Microsoft Places Clamps on Employee emails
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) employees are concerned that the company has been blocking Outlook emails containing the words “Palestine,” “Gaza,” “genocide,” “apartheid” and “IOF off Azure,” even if they’re including those terms in an HR complaint, according to screenshots, recordings and documents viewed by media outlets.
Employees said they started noticing the change Wednesday just before noon PST, batch-testing emails with the terms in question and emails without them. Only the ones without such terms appeared in their outboxes, suggesting those containing the terms weren’t received, according to the materials.
The people asked not to be named in order to speak freely.
One employee with the word “apartheid” in their email signature, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said they sent a typical work-related email late Wednesday morning successfully. The person said that just before noon on the same day, their emails wouldn’t go through — ostensibly due to their email signature.
On internal message boards, messages showed employees asking why their emails with the word “Israel” may go through but not the word “Palestine,” as well as “Gaza” and other terms. Modifications like “P4lestine” did go through, according to their tests.
One employee asked on an internal message board, “Is the company abandoning the inclusivity initiative or is this only targeting Palestinians and their allies?”
MSFT ditched $3.25, or 0.7%, to $451.61.
