cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/28202261
The international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement are calling on people to cancel Game Pass subscriptions, avoid Microsoft-owned video game properties such as Minecraft and Call Of Duty, and boycott all Microsoft Gaming and Xbox-branded products in protest at the company’s reported business connections with the Israeli military.
The call follows allegations this January about the Israeli military’s usage of Microsoft’s Azure cloud technology and artificial intelligence products in the course of its bombardment and invasion of Gaza.
According to a joint investigation between the Guardian, Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, with additional reporting from Drop Site News, Microsoft have “deepened” their relationship with Israel’s defence establishment since 7th October 2023, when several Palestinian militant groups struck across the border and massacred over a thousand people. Israel responded to the attack by mounting a ground offensive and airstrikes that have destroyed much of Gaza and killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.
I’d like to think I’m pretty decent at sticking to boycotts, but holy hell, my work platform is Microsoft and their products, and I run gaming servers for my friends online and play through game pass. This is going to be so hard for people to step back and not use their platforms and software if they’re in it like me. Not sure how to proceed.
start with the stuff that’s easy to get rid of and the rest will snowball down the line.
as for your workplace using Microsoft, nobody expects you as an individual to force your company to stop using them. the best way to achieve that in my opinion is through unions and collective actions.
Smart approach to go to the union, didn’t think to do that. Thanks!
yeah, a bunch of unions have already put out support statements for BDS. list them as an example for your own union to follow
It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, because in that case it usually ends up being nothing. If you have the desire to limit what you described in any way you can as much as you can, it’ll be something. If everyone does as much as they can, it’ll be a huge something.
Oh the flip side, I have a Bazzite desktop rig running Proton/Steam for gaming and a PS5 and Switch. I’m not in the market for an Xbox and havent bought one since the OG… so I’ll just keep not buying their stuff I guess? I feel like boycotting things I’m not buying anyway doesn’t really send a message.
as a bazzite user, it’s kinda ironic that they’re dependent on GitHub cloud to keep their updates going. I wonder if they have a non-apartheid version?
The problem with replacing GitHub with something that isn’t owned by genocidal Microsoft is that GitHub provides a fuckload of free compute via their runners. If you migrate away from that to another smaller service, suddenly you’ve got to pay for your automated builds (or lose them).
I fear that many FOSS projects simply wouldn’t be popular if they had to be built manually from source by end users.
maybe they could use a donation model like fediverse instances do
You’re at least making up for my inability to step away from it atm. I wouldn’t have bought into the environment had it not been for my partner, and work of course. I grew up on PS and PC gaming, just recently started using Xbox. Damn it.
No they are not