Some additional details: The proposal was submitted by an individual shareholder.
She requests that the Board "commission a report assessing the implications of siting Microsoft cloud datacenters in countries of significant human rights concern, and the Company’s strategies for mitigating these impacts."
She specifically cites the 2024 completion of a Microsoft datacenter in Saudi Arabia, citing a "State Department report [that] details the highly restrictive Saudi control of all internet activities and pervasive government surveillance, arrest, and prosecution of online activity."
The Board opposes the proposal because it believes Microsoft already discloses extensive disclosures on key human rights risks, and has an independent assessment each year of how they manage risks and its commitment to protecting freedom of expression and user privacy. They also re-iterate the need to comply with local laws and legally binding requests for customer data.
The proposal is non-binding, so the Board doesn't have to act on it even in the unlikely event it gets majority support (ESG proposals rarely do, especially in this environment). In practice many Boards do choose to act on majority-supported non-binding shareholder proposals, though, because many shareholders will vote against directors the following year if they don't.
> Microsoft already discloses extensive disclosures on key human rights risks, and has an independent assessment each year of how they manage risks and its commitment to protecting freedom of expression and user privacy
Where can one find those extensive disclosures, especially for year 2024/2025? I'd love to hear how Microsoft are protecting freedom of expression and user privacy in a country like Saudi Arabia, which has a track record of excelling at whatever you'd call the opposite of those two things.
This is the canned response for advising against a shareholder proposal. We’re already doing x, no need to vote for this nitwits shareholder proposal.
Another example that was written almost exactly the same, when a shareholder asked what Caterpillar were doing to avoid their machinery being used for deforestation in at risk locations.
If you’ve heard of activist investors, this is their battle ground. Buying enough of a company, tabling votes and then getting their preferred board candidates and shareholder votes put through.
I guess you're familiar with those resources since you're claiming those mention Microsoft's approach to protecting freedom of expression and user privacy in Saudi Arabia. Could you please be kind and provide direct links to that/those page(s)? I opened and read through the links, but probably it's in some sub-page? Didn't manage to find anything about it.
Every step along the way, Microsoft picks "key" areas/terms/subjects, so they're only covering a few human rights that they convinced themselves are most important. Within each covered item, you'll find a couple of paragraphs that explain why complying can be problematic if they want to make more money, and a few lines of manager speak and links to "projects" and "partnerships" that vaguely promise to accomplish vague goals on a vague timeline with no mention of what happens if they fail their goals.
Countries and specific risks are not named. Microsoft may as well be helping Netanyahu organize optimal genocide directly and they'll still be able to barf up some manager speak to explain why they're trying real hard, honest!
Their statements are full of talk like:
> Our commitment to the rule of law
carries with it the legal obligation to comply with applicable local law. When we face requests from governments to provide user data or remove content, we work to respect the rights to privacy and freedom of expression by assessing whether the government requests are valid, legally binding, compliant with applicable law, and consistent with international laws, principles, and norms on human rights and the rule of law.
(in other words: they'll just ask legal if they should comply with government requests and that's supposed to protect your freedom of speech)
And gems like:
> The GNI Board concluded that we met our commitment to GNI to make
“good-faith efforts to implement the
GNI Principles with improvement over
time.
(in other words: we've managed to convince the GNI board that we really care)
Check the latest proxy statement for the AGM. This is where these votes are brought up in advance and then at the meeting they’re voting on, along with board seats.
> Norway’s $2 trillion wealth fund said on Sunday it would vote for a shareholder proposal
> Microsoft management had recommended shareholders voted against the motion.
Ok, cool, but what about the reasons for those actions? What kind of lazy journalism is this? I guess it's nice that we know that something is happening, but what about reaching out to people and asking them why so people can actually understand? For the love of Adam Smith, at least mention the involved countries!
Boards will always recommend to vote against shareholder proposals by default. 1000:1
Having a large shareholder indicate they will go with a shareholder proposal is the newsworthy part. It indicates there’s something that should be being addresssed by the board which isn’t already, which is publicly embarrassing for them.
I helped build a system that would estimate the vote for these large institutional investors because if a board tables a vote and a institutional investor votes against it, it’s a really bad look.
Thank you for providing actual source! Ever thought of creating and running an alternative to CNBC?
