A Moroccan engineer censored by Microsoft and LinkedIn

#ReinstateIbtihal. On the web, many internet users have launched a petition to call on LinkedIn to immediately restore the account of Ibtihal Aboussad, a Moroccan engineer at Microsoft whose platform was suspended following her public protest against the company’s involvement in the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. They denounce the violation of Aboussad’s right to speak out against the deadly bombings in Gaza. This petition is a hit with defenders of the Palestinian cause. For the petitioners, the suspension of the engineer’s account for peaceful protest sets a dangerous precedent in terms of silencing dissent. "Her voice matters," the petition reads. "Silencing her because she defends human rights sets a dangerous precedent."

During the presentation of Copilot products, Microsoft’s artificial intelligence assistant, on the sidelines of the company’s 50th anniversary celebration on Friday, April 4, 2025, Moroccan engineer Ibtihal Aboussad attacked Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI. "Shame on you, Mustafa!", she exclaimed as she approached the stage. "You claim to care about using AI for the common good, but Microsoft sells its AI technologies to the Israeli military. In doing so, you contribute to the genocide. Fifty thousand people have died in Gaza. How dare you celebrate this anniversary when Microsoft is killing children?"

In February, an investigation by the Associated Press news agency revealed that Microsoft and OpenAI’s artificial intelligence technologies were being used in Israeli military programs to select bombing targets in Gaza and Lebanon. According to the investigation, an erroneous Israeli air strike in 2023 had killed three young girls and their grandmother in Lebanon. Last January, another investigation by the Israeli +972 Magazine revealed Microsoft’s significant military involvement in the war in Gaza. Leaked documents from the Ministry of Defense showed that the company had "a footprint in all the major military infrastructures" in Israel.

The Moroccan engineer’s criticism was not to Suleyman’s liking. Aboussad was expelled from the room. Subsequently, she lost access to her professional account. She later told the media that her fear of remaining silent in the face of such violence outweighed her concerns about the security of her job. "The fear of contributing to a genocide is much greater," she said. "For a year and a half, our Arab, Palestinian and Muslim community at Microsoft has been silenced, intimidated, harassed and victimized by doxxing, with complete impunity from Microsoft. Our attempts to speak out have, at best, fallen on deaf ears and, at worst, led to the dismissal of two employees for the sole reason that they had organized a vigil," she wrote in an email to all her colleagues... And she added: "We are witnessing a genocide... We are accomplices."