That's a funny way to say "they fired staff that vandalized company property, broke into the CEO's office, and used an internal company website to publish and promote anti-company propaganda".
That will get you fired from bussing tables or washing dishes, let alone a six-figure job at MS.
Edit: Source on the last one; the first two were widely reported on in media:
I feel like interrupting a CEO's speech at a big conference is pretty well understood to be a social indicator of a high level of insubordination. I suspect the protestor knew that too.
The consequences were appropriate, even if I might share some of the protestor's concerns.
Interrupting a speech? Yes. It demonstrates a lack of maturity, decorum, and is completely unprofessional. Someone who pulls these shenanigans is unworthy of the role they were hired for. This isn't high school anymore. They were hired to perform productive work not be disruptive and play pretend activist.
You lost me at "pretend activist". This person put their job on the line for what they believe in, and in a public enough way that complete strangers are discussing it on the internet. That's real activism.
You are trivializing what they did. This is not that they were in a meeting with the CEO and accidentally spoke interrupting him. They started yelling disrupting the CEOs speech at a large event. Name a single company that wouldn't fire someone for that.
US corporate culture has a stronger sense of hierarchy than many other countries. It is an environment where one can get fired quickly and suddenly and that instills a lot of obedience and discipline (if not outright fear) in employees.
Oh, it was an event with custoners invited? Yeah, that's grounds for dismissal anywhere, I'd think. Even in countries with strong labor laws you could just show the court the video recording of an employee doing willfull sabotage.
If I did what the protestor did at an internal all-hands or summit I would expect to get canned as well. You can't go up yelling and interrupting the CEO. In an internal all-hands/summit situation you need to maintain decorum, if you have a point you wait until a QA session, then express your displeasure.
Half the jobs I’ve worked, I’d be immediately fired if I interrupted a CEO’s speech. The other half, I’d be in serious trouble and I’d be first on any layoff.
You’re going to base an opinion on a third-hand story? That might not even be true just to illustrate a point?
I know a guy that passed BillG in a hallway and said, “hey, Bill, how’s it hangin’?” (Saw him do it; I was mortified.) Just a bottom-tier IC at the time. 20 years later, he still works there. Still an IC, though, so make of it what you will. :-)
So there, now you have another folksy anecdote to balance things out.
You might have 1A rights as an American but it seems to me the manner in which this person protested would be grounds for termination in many jurisdictions.
1A doesn't apply to private entities anyway. 1A protects against government prosecution for your speech, and the government may make no laws "abridging the freedom of speech."
But your employer? They can put whatever rules and restrictions they want on your speech, and with at-will employment, can fire you for any reason anyway, at anytime.
You can say whatever you want, but you aren't free from the consequences of that speech.
This comment sums up well how the spirit of the law is not being upheld, given that the biggest players in government, finance, and the corporate world are working together hand in glove.
>”Corporations cannot exist without government intervention”
>”Some privates companies and financiers are too big to fail/of strategic national importance”
>”1A does not apply to private entities (including the above)”
>”We have a free, competitive market”
I find it very difficult to resolve these seemingly contradictory statements.
Some people seem to think rioting and vandalism are acceptable behaviors.
It's important that people engaging in such activity are dealt with swiftly and justly. Such behavior further encourages violence and destruction as acceptable behaviors in society, which they are not.
Rioting and vandalism are unacceptable...until they aren't and are instead necessary.
Is everyone so quick to forget that the rights we have today in the US were won through violence after all other methods failed? The 40 hour work week we enjoy today was also won through blood.
Now, in this case between employees and Microsoft I'd agree, no, vandalism wasn't necessary at all.
But when it comes to defending our rights and freedoms, there will come a day when its absolutely necessary, and it's just as valid of a tool as peaceful protest is in enforcing the constitution.
It's a difficult question, because obviously violence is out of line for protests about many topics, while just as obviously necessary for some.
I think think that violence or vandalism in this case was unwarranted, but there are some other in this thread who believe otherwise.
I guess that I'd say that, probably, vandals/criminals should always be punished, because they're doing clearly illegal things... and it's up to the protestors to judge whether the cause they're supporting is really worth going to jail for. If sufficient numbers of people feel that, you have a revolution.