Funny how most of the comments in this submission assumes it's about Israel, telling in more ways than one. This is why reporting has to be accurate :)
Yeah it does seem there’s some confusion. Here is the similar proposal referencing Israel from earlier this year (perhaps a source of some of the confusion):
Some more context, KSA is spending up large, think 100s of projects a week, for their vision 2030 where they will have spent 100b on software systems and AI.
These are govt contracts and a lot of them have strict data sovereignty restrictions. Google has a big data center there for the exact reason to mop up this work. They also have an AI lab there.
Since it doesn't say it in the article, the human rights they're referring to is that Microsoft was caught providing Azure services to the Israeli army's unit 8200, which used them to surveil millions of hours of Palestinian calls.
Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Palantir are all providing cloud and AI services to Israel which it uses it the genocide in Gaza and the continued military occupation of Palestine.
> the human rights they're referring to is that Microsoft was caught providing Azure services to the Israeli army's unit 8200, which used them to surveil millions of hours of Palestinian calls.
Yes, let’s go after US Steel because some guy with a gun shot up a school.
Unless Microsoft is directly supplying the software which surveils instead of just “general purpose compute” this isn’t as big as Norway would want you to believe. They can just terminate the accounts as violations of terms of service and claim that millions of users use azure cloud to serve websites and content, the dance will go on.
I don’t think punishing the steel maker for a gun maker who sold it to a distributor who then sold it to a nut job should be liable for the nut job. This is the same for tech. Sub contractors for Israel government got Azure hosting and subbed it out to Palantir to plant their platform inside (gun maker) and then sold it to Israel (nut job).
> Unless Microsoft is directly supplying the software which surveils instead of just “general purpose compute” this isn’t as big as Norway would want you to believe. They can just terminate the accounts as violations of terms of service
Doesn't the article you linked contradict that? It sounds like they're claiming they only provided general purpose blob storage.
> First, we do not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians. We have applied this principle in every country around the world, and we have insisted on it repeatedly for more than two decades. This is why we explained publicly on August 15 that Microsoft’s standard terms of service prohibit the use of our technology for mass surveillance of civilians.
Palantir is a data and ml platform. They don’t create point solutions for people. The solutions created are owned by the people contracting Palantir. If you hate on Palantir - you can hate on pretty much all industry in the west - oil and gas for supplying fuel, farmers for supplying food, consulting companies for consulting for the government, general population for paying taxes, etc.
This entire thing is just political showboating. I mean feel free to not buy food and fuel.
If these companies were breaking laws against big people (facilitating investment fraud, hosting terrorist's websites) nobody would consider these methods of deflection for a second - it's only because the laws are being broken to hurt small people that the concept of aiding and abetting or acting as a willing accomplice is considered not relevant.
The Norway wealth fund is a co owner of Microsoft, like everyone with shares. Google says they own 1.35%, worth 50 billion.
If they want Microsoft not to provide "general compute" to the Israeli army then they can try to get a majority of Microsft owners to go along with it.
I think that's not the same as pressure on Microsoft from the outside.
It’s so black and white, it’s a question of signals and eventually consequences. Even if the vote doesn’t pass, that’s not the primary objective here I think.
> I don’t think punishing the steel maker for a gun maker who sold it to a distributor who then sold it to a nut job should be liable for the nut job
Nobody thinks that, because it's ridiculous. This is a false equivalence. Isolated crimes are inevitable, and impossible to solve with any single thing.
But when it comes to genocide, you can stop or at least limit it by going after the suppliers who equip the group with the tools to carry it out. Microsoft is one such supplier, and they know exactly what they're doing. If our government isn't going to do something, an activist shareholder is a decent alternative.
Yes, its general purpose compute. But if you or me use Azure for illegal purpose (pirated content, tax evasion, violence etc etc..), for sure Microsoft won't be sitting idle.
Norway's sovereign wealth fund are not "online radicals", and many genocide scholars, UN bodies, etc. have also found that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians.
If you want to dispute that claim, fine; reasonable people can disagree about the definition of "genocide" and about what standard of proof is necessary. However, reducing the opposing opinion to "online radicals" is inaccurate.
Any export increases of gun metal grade, high carbon steel should be a red flag these days to stateside corporations operating in war zones. Structural steel is a low carbon steel that has more 'give' and is easier to weld. It's obvious which is which.
In Sweden's case, however, even pre-war they were already exporting 40% of Germany's demand for raw ore which increased to 50% during wartime iirc. So Germany already had the infrastructure necessary to process the raw materials into steel, and at scale scale beforehand.
