Microsoft has quietly implemented a policy blocking employee emails on its internal Exchange servers that contain the words “Palestine,” “Gaza,” “genocide,” or “apartheid”, in the latest move seen as censorship in support of the Israeli regime.
The new policy was implemented on Wednesday, following Microsoft’s Build developer conference, which was repeatedly disrupted by No Azure for Apartheid, a group of pro-Palestine Microsoft employees, reports said.
Microsoft has deployed an automated filter on its internal Exchange servers to silently block emails containing these terms from reaching their intended recipients.
Activists say that while “Israel” and modified spellings like “P4lestine” bypass the filter, direct references to Israeli crimes are suppressed.
Microsoft has seen a growing number of protests at recent events over the company’s collaboration with the Israeli military in its ongoing genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.