Censorship of our report on govt purchasing from Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet | Hacker News Reader

Censorship of our report on govt purchasing from Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet

techinquiry.org

128 pointscratermoon25 comments

If you're confused about who censored the report (as I was at first), it's UNI Global Union, an "international network of unions" and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, "a nonprofit arm of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD)".

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNI_Global_Union

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Ebert_Foundation

They mention mainly UNI, which is financed by Microsoft in the meantime. A union organization financed by employers, what can you expect.

Microsoft isn't funding UNI. Communication Workers of America, which is working to unionize Microsoft employees, is. They're on opposing sides.

CWA recently got Microsoft to agree to be neutral on whether Activision Blizzard employees join a union after the acquisition closes. This was a big win for CWA. It's likely that CWA doesn't want to risk this agreement by attacking Microsoft on an unrelated issue.

It sounds like UNI was only interested in funding this report in order to use it in their fight against Amazon. When they found out it might create other problems for them, they got cold feet.

> Microsoft announced a labor neutrality agreement with the Communications Workers of America – which has undoubtedly become the most successful tech organizing union. According to the announcement, “The foundation of the agreement is a commitment to mutual respect and open communication.”

> Due to the neutrality agreement, Microsoft was now “a friend of the labor movement”. (A later phone call elaborated that CWA is an affiliate of UNI and helps pay UNI salaries. And that any critique of Microsoft could lead to one or more UNI employees being fired.)

> UNI’s demands were clear: either remove all material except the critique of Amazon or hide UNI’s funding. (It was suggested that Tech Inquiry wait six months before publishing its analysis of Microsoft and Google.)

This makes CWA and UNI seem like farces; tools used by Microsoft, Google and Amazon to neutralize the threat of real unionization.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

I find it weird that security experts study social engineering techniques, online manipulation, memetics, foreign infiltration, etc. However, if you somehow mention it being done from people they believe have their best interests in mind all that knowledge goes out the window to question everything.. Literally, you have to question almost everything.

I'll see you that and raise you all of those things exist in the world, have been made possible at scale by "technology", have rendered most institutions at best ineffectual and frequently actively harmful, has atomized society to the point we've got literal Nazis (miss me with the conservative crocodile tears, I'm talking capital N Nazis) occupying space in public discourse again, and have provided cover for every form of abuse/exploitation/manipulation known to man over the last 40 years. In the face of all of that the most common argument in favor is "innovation" which in practice means a thing that saves a trip to the store or a different thing that shits all over already low wage workers working conditions.

> Just as Tech Inquiry was completing its year of work, our Executive Director received a call from a UNI official informing him that it would be “a political problem” if Microsoft ended up in the headline. Due to the neutrality agreement, Microsoft was now “a friend of the labor movement”. (A later phone call elaborated that CWA is an affiliate of UNI and helps pay UNI salaries. And that any critique of Microsoft could lead to one or more UNI employees being fired.)

Maybe those workers at UNI Global Union should look into, uh, unionizing?

Here's the really cute bit:

> FES’s concerns – as relayed by UNI -- were that Tech Inquiry’s report made reference to billion dollar cloud contracts with the Central Intelligence Agency and the Israel Defense Forces.

[...]

> Note: The Intercept published a leaked copy of our report.

Guess what country is not even alluded to in The Intercept's coverage?

I don't understand where is the censorship. Here is the relevant quote:

UNI’s demands were clear: either remove all material except the critique of Amazon or hide UNI’s funding. (It was suggested that Tech Inquiry wait six months before publishing its analysis of Microsoft and Google.)

The funders don't want to be associated with the report because they don't support it. Remove their names from the report and publish it as much as you like.

The censorship was of the Microsoft and Google portions of the report. Removing 100 pages of a 150 page report for political reasons is for sure still censorship.

And if an organization funded a report, it is unethical to hide that information. It is absolutely standard to attach notices of non-endorsement after funding disclosures.

Wait, what?

“Remove data we don’t like, or alternatively remove our names” is two options of… removing data, be it Microsoft or the funder.

If “take information out of your report” is not an attempt at censorship, what is?

Hmm, is making an anonymous donation censorship? Is funding a report anonymously censorships? Is making an anonymous hacker news comment censorship? I honestly don't know.

Is there a difference between making an anonymous donation and making a public donation and then demanding it be made anonymous after the fact in order to support a narrative?

I think those are two different things.

It also appears to be a nothingburger of a report. Governments want to upgrade their tech stack, look at moving to the cloud, and shockingly select one of the three largest cloud providers.

I'm equally surprised that the military buys boots from a large volume boot company and not a boutique corner shoe shop.

A nothingburger of a report, that if published, would provoke Microsoft to have UNI employees fired? That doesn't seem to add up.

Yes. It sounds like Microsoft and UNI formed some sort of partnership or arrangement. Non-disparagement clauses are pretty standard when you enter into public arrangements, and it is also a bad look for UNI.

I read some more of the paper and the core of the argument seems to be that it sucks no European company has a good cloud.

> It sounds like Microsoft and UNI formed some sort of partnership or arrangement. Non-disparagement clauses are pretty standard when you enter into public arrangements, and it is also a bad look for UNI.

Such an agreement is worth reporting, not a "nothingburger"

A nothingbuger of a comment that says "x is nothing" when the post isn't about x.

The post is not bringing the news that a customer chose a supplier.

Here is the link to the leaked version of the report: https://theintercept.com/2022/09/07/microsoft-military-union...

- "The labor union official offered an apology to Tech Inquiry for pressing for the completion of the investigative project, only to censor it just prior to release. “No one could have predicted Microsoft would become, seek to become a pro-union employer, like that would have been like flying pigs, you know. I never would have predicted that,” the official said."

That's a *revealing* non-apology. "Our conflicts of interest depend on factors beyond our control".

The nonprofit should never have accepted funding from this group. The conflicts of interests cut both ways: if it's unethical to tilt reporting because your funder is friends with the subject, it was also corrupt when the funder had interests adverse to them.

Here's the report

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22276466-tech-inquir...

A billion $ business

This is nuts!

FUD. Why is it in the governments best interest to share all this sensitive information with you?

Please keep up thr work.

Because the governments are not supposed to be socialism for the wealthy.

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