> The company also said that Abousssad could have raised concerns “confidentially with your manager, or with Global Employee Relations. Instead, you chose to intentionally disrupt the speech of Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman.”
“You should have dumped your complaint in a black hole instead of speaking up.”
Brave folks: they’ll no doubt see a ton of harassment and their future employment prospects (or even immigration status) may be affected. But if I found out that technology I was working on was being used to kill people, I might choose to flame out in the same manner. It’s hard to wash blood off your hands.
Reading the article you can call this a protest, because yes it does fit under that definition because it's quite broad, but it doesn't fit the normal idea of what we would consider a protest. This was not people who decided not to attempt the 50th anniversary and then go outside and conduct a peaceable protest. You could equally use the word disruptors to describe what they did.
As Microsoft said it seems that they work quite willful in their disruption. People seems to have forgotten how to be effective at making changes. They should have first gone and made their grievances known in a private way to the appropriate people. Get the attention of leadership in a way that is respectful and they in turn will be more willing to hear what you have to say. If that doesn't work you begin to broaden out your objections to get others involved and to make the issue more well-known. Seems people have forgotten that part abd skip those initial steps going straight to the disrupting ways. As if they are babies throwing a tantrum. I don't know if it's because they were never given discipline when they were younger and so throwing the tantrum is the way that they've learned gets them what they want.
I think the protesters do have a valid point but I'm with Microsoft on this one. They didn't try and have their grievances handled in a productive way by going to those and making their case they started by just being disruptive jerks. Even if they have the most valid point in the world, the way they presented it should get them tossed out.
Even if they made steps, and were ignored, because management disagrees with them or for whatever reason, they still don't get a pass for disrupting normal business. It is a private company, you can say your opinion, but if you disrupt, you are gone. Very sane and simple.
> “They should have first gone and made their grievances known in a private way to the appropriate people.”
Why did you automatically assume they didn’t? Do you have special knowledge of the situation or did you just assume that was the case solely on the words of a company press release? Clearly the company would have no reason to use the same tired recycled excuses in press releases of “you should have talked to us privately” every company claims after a protest (which often get proved out as false in later employment lawsuits).
It seems odd that someone would write, “this is especially true when I've witnessed how Microsoft has tried to quell and suppress any dissent from my coworkers who tried to raise this issue” if the issue had never been raised or discussed prior.
Do they deserve to be fired? Sure. Does that mean protesting and disrupting a celebration was wrong after many people had tried to voice opposition of their use of AI this way, I don’t know that I can agree.
If you have ever worked at a Fortune 500 company, you would know that you might as well scream into a void if you think a company is going to reverse their decision to make more profit because of some whiney employees who don’t want to “just do your job”. Sometimes disruptive actions are the only way to bring attention to the things companies do, as can be seen by this being covered in the press , which means more attention has been brought to the issue, which was exactly the goal was it not?
Seeing the footage I very much doubt Ibtihal Aboussad hadn’t addressed this before via a more proper channel. She addressed Mustafa Sulema by first name, she talks as if she knows he knows what she is talking about, as if she has addressed this to him personally multiple times before.
Reading about her history and role in No Azure for Apartheid it is very unrealistic to assume this is the first action they did.
> Get the attention of leadership in a way that is respectful
"Excuse me sir, but I've just become aware that you signed a deal to provide tech support for an army that is conducting a genocidal campaign. Would you please consider rethinking this contract? Thanks."
That's respectful, but completely pointless. Microsoft knows who its doing business with.
That doesn’t work and these people have increased awareness of Microsoft’s role in the genocide. We’re literally talking about it now because if their sacrifice. Anyone clutching pearls over this was pro-genocide in the first place and not worth catering to.
> these people have increased awareness of Microsoft’s role in the genocide. We’re literally talking about it now because if their sacrifice
Every Fortune 500 company does business in Israel, which means it directly or indirectly supports their military. If someone is just learning that I'm not sure how useful they are to anyone's cause.
