepted every hour
11,500 terabytes of stored conversations — that’s 200 million hours of private speech, mined for intelligence
Custom-built Azure infrastructure to feed military targeting systems, enabling airstrikes, detentions, and killings
And all of this as Benjamin Netanyahu openly flirts with the complete takeover and resettlement of Gaza despite global condemnation , erasing any notion of Palestinian self-determination.
This is not “empowering every person on the planet,” quoting Satya Nadella. It’s powering an occupation.
Microsoft’s Hollow Denials
In May , Microsoft told the world its internal review found “no evidence” of its technology being used to harm people in Gaza. Now, faced with irrefutable reporting, they’ve launched a new internal investigation — the corporate equivalent of looking surprised after being caught with blood on your hands.
We’ve seen this playbook before:
Deny knowledge.
Commission a PR-friendly “review.”
Hide behind the myth of “neutral technology.”
Wait for the public to forget.
Only this time, the stakes are genocide.
Complicity in Plain Sight
Microsoft can’t claim ignorance. Providing customized cloud infrastructure to Unit 8200 is not the same as selling a generic service and hoping it’s used ethically. This was purpose-built to manage and weaponize surveillance data from a captive population.
When your core business is providing cloud services to hospitals, schools, and governments, and you also funnel those same capabilities into military occupation, you’ve crossed a moral line that cannot be uncrossed.
Surveillance Capitalism in Combat Boots
This is surveillance capitalism stripped of its marketing gloss. The raw, militarized version:
No oversight.
No consent.
No separation between civilian and military use.
It’s the same profit logic that drives your email hosting and AI copilots, now aimed squarely at the infrastructure of oppression.
And if Microsoft can do this in Gaza, they can and will do it anywhere if the money is there.
Enough is Enough
There comes a point where outrage has to become action. This is that point.
Boycott Microsoft.
Don’t just fume. Divest your money, your labor, your attention.
Switch from Office 365 to LibreOffice or Google Workspace.
Move your cloud hosting to AWS, Google Cloud, or better yet, independent providers with explicit human rights commitments.
Demand your employer and institutions review their Microsoft contracts and walk away if ethics mean anything to them.
If you’re in tech, stop lending your skills to a company that will happily use them to fortify an apartheid state. If you’re a consumer, stop funding the machine. Throw your Xbox in the trash.
No More Neutrality
There’s no such thing as a neutral tool in the hands of power. When your cloud services help track, detain, and kill civilians, you don’t get to plead innocence. You are part of the machine.
Microsoft chose its side.
Now it’s time we choose ours.