• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, 5 hours ago

Microsoft has fired an employee who protested the company’s work that supplied the Israeli military with technology used for the war in Gaza. 

Joe Lopez, now a former firmware software engineer at Microsoft, interrupted Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella's speech in the opening keynote at the company's annual Build developer conference on Monday. Nadella was there to tell developers about the company's technology advancements.

Lopez was escorted out of the room and later sent a mass email to colleagues as to why he disrupted the event, disputing the company’s claims about how its Azure cloud computing platform is used in Gaza. The letter has since been published on Medium.

“As one of the largest companies in the world, Microsoft has immeasurable power to do the right thing: demand an end to this senseless tragedy, or we will cease our technological support for Israel,” read the email. “If leadership continues to ignore this demand, I promise that it won’t go unnoticed. The world has already woken up to our complicity and is turning against us. The boycotts will increase and our image will continue to spiral into disrepair.”

A Microsoft company spokesperson acknowledged the protest and email to MediaPost, but stopped short of saying that emails have been blocked that include terms related to Palestine and Gaza.

"Sending unsolicited email to large numbers of employees at work is not appropriate," a Microsoft spokesperson wrote in the email to MediaPost. "We have an established forum for employees who have opted into a variety of issues for this reason. Over the past couple of days, a few emails have been sent to tens of thousands of employees across the company and we have taken measures to try and reduce those emails to those that have not opted in."

The protest at this week's live Microsoft event is one of several pro-Palestinian disruptions at technology events. These protesters are also using a variety of social platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok to spread their views, whether or not the information is correct. 

On October 7, 2023, Hamas and other militant groups supporting the Palestinians made armed incursions into Israel from Gaza and over 1,200 civilians were murdered.