We're talking about it, so it seems pretty effective to me! The "won't people think of Bill Gate's feelings!" arguments aren't very compelling, just makes you look like you want to be complicit.
> We're talking about it, so it seems pretty effective to me!
Talking about an issue is productive if you need to bring awareness to it. There is nobody on the planet who isn't aware that something is happening in Israel and Gaza. And when an issue is this divisive, calling attention to it mobilises both sides. (See polling following the protests at Columbia, for example. Awareness went up. But net support increased more for Israel than Palestine because people just defaulted to their priors.)
Support for Palestinians has increased steadily since Israel started its latest genocide. I think you're confusing Zionist PR expenditures with actual support, which is rapidly dwindling for Israel.
> Support for Palestinians has increased steadily since Israel started it's latest genocide
I never argued otherwise. I'm saying look at the polling immediately after the protests.
Media reporting of atrocities drives down favourability for Israel. Media reporting of the protests drives down favourability for Palestine. It's why, despite favourability for Israel monotonically declining since 2023, its net favourability vis-a-vis Palestine blipped up in '24.
> That's not true at all and you won't find a poll that backs up what you're saying
What's not? Literally look at the Gallup poll you cited [1] to see Palestinian favourability dip in 2024.
I'll note that part of it is the media's fascination with the pro-Hamas minority at pro-Palestinian protests. Organisers are getting a little better at screening those folks out.
There's zero evidence that the protests have had negative impact on support for Palestinians. The media is staunchly Zionist, you could make the case the protests have effectively counterbalanced their propaganda.
What happened? About a trillion dollars worth of hasbara, which in the end couldn't counteract the actual footage IDF were posting of their war crimes.
I’m starting to suspect you are arguing in bad faith. Three hours after you posted this, you posted [1] a sibling thread citing older numbers from the same source. Why did you do that? Over there your narrative was that support for Palestinians weren’t as great as your parent was arguing, so instead of citing this poll from this year, you posted an older poll from 2024 where support for Palestinians weren’t as great. You knew about this newer poll, but you still choose to post the older one that just so happens to align better with your argument.
Also this poll doesn’t back up what you are saying. These protests are as much anti-israel as they are pro-palestine, and support for Israel has been consistently dwindling. The protests continued throughout 2024 especially leading up to the November election, yet in 2025 support for Palestine was in all time high. Most likely the support dropped in 2024 because the horrors of the 2023 oct 7 terrorist attacks were still in fresh memory, so support for Palestine, which had been steadily increasing, took a momentary dip, but quickly readjusted at an increasing rate as the accusations of the Gaza genocide became ever harder to deny.
> you posted [1] a sibling thread citing older numbers from the same source. Why did you do that?
I’m citing the poll the commenter I’m responding to originally cited. Given they trust that poll, it made sense to respond to it. I was also making a point about a dip in 2024; the newer poll doesn’t update those data.
> support for Israel has been consistently dwindling
Literally what I’ve been arguing [1].
Support for Israel is monotonically decreasing. When protests are covered, support for Palestine dips.
For the record (not looking to argue, just pointing out interesting fact) this was just released today and shows for the first time that majority of Americans across all ages and all party affiliations have an unfavorable view of Israel (53%; up from 42% in 2022).
Don't forget it all came to the center stage after a mass butchering at a music festival, few beheadings and some Jewish babies kidnapped. Pretty effective! What is a little terrorism for a greater good! /S
It may not have worked but it would have been the right way to do it. Then after it didn't work they could do more meaningful things that are higher visibility.
There's a right order in which to do things which lends credence to what you're doing. Right now they're just viewed as a bunch of idiotic disruptors because they didn't do things in the right order.
Whenever there's protests, there's always people complaining that the protesters are doing it the wrong way - that's the history of protests and inevitably, the people complaining about the protesters end up on the wrong side of history (e.g. The Suffragettes went completely against the "rules of protesting" with such things as letter bombs).
I didn't know you wore pants when you were sitting in your mom's basement trolling. There is a way to do things so you're looked at as honorable and respectful and then there's a way to do things where you're looked at like a disruptive thug.