In modern warfare, those same foundaries would make easy aerial targets due to the massive heat output from the bessimer process required to make steel from raw ore.
It's relevant because Microsoft, like all big companies, have Human Rights Pricinples and such that are part of the company. It's basically impossible to get big institutional investment without it.
The issue is that they were caught not following their practices, and then lying about it. So the shareholders are asking that they produce a report about whether they are following their own human rights principles.
And Satya is resisting it, because it is very clear that they are not following them, as workers [1] have been calling out for years now. Many leaked documents have shown that Microsoft actually embeds employees directly with the IDF and makes millions in service contracts with them. [2]
For anyone that is still green on company politics, all company principles are check boxes that form part of an HR circus of yearly compliance trainings, and marketing for young employees that are naive enough to think they mean anything.
Perhaps this reflects your experience, in your part of the world. In some parts of the world, principles and ethics do count, and don’t change on a dime (as they do in the US).
Actually we should as well, given the shady deals some of them make with politicians, which create a set of cascading events that end up in school shootings as if they were good old saloon fights.
If the number of people killed by guns made at home with 3D printers or CNC mills gets to the same ballpark as those killed by commercial guns, sure, it's a conversation to have.
With a 1:16:29 runtime, could you at least share what parts are relevant to this submission, the very least timestamps? Even if I'd speed it up by 4x it'd take 30 minutes to listen to all of it.
No parts of it are relevant to this submission, because (as others explained to you elsewhere in the thread) the submission is about Norway objecting to Microsoft doing business with Saudi Arabia, whereas GP is about attacking Microsoft's ties to Israel.
(For some reason, doing business with Saudi Arabia is not counted as evidence against the "Zionist", "genocide" etc. etc. narrative.)
Or you ask Gemini to do this for you (timestamps were removed when formatting into markdown)
Based on the podcast "Microsoft: Powering Israel’s Genocide? | Hossam Nasr," here are the main human rights issues alleged against Microsoft:
1. Complicity in Military Operations
- The podcast claims Microsoft is a key tech provider for the Israeli military, specifically using the Azure cloud platform to run combat and intelligence activities.
- It alleges Microsoft sells AI services (including OpenAI models) to military units like "Mamram," which are linked to automated targeting systems used to accelerate lethal strikes.
2. Surveillance and Infrastructure
- Microsoft is accused of hosting roughly 13.6 petabytes of data used for mass surveillance.
- The "Al-Munassiq" app, used by Palestinians to manage movement permits, reportedly runs on Azure and is described as a tool for collecting vast amounts of surveillance data.
- The company reportedly sells technology directly to illegal settlements in the West Bank.
3. Internal Labor Rights & Suppression
- The speaker alleges a double standard and discrimination against Palestinian and Arab employees.
- Microsoft is accused of "weaponizing" HR policies to fire workers (including the podcast guest) for organizing vigils or protesting the company's military contracts.
4. Historical Context
- The discussion references Microsoft's history of providing tech to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in the US as part of a broader pattern of supporting "systems of oppression."
I'd like to see them pull all support for Bitcoin and crypto related "companies". As we all know, bitcoin's only use cases are scamming little old lady's out of thousands of dollars at atm's and speculation. It is not an investment vehicle, it is not a currency.
If someone at the NWF is reading this, please take this into consideration. Let's start to take action against the fraud and grift, and try to make humanity a little better, one step at a time.
After decades of Bitcoin, how can you not know that it is the principal currency for darknet markets - ie the ability to purchase psychedelics without being involved with drug dealers?
Not sure if you're American, but investment funds in other countries, especially those with "hints of socialism" usually don't put "profit above all else" like is common in America, hence "good enough" is usually just that, good enough.
Seems they're doing exactly what is expected of them, staying around the benchmark index, so that sounds pretty good:
> The fund has outperformed the benchmark index set by the Ministry of Finance by 0.24 percentage point since 1998.
They probably need to maintain fluidity at any given moment, given this is a retirement fund. So no crazy but risky returns in portfolio. And this issue here is likely also about risk mitigation.
Europe in general has become the world leader in tech company extortion. If you run a tech company, be very careful about selling into that market. You should generally have an army of lawyers before making the leap.
You mean the EU regulating their market, right? I think TFA is about shareholder voting rights. Two different things.
