They say it has left them unable to access bank accounts and job offers - and stopped them using Skype, which Microsoft owns, to contact relatives in war-torn Gaza.
Microsoft says they violated its terms of service - a claim they dispute.
“They killed my life online,” said Eiad Hametto, who lives in Saudi Arabia.
“They’ve suspended my email account that I’ve had for nearly 20 years - It was connected to all my work,” he told the BBC.
He also said being cut off from Skype was a huge blow for his family.
The internet is frequently disrupted or switched off there because of the Israeli military campaign - and standard international calls are very expensive.
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza in response to the Hamas attack on 7 October, which killed about 1,200 people. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 38,000 people have been killed in the war.
I’m not seeing a lot of factual reporting here. Just the BBC quoting three people who got banned by Microsoft, copy pasted by a dozen news websites. The potential Hamas connection cited everywhere is something the banned people came up with, not something Skype ever mentioned. There’s a strong post hoc ergo hoc argument going on here.
This stood out to me:
Now, it is possible that Microsoft has their own specific Palestinian phone system set up with generators and satellite backlinks to provide cheap local connectivity, but I suspect they didn’t bother with any of that. Instead, I expect that they’re paying the same price as any other carrier, but footing the bill. Their listed rates online are less than the rates of those low-quality, super cheap VoIP providers, by more than half when it comes to calling cell phones.
Microsoft cites suspected fraud as a reasons for the account blocks. My guess is that the fraud detection algorithm sees these accounts that discovered the Skype workaround, which suddenly incur a lot of VoIP cost over a small period of time while the lines are overcrowded, and applies the default “ban accounts when suspicious stuff happens” procedure.
This isn’t the first time Microsoft has been caught banning people and refusing to explain why. In some cases, they’ve even ignored court orders to return data and provide an explanation. Twenty people in two months time is nothing for how many people get banned by MS for no reason at all.
Microsoft certainly isn’t a neutral party, especially with how much money they can make by being friendly with Israel despite their invasion, but I don’t see much evidence that this is them targeting Palestinians specifically.