One gets you respect from even those who may disagree with your point of view, because they can still respect you as a person. The other way you're just looked upon as a disruptor who doesn't have any place in a civilized decent society. Whatever your point is was lost in how you tried to convey it.
Just like your point about pants is lost in whatever you're trying to convey.
I can't think of a single company (besides maybe a tiny start-up where you know all of leadership) where airing ethical grievances through a private, respectful, official channel would accomplish anything. If you're at the point where you're objecting so strongly to something your company is doing on ethical grounds, you're 99% of the way out the door already.
Better to just quit and if asked, quietly note the reason in your exit interview. Banding together and politely petitioning your company is not going to change anything--your employer is not a democracy. And obviously protesting your employer publicly is not going to help, either.
I didn't quite soil my pants like that other guy, but I at least mildly chuckled at the thought of telling my manager in my next 1:1 that I object ethically to some business my 10,000+ person company is engaged in.
Hey you seem rattled by that. I'm just humorously, and therefore much
more kindly pointing out something that could sound cruel if put
plainly; that you have a naive and distorted understanding of human
relations and offer really, really bad advice. But you seem stuck on
appeasing tyranny, so good luck with that. It never worked. I'll be in
my mom's basement if you need me :)
Why do these protestors never mention actions of ( US rated terrorist organization) Hamas in this situation? Apparently hiding in tunnels beneath hospitals and schools etc. Hiding behind and sacrificing Gazza people. Why they never mention Hamas has said wants to kill all from Israel etc ?
Because the Palestinians are being subjected to a campaign of mass murder at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces, and whatever problems people have with Hamas, those are not nearly as important as the fact that Israel kills tens of thousands of Palestinians at will.
I only wish there was a way I could reach out and say thanks, but I'm guessing they've scrubbed everything because they're likely to be harassed. Couldn't find anything online.
Those people were incredibly brave and I'm glad they stood up for what is right. Microsoft should be ashamed of itself, hopefully they feel real business pressure from BDS for their unethical support of genocide.
Maybe? It also comes across as petulant and self indulgent. I certainly wouldn't be thrilled for everyone's pet political issue to become the centrepiece at company celebrations.
> it only comes across like that if you place no value on Arab lives
My pet war has been Ukraine. (And to a lesser degree, the civil war in Ethiopia.) If someone interrupted my CEO at our annual holiday party to go off on a tangent about either of those wars, I'd consider it silly and disrespectful. (If it were done in front of a client or the press, I'd ask that they be fired.)
Russian plans and acts in Ukraine do qualify. It is not just a war, the plan was and is to erase Ukrainian identity. Mass murders were and are part of the Russian plan.
It's frankly unclear to me that there is. The definition of genocide seems to have expanded from its historical roots, and I haven't seen the pro-Palestinian faction in America make a credible claim that Israel is fighting this war materially differently from how every other war has been fought in the past decades by each of the U.S., Russia and China. I think the war should stop. But because war is horrible, not because it's in a special moral bucket.
But! I haven't done extensive research on this. So I'm really not claiming to know one way or another, just that I've put the whole thing into the same bucket as the Uyghurs, Sudan, Eritrea, North Korea and the other horrific places on the planet that I don't have much control over.
> calling it your “pet” war shows you aren’t serious
I mean, yes. I'm also about as serious about it as these folks were. Namely, I haven't had much of a tangible effect on either war for years. It's not a pet war if you do something effective about it.
(I did help with getting some...erm...stuff into Ukraine in 2023, but that's two years ago. I'll also dare to say that's a hell of a lot more I did for that war than someone mouthing off at a conference has done.)
> They sacrificed their jobs to protest genocide. You are nothing like them.
Right, the emphasis is on their sacrifice. Hence why I called it self indulgent. I had about as much effect on the wars I followed as they've had on this one.
> might want to look up the definition of sacrifice if you think it's synonymous with self-indulgent. It's literally the opposite.