> Norway's $2 trillion wealth fund said on Sunday it would vote for a shareholder proposal at the upcoming Microsoft
annual general meeting requiring for a report on the risks of operating in countries with significant human rights concerns.
The Norway sovereign wealth fund is a large pension fund holding the profits of exploiting their natural oil reserves. It’s not related to the EU.
Investing 50 billion into a company and then requiring at least a minimal amount of accountability about the company's business practices is called 'extortion' now? That's hell of a hot take :) If the company has completely lost its moral compass when doing business, it is entirely normal for shareholders to be worried about the company's future.
Some additional details: The proposal was submitted by an individual shareholder.
She requests that the Board "commission a report assessing the implications of siting Microsoft cloud datacenters in countries of significant human rights concern, and the Company’s strategies for mitigating these impacts."
She specifically cites the 2024 completion of a Microsoft datacenter in Saudi Arabia, citing a "State Department report [that] details the highly restrictive Saudi control of all internet activities and pervasive government surveillance, arrest, and prosecution of online activity."
The Board opposes the proposal because it believes Microsoft already discloses extensive disclosures on key human rights risks, and has an independent assessment each year of how they manage risks and its commitment to protecting freedom of expression and user privacy. They also re-iterate the need to comply with local laws and legally binding requests for customer data.
The proposal is non-binding, so the Board doesn't have to act on it even in the unlikely event it gets majority support (ESG proposals rarely do, especially in this environment). In practice many Boards do choose to act on majority-supported non-binding shareholder proposals, though, because many shareholders will vote against directors the following year if they don't.
> Microsoft already discloses extensive disclosures on key human rights risks, and has an independent assessment each year of how they manage risks and its commitment to protecting freedom of expression and user privacy
Where can one find those extensive disclosures, especially for year 2024/2025? I'd love to hear how Microsoft are protecting freedom of expression and user privacy in a country like Saudi Arabia, which has a track record of excelling at whatever you'd call the opposite of those two things.
This is the canned response for advising against a shareholder proposal. We’re already doing x, no need to vote for this nitwits shareholder proposal.
Another example that was written almost exactly the same, when a shareholder asked what Caterpillar were doing to avoid their machinery being used for deforestation in at risk locations.
If you’ve heard of activist investors, this is their battle ground. Buying enough of a company, tabling votes and then getting their preferred board candidates and shareholder votes put through.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/rep...
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/hum...
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/rep...
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/rep...
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/gov...
I guess you're familiar with those resources since you're claiming those mention Microsoft's approach to protecting freedom of expression and user privacy in Saudi Arabia. Could you please be kind and provide direct links to that/those page(s)? I opened and read through the links, but probably it's in some sub-page? Didn't manage to find anything about it.
I think the closest thing to what you're looking for is over at https://aka.ms/HumanRightsReport
Every step along the way, Microsoft picks "key" areas/terms/subjects, so they're only covering a few human rights that they convinced themselves are most important. Within each covered item, you'll find a couple of paragraphs that explain why complying can be problematic if they want to make more money, and a few lines of manager speak and links to "projects" and "partnerships" that vaguely promise to accomplish vague goals on a vague timeline with no mention of what happens if they fail their goals.
Countries and specific risks are not named. Microsoft may as well be helping Netanyahu organize optimal genocide directly and they'll still be able to barf up some manager speak to explain why they're trying real hard, honest!
Their statements are full of talk like:
> Our commitment to the rule of law carries with it the legal obligation to comply with applicable local law. When we face requests from governments to provide user data or remove content, we work to respect the rights to privacy and freedom of expression by assessing whether the government requests are valid, legally binding, compliant with applicable law, and consistent with international laws, principles, and norms on human rights and the rule of law.
(in other words: they'll just ask legal if they should comply with government requests and that's supposed to protect your freedom of speech)
And gems like:
> The GNI Board concluded that we met our commitment to GNI to make “good-faith efforts to implement the GNI Principles with improvement over time.
(in other words: we've managed to convince the GNI board that we really care)
Is the full proposal available online?
Check the latest proxy statement for the AGM. This is where these votes are brought up in advance and then at the meeting they’re voting on, along with board seats.
Good way to break up a behemoth and let the pursuit of Digital Sovereignty be initiated everywhere!
Norway isn't part of the EU.
> Norway’s $2 trillion wealth fund said on Sunday it would vote for a shareholder proposal
> Microsoft management had recommended shareholders voted against the motion.
