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
Unfortunately, I don’t have standing as I’m not a Microsoft customer or Palestinian, nor do I have relatives or any contacts for that matter in Gaza.
Having relatives anywhere is not a protected class, to begin with.
Surely if I have relatives that are a protected class, I’d also likely be a protected class as well, no? Especially if I was kicked from their platform specifically because of the protected class…
But that’s irrelevant because I’m nowhere close to having standing to sue. The closest thing is that my SO is an naturalized citizen from another country, but that country is only marginally closer to Gaza than where I am.