It's orthogonal to self indulgence; what defines that is the effect. And it's inherently subjective. I'd argue most religious animal sacrifices are self indulgent. Obviously, the believers think otherwise. (Nobody asks the animal.)
In this case, they absolutely made a sacrifice. But the main effect is the fact that they sacrificed something. The sacrifice didn't actually do anything. Contrast that with e.g. putting yourself at risk to save somebody. That is more than performative.
They gave up six-figure jobs to take a moral stand. Calling that "self-indulgent" is just an attempt at character assassination, and it doesn't even make any sense.
Just because you had no reaction to it, it doesn't mean it didn't do anything. I know people at Microsoft and now they're talking internally about this.
> because you had no reaction to it, it doesn't mean it didn't do anything. I know people at Microsoft and now they're talking internally about this
I mean yes, we're all talking about it. I forgot what the protesters at Google who locked themselves into offices were specifically protesting, but everyone I know at Google talked about that, too. (Huh, it was also Israel [1].) This sort of outburst has basically never been an effective form of protest.
Yeah, they’re bombing kids. Even if it’s legally a military target, you’re not going to win hearts and minds bombing kids. My point is these protests seem to be more about the protesters doing their thing than trying to think about being effective. They’re voicing frustration, not agitating support. That’s fair. But it’s important to see it clearly for what it is, especially if someone wants to do something that’s more than performative.
> Microsoft would never work with Hamas or any other terrorist organization
Microsoft absolutely works with some of the aid organisations working in Palestine who someone may reasonably claim are supporting Hamas. The point is the content of the protest doesn't matter. The disruption does. A workplace doesn't work if everyone's standing on soapboxes.
Most of big tech have defense contracts with the government and the government uses that technology for their own objectives.
If you are working at the likes of Microsoft without that knowledge and disagree with the way those technologies are used by governments, maybe you should not be working for them at all, especially if you have "morals", "principles" or "ethics".
They used their positions to put pressure on a mega corporation. A huge sacrifice and now there are multiple mainstream media stories about Microsoft supporting genocide. Their efforts aren't going to end the killing but they are going to increase pressure on all corporations.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say the side bombing hospitals is fully animated. What is important is that more and more people realize the companies their giving their money to are using it to kill children.
> Americans who lightly support Israel are baby boomers that won't be with us much longer
While 55+ is strongly pro-Israel, 35 to 54-year olds are moderately pro-Israel [1]. So sure, in 30 to 60 years we might see a demography-driven shift. (Gen Z isn't pro-Palestine as much as more evenly divided.)
One of the strategic mistake the American pro-Palestinian movement made from the beginning was deploying majoritarian tactics. Those don't work if you don't actually have a majority. (This protest is an example of it.) Instead, the movement should be deploying minority tactics in the way e.g. the gun lobby does.
33% are sympathetic to Palestinians vs. 46% who are more sympathetic to Israel. Support for Israel is the lowest since they started measuring in 2001 and is showing a pretty rapid decline. Among democratic voters Palestine support is actually greater than support for Israel (59% vs 21%). Among the youngest age group (18-34 years old) support is 48% for Palestine vs 31% for Israel.
The takeaway isn’t just the shifting demography it is also a shift in support. More Americans are changing their opinion, away from Israel and towards Palestine. Especially among the Democratic voter base.
That's america. The rest of the western world (Ireland, UK, Aus etc) tend to be much more pro Palestine than israel, I'm assuming due to less biased media (The NYT edited that hospital bombing headline 4 times once published to hide israels fault)
It’s very difficult to disentangle how much the effect is driven by Jewish and Israeli diasporas (and others’ proximities to them) [1] versus outright bias. An Australian paper isn’t going to be held to account the same way the Times will be, arguable from both sides, because the latter serves a larger and more-diverse audience.
“You should have dumped your complaint in a black hole instead of speaking up.”
Brave folks: they’ll no doubt see a ton of harassment and their future employment prospects (or even immigration status) may be affected. But if I found out that technology I was working on was being used to kill people, I might choose to flame out in the same manner. It’s hard to wash blood off your hands.
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