Ok, cool, but what about the reasons for those actions? What kind of lazy journalism is this? I guess it's nice that we know that something is happening, but what about reaching out to people and asking them why so people can actually understand? For the love of Adam Smith, at least mention the involved countries!
Boards will always recommend to vote against shareholder proposals by default. 1000:1
Having a large shareholder indicate they will go with a shareholder proposal is the newsworthy part. It indicates there’s something that should be being addresssed by the board which isn’t already, which is publicly embarrassing for them.
I helped build a system that would estimate the vote for these large institutional investors because if a board tables a vote and a institutional investor votes against it, it’s a really bad look.
https://collaborate.unpri.org/group/35676/stream
Saudi Arabia
Thank you for providing actual source! Ever thought of creating and running an alternative to CNBC?
Funny how most of the comments in this submission assumes it's about Israel, telling in more ways than one. This is why reporting has to be accurate :)
Yeah it does seem there’s some confusion. Here is the similar proposal referencing Israel from earlier this year (perhaps a source of some of the confusion):
https://collaborate.unpri.org/group/35681/home
Some more context, KSA is spending up large, think 100s of projects a week, for their vision 2030 where they will have spent 100b on software systems and AI.
These are govt contracts and a lot of them have strict data sovereignty restrictions. Google has a big data center there for the exact reason to mop up this work. They also have an AI lab there.
"things happen"
I think this kind of article is written by a bot these days.
Since it doesn't say it in the article, the human rights they're referring to is that Microsoft was caught providing Azure services to the Israeli army's unit 8200, which used them to surveil millions of hours of Palestinian calls.
Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Palantir are all providing cloud and AI services to Israel which it uses it the genocide in Gaza and the continued military occupation of Palestine.
- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/09/microsoft...
- https://www.972mag.com/microsoft-8200-intelligence-surveilla...
- https://afsc.org/newsroom/unprecedented-investor-action-dema...
- https://countercurrents.org/2025/11/microsoft-ignites-protes...
> the human rights they're referring to is that Microsoft was caught providing Azure services to the Israeli army's unit 8200, which used them to surveil millions of hours of Palestinian calls.
That's what I thought initially too, but seems this is about a different human rights issue, particularly in Saudi Arabia: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46097244
Yes, let’s go after US Steel because some guy with a gun shot up a school.
Unless Microsoft is directly supplying the software which surveils instead of just “general purpose compute” this isn’t as big as Norway would want you to believe. They can just terminate the accounts as violations of terms of service and claim that millions of users use azure cloud to serve websites and content, the dance will go on.
I don’t think punishing the steel maker for a gun maker who sold it to a distributor who then sold it to a nut job should be liable for the nut job. This is the same for tech. Sub contractors for Israel government got Azure hosting and subbed it out to Palantir to plant their platform inside (gun maker) and then sold it to Israel (nut job).
Palantir on the other hand…
> Unless Microsoft is directly supplying the software which surveils instead of just “general purpose compute” this isn’t as big as Norway would want you to believe. They can just terminate the accounts as violations of terms of service
They did: https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2025/09/25/update-...
Doesn't the article you linked contradict that? It sounds like they're claiming they only provided general purpose blob storage.
> First, we do not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians. We have applied this principle in every country around the world, and we have insisted on it repeatedly for more than two decades. This is why we explained publicly on August 15 that Microsoft’s standard terms of service prohibit the use of our technology for mass surveillance of civilians.
So helping with blob storage or not helping at all? Can't be in dual state.
Palantir is a data and ml platform. They don’t create point solutions for people. The solutions created are owned by the people contracting Palantir. If you hate on Palantir - you can hate on pretty much all industry in the west - oil and gas for supplying fuel, farmers for supplying food, consulting companies for consulting for the government, general population for paying taxes, etc.
This entire thing is just political showboating. I mean feel free to not buy food and fuel.
If these companies were breaking laws against big people (facilitating investment fraud, hosting terrorist's websites) nobody would consider these methods of deflection for a second - it's only because the laws are being broken to hurt small people that the concept of aiding and abetting or acting as a willing accomplice is considered not relevant.
(Human rights are common law.)
The Norway wealth fund is a co owner of Microsoft, like everyone with shares. Google says they own 1.35%, worth 50 billion.
If they want Microsoft not to provide "general compute" to the Israeli army then they can try to get a majority of Microsft owners to go along with it.
