Brian Eno, creator of the Windows 95 startup sound, calls on Microsoft to sever ties with Israel
Brian Eno, creator of the Windows 95 startup sound, calls on Microsoft to sever ties with Israel
The art rock legend says he stands with Microsoft workers protesting the company's support of the Israeli military's ongoing attacks in Gaza.
Art rock legend Brian Eno has called on Microsoft to sever its ties with the government of Israel, saying the company's provision of cloud and AI services to Israel's Ministry of Defense "support a regime that is engaged in actions described by leading legal scholars and human rights organizations, the United Nations experts, and increasing numbers of governments from around the world, as genocidal."
Eno's connection with Microsoft goes back 30 years—he composed the famous boot-up jingle for Windows 95 that was recently inducted into the National Recording Registry at the US Library of Congress.
"I gladly took on the project as a creative challenge and enjoyed the interaction with my contacts at the company," Eno wrote in an open letter posted to Instagram (via Stereogum). "I never would have believed that the same company could one day be implicated in the machinery of oppression and war."
Regardless, Eno clearly isn't interested in Microsoft's protestations of innocence: "Selling and facilitating advanced AI and cloud services to a government engaged in systematic ethnic cleansing is not 'business as usual'. It is complicity. If you knowingly build systems that can enable war crimes, you inevitably become complicit in those crimes."
An employee also just bypassed email filters to protest Microsofts support of war crimes.
they blocked "palestine" but not "palestinian"?
This seems a pretty straightforward regex blunder. "Palestin" with a wild card would have done the trick.
"I never would have believed that the same company could one day be implicated in the machinery of oppression and war."
While it's very chivalrous of Eno to do so, clearly the same people are no longer running the company. The new management is probably going "Brian who?" with sincerity in the question.
30 years is a long time in corporate culture. Eno isn't a corporate guy so maybe he really just doesn't understand how fast things can change with changing leadership.
He's not saying this because he has influence with Microsoft directly. He's doing it because he's Brian Eno and he will be heard, and because of the respect he's earned amongst his peers, he will be heard by people with even louder voices. So Microsoft and other companies and consumers will hear. Hopefully with enough acts like this, companies are shamed enough that it affects their bottom lines enough that they stop supporting genocide.
I've been an Eno fan my entire life, but I had no idea that he invented that sound. I wonder if he gets a royalty for every sale?
It reminds me of the "DUN DUN" sound from Law & Order, composed by Mike Post. I read that he's collected over $20 million in royalties from that sound alone.
One doesn't really "invent" sounds so much as compose them. Inventing would be more like creating the theremin.
As to the iconic Law & Order sound, damn, that's a pretty sweet gig. Do something once and ride it for decades.
God damn, shits gotten serious now if he’s involved. I guess Microsoft got no other option but to listen.
Is he calling for Hamas to surrender?
There's a public petition - separate from the employee petition
Honestly, I struggle to draw a connection between world conflict and non-military technology like Windows or cell phones or whatever.
Is every single Israeli resident complicit in what their government is doing? None of them should be allowed to use Windows? What about Israelis outside of Israel? What about people who support Israel? What about (gasp) Jews? How do you even enforce any of this without massive overreach by the companies?
Call on Microsoft or Apple all you want, ultimately I don't think a company should ban sales to customers on the argument that those customers might not have morals aligned to the company. Not that it's even possible, with world supply chains being what they are.
Umm Microsoft does sell military technology to Israel. So does Google. Idk why none of the previous commenters mentioned that. Edit: actually, they did. People are not asking for Microsoft to stop selling Windows in Israel.
Also jumping from possible restrictions on Israeli citizens (like how Iranians and Russians are treated) to Jews is a wild leap that's only used to paint criticism of Israel as having racist origin. Not saying you're doing that, but it doesn't really make sense to say this.
Microsoft continues to provide the Israeli military with Azure cloud and AI services that are crucial in empowering and accelerating Israel’s genocidal efforts targeting Palestinians.
https://www.972mag.com/cloud-israeli-army-gaza-amazon-google-microsoft/
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Is every single Israeli resident complicit in what their government is doing? None of them should be allowed to use Windows?
This is not about Israeli citizens using Windows. This is about Microsoft's contracts with the Israeli military and government.
massive overreach by the companies?
The US is a world leader in the "corporations are people" shenanigans. The massive overreach is fait accompli.
Corporations get to do their "Speech" in all kinds of ways such as funding political initiatives, dictating the healthcare their workers receive, etc. In this context, your point falls very flat.
Also, it is general practice in many places that businesses (even those who are not "people") can refuse to service customers for arbitrary reasons as long as they do not break some superseding law in the process. You can refuse entry to people with dogs, if you don't like dogs. But usually not to people with service animals, because having a service animal may be a protected class. (On the basis of having a service animal. Of course, if someone comes with one pet dog and one service animal, you don't have to let the pet in.)
I do not know of any jurisdiction that sets out doing genocide as a protected class.
I just don't see it doing any good. Why would Israel's military, supplied with US military hardware, care about Microsoft? Or Apple or Google or Amazon or... I'm sure none of their critical military infrastructure is in danger if one or several of these companies turn on them.
And how does Microsoft even enforce this ban? Turn off Windows remotely? It's not even clear how such a ban on Israel-linked business would work.
If world governments want to put sanctions on Israel and Gaza to try and make the two governments come to the table, I think that's a much better strategy.