'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

  • @WilzaxEnglish
    15•25 days ago

    Or if you have a little more money, there’s the Proton pass which comes with VPN, Email, Drive, Calendar, and Password Manager. All protected under swiss privacy laws. They have a free tier of their drive with 5GB storage so you can collaborate on other people’s documents without needing to pay yourself, and they have a $120/yr US Tier for 500GB for 1 person, and a $288/year US Tier for 3TB for up to 6 people. If you don’t need that much storage and don’t care about anything other than the email, they have a 15GB plan with just email and calendar for only $48/yr US.

    This is not an ad, I am a real person with no connection to Proton except a deep respect for their business, and an even deeper hatred for Microsoft

    • @[email protected]English
      5•25 days ago

      I think Proton is a good choice. I’ve heard good things about them.

      For me personally, I’d be worried about putting all my eggs in one basket. For example, I like having my password manager (Bitwarden) entirely separate from everything else. I know that’s not how the general population thinks though, so I think all-in-one solutions like Proton (and also Microsoft’s and Google’s paid suites) definitely have their place.

      Do Proton have a larger plan with just email and calendar?

      • @[email protected]English
        1•24 days ago

        I think Proton is a good choice. I’ve heard good things about them.

        Well they have been behaving just as Microsoft has been doing if we’re complaining about these kinds of behaviours. Handing over information about environmentalists and freedom fighters to repressive governments, etc.

      • @WilzaxEnglish
        1•25 days ago

        I think I’d rather have proton be my password manager than anyone else out there, and then take advantage of the other services they offer with it. Unless I wanted to keep my password manager entirely offline, which is far more secure but far less convenient

        • @[email protected]English
          1•25 days ago

          If you use a keepass file, you can just have it on a trustworthy cloud (like private nextcloud server) and sync to the keepass apps via webDav. Works perfekt!