'Microsoft killed my online life,' Microsoft is reportedly banning Palestinians in the U.S. for life for calling relatives in Gaza
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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.

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

  • KrzdEnglish
    11•5 months ago

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

      • KrzdEnglish
        3•5 months ago

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

          • @[email protected]English
            1•5 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]English
      1•5 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​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​.