This Monday, May 19, the annual Microsoft conference dedicated to developers opened. While the company’s CEO, Satya Nadella, had been on stage for a few minutes, was interrupted by an employee, while US media report the edge.
“Satya! And if you showed how Microsoft kills the Palestinians? And if it shows how Israeli war crimes are fed by Azure (dematerialized computer Platform, editor note)? As a Microsoft employee, I reject me to be an accomplice of this genocide,” said Joe Lopez, a micrological engineer in the company for four years.
He was accompanied by a former Google employee, who filmed him. “Libera Palestina,” he shouted when he was escorted by security.
“Shameless lie”
Joe López is not the first employee to demonstrate during a Microsoft event to report the company’s contracts with Israel. In early April, when the company celebrated its 50th anniversary, an employee had interrupted the speech of the Chief of Microsoft AI, calling it “war generator.” Another had interrupted three CEO or former CEO of the company, including Bill Gates and Satya Nadella, who were expressed on stage. Both were fired.
A few days before Joe López interrupted the Microsoft Conference, the company had responded to employee protests saying that “he had found some evidence that Microsoft Azure and AI technologies, or any other software, were used to damage people or that the Israeli Ministry of Defense did not meet their conditions of use or our code of behavior in terms of AI.”
Conclusion carried out after an internal survey conducted with the help of an external company to evaluate the use of its technology in the conflict in Gaza. “Microsoft recently published a blog post, marking its first official response to the concerns that many have given for years. His statement is far from meeting our requirements,” Joe López said in an email sent to thousands of employees shortly after he interrupted Satya Nadella’s speech.
Like the two former employees who were fired last month, he is part of Non Azure for Apartheid, a group of Microsoft employees who mobilizes against the company’s contracts with Israel. The latter in particular criticizes the use of Azure technology to attack or damage civilians in Gaza. “Leaders reject our accusations (…), deplores Joe López in his email, saying” it is a shameless lie. “
Source: BFM TV
