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jonnybgood | 1 month ago

The US gov (including ICE) uses all of Microsoft Office for coordination and planning: email, spreadsheets, powerpoint, document generation, etc. Would you say Microsoft employees have blood on their hands too? If not, what makes Microsoft different?

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benrutter|1 month ago

From the article for context:

> Palantir is working on a tool for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a “confidence score” on the person’s current address

So essentially, the relevant app here is custom built in order to help ICE raids.

That's substantially different from generic office tech where ICE happen to be one of millions of users.

Amezarak|1 month ago

You're going to have to explain to me why it's a bad thing or immoral for the government to be aware of where immigrants who legally need to be deported live.

biophysboy|1 month ago

Taking your argument in good faith: I think selling a tool with a narrow use case tailor-made for ICE is categorically different.

miniBill|1 month ago

The same difference between a kitchen knife and an AK 47

Zetaphor|1 month ago

Considering that Microsoft is also providing services to the Israeli government with the explicit intent of storing and cataloging all of the phone calls made by Palestinian citizens so that they can be analyzed by AI for potential bombing targets...yes I would say Microsoft also has blood on their hands. I wouldn't be surprised to learn they have deep partnerships with Palantir for compute services.

vimda|1 month ago

Office can be used for things that aren't objectively evil?

small_scombrus|1 month ago

All things done with office must be evil by association.

(Except clippy, he's just a guy)

amunozo|1 month ago

Maybe, but Office is evil itself.

creatonez|1 month ago

Microsoft is a modern IBM holocaust tabulation machine. Yes, many of the people who work for Microsoft should be prosecuted and put in prison for war crimes, with varying degrees of culpability. There are people in MS who knowing negotiated deals that aided and abetted war crimes, and those who wrote morally repugnant military surveillance software that was used to automate mass murder in the Gaza holocaust.

derelicta|1 month ago

Yes, absolutely. These are criminal scum, on par with pedos. Just look at how they are helping a people getting wiped out from their own territory in the Middle East.