A BBC investigation reveals that Microsoft is permanently banning Palestinians in the U.S. and other countries who use Skype to call relatives in Gaza.

Reportedly, Microsoft has been banning and wiping the accounts of users who have leveraged Skype to contact relatives in Gaza. In some cases, email accounts over a decade old have been locked, destroying access to banking accounts, OneDrive storage, and beyond.

United States resident Salah Elsadi lost his account of over 15 years in the dragnet. “I’ve had this Hotmail for 15 years. They banned me for no reason, saying I have violated their terms — what terms? Tell me. I’ve filled out about 50 forms and called them many many times.” Eiad Hametto from Saudi Arabia echoed the report, “We are civilians with no political background who just wanted to check on our families. They’ve suspended my email account that I’ve had for nearly 20 years. It was connected to all my work. They killed my life online.”

Many of the users affected by the bans expressed that Microsoft may be falsely labelling them as Hamas

    • @[email protected]
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      225 months ago

      Why do people keep recommending Mint as a starter distro? Maybe if your computer is a toaster, but it lacks tons of modern features. Seems like a one way track to people thinking Linux sucks. Fedora KDE edition is a way better beginner distro for a halfway decent PC.

      • Flying Squid
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        255 months ago

        I use Mint and I like it. It does everything I need it to do.

        What keeps people away from Linux, or at least it helped keep me away, were people arguing with each other about distros like a mini-OS war within the OS wars and it makes the whole thing sound like it’s a lot more trouble than it’s worth.

        Most people’s computers are “toasters” because most people’s computers are used for things like web browsing, word processing and maybe a few games. They don’t need the modern features, they need something that works better than a Chromebook and isn’t super bloated.

      • Krzd
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        135 months ago

        Because the UI is similar to windows, so it will feel more familiar to (ex-)windows users

          • Krzd
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            35 months ago

            True, I meant cinnamon, which (IIRC) was the default/suggested to you when you went to the website.

              • @[email protected]
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                25 months ago

                who are these adult humans who can’t face choices? I don’t really understand how or why they even chose their PC in the first place.

                It sounds like such people will be a lot better off with android or mac, or windows or chromebook. If they want to do games get a console.

                It’s sort of like if a person has no enthusiasm for or interest in cars, they might be better off with a rental.

                if you really want to make another version of something like chromeos for this audience, there is nothing stopping you. But the free/foss open source world is always going to have choices that bamboozle these people who can’t look at the mint website and pick one, or just resolve to test all three.

        • @[email protected]
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          15 months ago

          KDE is closer to the modern Windows UI than Cinnamon. Cinnamon looks like Windows XP which nobody has used in like a decade. It’s not a familiar UI anymore​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​.

      • @[email protected]
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        35 months ago

        The next version of Mint is in beta right now and will likely release within a few weeks. Might want to hold off until then.

          • @[email protected]
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            25 months ago

            I did not use mint, so it is hard to compare for me. But people say that it is easier to use than mint.

            To be honest I used Tumbleweed long time ago(around 6 years), I’m using Gentoo for last 6 years.