Microsoft employees have reported that emails containing the terms "Palestine" or "Gaza" are being temporarily blocked from being sent, both within the company and to outside recipients. The protest group No Azure for Apartheid (NOAA) states that many employees have faced difficulties sending emails featuring these words, along with "Genocide," in either the subject lines or the body of the emails.
According to NOAA organizers, variations of the terms—such as "Israel" or "P4lestine"—do not trigger the same restrictions. They assert that this is an effort by Microsoft to suppress free speech among its workers, accusing company leaders of implementing censorship that discriminates against Palestinian employees and their supporters.
In response to these claims, Microsoft confirmed to The Verge that it has made adjustments to its email policies to minimize "politically focused emails" within the organization.
Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw articulated in a statement that “emailing large numbers of employees about any topic not related to work is not appropriate. We have an established forum for employees who have opted in to political discussions.” He noted that a surge of politically charged emails had recently been sent to a vast number of employees, prompting the company to take steps to limit such communications to those who have expressed interest.
The timing of these restrictions coincides with protests by current and former Microsoft employees against the company’s contracts with the Israeli government during the ongoing Build developer conference. One Microsoft employee, Joe Lopez, made headlines by interrupting the conference’s opening keynote, questioning CEO Satya Nadella about Israeli war crimes being supported by Microsoft technologies. Following his actions, Lopez sent a mass email to thousands of colleagues and was subsequently terminated from his position.
This wave of protests occurred shortly after Microsoft publicly acknowledged its cloud and AI contracts with Israel, stating that both internal and external reviews found "no evidence" that their technologies were utilized to “target or harm people” in Gaza.