I think that's not the same as pressure on Microsoft from the outside.
It’s so black and white, it’s a question of signals and eventually consequences. Even if the vote doesn’t pass, that’s not the primary objective here I think.
If Microsoft were providing "general purpose compute to Iran" the US would sanction them.
I definitely agree with you.
> I don’t think punishing the steel maker for a gun maker who sold it to a distributor who then sold it to a nut job should be liable for the nut job
Nobody thinks that, because it's ridiculous. This is a false equivalence. Isolated crimes are inevitable, and impossible to solve with any single thing.
But when it comes to genocide, you can stop or at least limit it by going after the suppliers who equip the group with the tools to carry it out. Microsoft is one such supplier, and they know exactly what they're doing. If our government isn't going to do something, an activist shareholder is a decent alternative.
Yes, its general purpose compute. But if you or me use Azure for illegal purpose (pirated content, tax evasion, violence etc etc..), for sure Microsoft won't be sitting idle.
providing compute to someone online radicals happen to not like is not an illegal purpose
What about providing compute to a criminal with an arrest warrant by the ICJ?
Why would anyone care about an illegitimate kangaroo court like the ICJ?
What are you talking about?
Norway's sovereign wealth fund are not "online radicals", and many genocide scholars, UN bodies, etc. have also found that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians.
If you want to dispute that claim, fine; reasonable people can disagree about the definition of "genocide" and about what standard of proof is necessary. However, reducing the opposing opinion to "online radicals" is inaccurate.
Any export increases of gun metal grade, high carbon steel should be a red flag these days to stateside corporations operating in war zones. Structural steel is a low carbon steel that has more 'give' and is easier to weld. It's obvious which is which.
In Sweden's case, however, even pre-war they were already exporting 40% of Germany's demand for raw ore which increased to 50% during wartime iirc. So Germany already had the infrastructure necessary to process the raw materials into steel, and at scale scale beforehand.
In modern warfare, those same foundaries would make easy aerial targets due to the massive heat output from the bessimer process required to make steel from raw ore.
It's relevant because Microsoft, like all big companies, have Human Rights Pricinples and such that are part of the company. It's basically impossible to get big institutional investment without it.
The issue is that they were caught not following their practices, and then lying about it. So the shareholders are asking that they produce a report about whether they are following their own human rights principles.
And Satya is resisting it, because it is very clear that they are not following them, as workers [1] have been calling out for years now. Many leaked documents have shown that Microsoft actually embeds employees directly with the IDF and makes millions in service contracts with them. [2]
[1] https://noazureforapartheid.com/ [2] https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/microsoft-azure-israel-top-cu...
For anyone that is still green on company politics, all company principles are check boxes that form part of an HR circus of yearly compliance trainings, and marketing for young employees that are naive enough to think they mean anything.
Perhaps this reflects your experience, in your part of the world. In some parts of the world, principles and ethics do count, and don’t change on a dime (as they do in the US).
Several European countries.
Regardless of the part of the world, corruption happens when the right price gets negotiated.
It can be money, a favour, need to help someone in need, needing to meet specific sales KPIs,...
Shhhh, you’ll scare away the new hires that have to pay the interest on the loans they were told would get them there.
>Many leaked documents have shown that Microsoft actually embeds employees directly with the IDF.
Are you sure it's not the other way around?
It’s more akin to an arms manufacturer knowingly supplying a genocidal regime.
As for targeting Palantir instead, boycott, divestment, and sanctions is most effective when it targets all the complicit players.
Actually we should as well, given the shady deals some of them make with politicians, which create a set of cascading events that end up in school shootings as if they were good old saloon fights.
Should we start regulating 3D printers and CNC mills next?
If the number of people killed by guns made at home with 3D printers or CNC mills gets to the same ballpark as those killed by commercial guns, sure, it's a conversation to have.
Probably yes, if everyone starts building guns with them.
Thoughts and prayer will surely work this time.
If you'd like to know more about Microsoft's human rights issues, I had a lead campaigner discuss it with me on my podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A95asBbCNZo
With a 1:16:29 runtime, could you at least share what parts are relevant to this submission, the very least timestamps? Even if I'd speed it up by 4x it'd take 30 minutes to listen to all of it.
No parts of it are relevant to this submission, because (as others explained to you elsewhere in the thread) the submission is about Norway objecting to Microsoft doing business with Saudi Arabia, whereas GP is about attacking Microsoft's ties to Israel.
