Microsoft BOASTS Moral Compass After Shutting Down Access to IDF Surveillance Dragnet…

“I just like the stock” - Roaring Kitty Edward Snowden, probably… 

In case you missed it, Microsoft just became Edward Snowden’s favorite stock after it announced that it’s cutting off Israel’s Unit 8200 (the infamous military intel division that does SIGINT, cyberwarfare, and everything the NSA wishes it could) from some Azure and AI services. Why? Because it turns out the IDF was running a mass surveillance dragnet on Palestinians using Microsoft’s cloud. Millions of phone calls vacuumed, translated, cross-checked, and piped straight into targeting systems.

(Source: Giphy) 

For starters, this is absolutely hilarious for one bigly reason: The entire surveillance architecture was built on their cloud. Only after the headlines made Brad Smith sweat through his suit did Microsoft suddenly rediscover its moral compass. And now, with the help of internal investigators and Covington & Burling (Smith’s old law firm, naturally), Microsoft has confirmed that "elements of the reporting were true”... a.k.a. The IDF was indeed using Microsoft’s tech to take “peeping Tom” to a whole new level.

(Source: AP News) 

With that said though, while some may mistake this for some grand rebellion against Tel Aviv… it’s not. Microsoft is only cutting off a “subset” of services to a single unit. The rest of its fat Israeli contracts remain untouched. One Azure login gets shut down, 500 others stay online. Call it “ethical cloudwashing.” For more context,  Unit 8200’s reach is massive. It’s the pipeline for Israel’s cyber ops and surveillance, and the same unit that has produced half of Israel’s startup billionaires. They were always too big for Redmond to claim ignorance.

Meanwhile, employees inside Microsoft have been protesting for months, getting arrested or fired for calling out the company’s complicity. Only now, after Gaza headlines hit global outrage levels and journalists started following the receipts, did Satya’s shop flinch.

(Source: Giphy) 

So with all the drama aside, what does this mean for us? Well when it comes to “image”, Microsoft gets to polish its halo while still cashing defense checks. Israel keeps its spy toys, just routed differently. And Palestinians continue to remain catalogued. And yet, this just proves once again that tech giants will tolerate ANYTHING until the day it becomes reputationally unprofitable. So yeah, place your bets accordingly, friends. Until next time… 

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News holds positions in Microsoft as mentioned in the article.