(For some reason, doing business with Saudi Arabia is not counted as evidence against the "Zionist", "genocide" etc. etc. narrative.)
> (For some reason, doing business with Saudi Arabia is not counted as evidence against the "Zionist", "genocide" etc. etc. narrative.)
Why would "Saudi Arabia treats workers badly" be evidence against the idea that Israel is committing genocide ?
Or you ask Gemini to do this for you (timestamps were removed when formatting into markdown)
Based on the podcast "Microsoft: Powering Israel’s Genocide? | Hossam Nasr," here are the main human rights issues alleged against Microsoft:
1. Complicity in Military Operations - The podcast claims Microsoft is a key tech provider for the Israeli military, specifically using the Azure cloud platform to run combat and intelligence activities. - It alleges Microsoft sells AI services (including OpenAI models) to military units like "Mamram," which are linked to automated targeting systems used to accelerate lethal strikes.
2. Surveillance and Infrastructure - Microsoft is accused of hosting roughly 13.6 petabytes of data used for mass surveillance. - The "Al-Munassiq" app, used by Palestinians to manage movement permits, reportedly runs on Azure and is described as a tool for collecting vast amounts of surveillance data. - The company reportedly sells technology directly to illegal settlements in the West Bank.
3. Internal Labor Rights & Suppression - The speaker alleges a double standard and discrimination against Palestinian and Arab employees. - Microsoft is accused of "weaponizing" HR policies to fire workers (including the podcast guest) for organizing vigils or protesting the company's military contracts.
4. Historical Context - The discussion references Microsoft's history of providing tech to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in the US as part of a broader pattern of supporting "systems of oppression."
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A95asBbCNZo
Prompt: “ According to this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A95asBbCNZo
What are the main human rights issues of Microsoft?”
Used Gemini 3 (Thinking) via WebUI
Crooks blaming crooks! What an irony
I'd like to see them pull all support for Bitcoin and crypto related "companies". As we all know, bitcoin's only use cases are scamming little old lady's out of thousands of dollars at atm's and speculation. It is not an investment vehicle, it is not a currency.
If someone at the NWF is reading this, please take this into consideration. Let's start to take action against the fraud and grift, and try to make humanity a little better, one step at a time.
Thank you.
HFSP
After decades of Bitcoin, how can you not know that it is the principal currency for darknet markets - ie the ability to purchase psychedelics without being involved with drug dealers?
Right now an elderly person is jamming cash into a Bitcoin ATM for a scammer. Fact.
Norway's wealth fund's annualized return is only 6.6% since 1998. https://www.nbim.no/en/investments/returns
Is this poor performance due to this kind of active management?
"Only" 6%?
Bonds (a safe investment) are usually at ~2%.
A conservatively allocated growth fund doing 6% is pret-t-y good.
Not sure if you're American, but investment funds in other countries, especially those with "hints of socialism" usually don't put "profit above all else" like is common in America, hence "good enough" is usually just that, good enough.
Seems they're doing exactly what is expected of them, staying around the benchmark index, so that sounds pretty good:
> The fund has outperformed the benchmark index set by the Ministry of Finance by 0.24 percentage point since 1998.
haha, LOL, OP talks nonsene: The 6.6% is actually quite good for such a hevicle!
They probably need to maintain fluidity at any given moment, given this is a retirement fund. So no crazy but risky returns in portfolio. And this issue here is likely also about risk mitigation.
Perhaps the people of Norway value certain behaviors over maximum returns
Europe in general has become the world leader in tech company extortion. If you run a tech company, be very careful about selling into that market. You should generally have an army of lawyers before making the leap.
You mean the EU regulating their market, right? I think TFA is about shareholder voting rights. Two different things.
> Norway's $2 trillion wealth fund said on Sunday it would vote for a shareholder proposal at the upcoming Microsoft annual general meeting requiring for a report on the risks of operating in countries with significant human rights concerns.
The Norway sovereign wealth fund is a large pension fund holding the profits of exploiting their natural oil reserves. It’s not related to the EU.
Investing 50 billion into a company and then requiring at least a minimal amount of accountability about the company's business practices is called 'extortion' now? That's hell of a hot take :) If the company has completely lost its moral compass when doing business, it is entirely normal for shareholders to be worried about the company's future.
they're a shareholder
it's THEIR company
How so?