(And also, a separate issue, whether the violence is actually going to benefit their cause. It probably won't.)
I certainly don't think that we should be in a position where courts are are judging certain crimes as forgivable because of their cause, while supporters of other causes get the full weight of the law for similar actions. I think the vandals on Jan 6th should get the same punishment as, for instance, similar vandals during BLM.
There’s been a couple studies showing that disruptive protests (blocking roads, yelling at people entering buildings, etc) cause public support for their cause to decrease or even increase opposition.
If the ideas are good then support will build through effectively communicating those ideas. Being noisy is fine but there’s an obvious line that selfish activists cross. The sort of people who want their toys now and don’t want to patiently do the hard work of organically building up a critical mass. So they immediately start getting aggressive and violent in small groups. Which is counter productive.
I think the people is just more vocal, not that the protest changed its opinion, but now they have an excuse, violence, to go against the cause they did not like.
"Violence" like stoping the traffic. If that is violence...
The classic "an effective protest is one that is neither seen nor heard". Which is just ahistorical. Civil rights in the US was not passed because black folks explained to white people that they are people deserving the same rights as them. I hate this white washing of history as a series of peaceful movements that everyone agreed with.
There is nothing wrong with being seen or heard. Instead it is that being violently disruptive tends to lose you support.
You are posing a false dilemma where the only thing a person can do to voice there opinion is to destroy or disrupt things.
That's not true though. Instead you can simply voice your options. You can put out manifestos, publish articles in the newspaper, post to social media, or even talk to people in person.
All those methods are how speech and ideas are normally distributed in a normal society. And if people aren't convinced by what you say, then it is time for you to get better arguments.
If you think being violently disruptive loses you support you should look at any equality movement. I'm not posing a false dilemma, I'm saying that when peaceful means are not working then violence will follow. "A riot is the language of the unheard".
The idea that everyone can just be convinced with a good argument is a nice fantasy but just never true in reality. You've also rigged the game since you can just dig in your heels are refuse any argument and just say "get better arguments". It's a situation no one else can win. If people could so easily be convinced that different people deserve the same rights then we wouldn't have had to spend over a century trying to get them.
The other side of this is that the people doing the protesting have to have the fortitude to accept judicial punishment. If the punishment is out of whack WRT the crime, then you get popular support (e.g. a year in jail for sitting at a lunch counter). But the current situation where folks can break the law and then suffer no consequences? F that noise.
Sitting at a lunch counter was illegal and the punishment was widely viewed as too light for the protesters. Like the racist violence going on right now, people of color were framed as disturbing the peace and disturbing a private business. There were called animals and criminals. Like I said, buying the white washed version of history where everyone was on the right side.
The United States has a history of rioting, vandalism, and violence. The Boston Tea Party comes to mind. The more important question is the contexts in which it is unacceptable, and who should be given the authority to swiftly deal with it - an authority that will itself require the ability to commit violence.
It’s amazing how many discussions I’ve had in the past decade about how people are supposed to “properly” protest (I.e. in a way that commands as little attention as possible) and how few I’ve had discussing the merits of what people are protesting about.
Except of course Jan 6th, which somehow normalized the belief that the 2020 election was stolen AND gaslit a ton of the country into thinking the violence that occurred did not and therefore doesn’t need to be critiqued.
This admin is truly adept at labeling all forms of dissent or disagreement as unacceptable actions that make discussing the issues at hand impossible.
I'm not sure you know what "beyond the pale" means. You probably shouldn't look into the history of the suffragette or civil rights movements, for your own sanity.
That’s a pretty low bar for “beyond the pale.” Company PR isn’t some sacred thing and these people paid a hefty price for their protest. They should be praised for their bravery even if you disagree with their message.
When did I say they shouldn’t expect consequences or that it wasn’t a fireable offense? The whole point of this discussion is that cries for people to “protest properly” are ridiculous and designed to make protests ineffective.
Clearly I get that their jobs and more were at risk, hence why I said they were brave. The only thing unclear is where you got the impression I thought otherwise.
There's a couple of sub links off of that one. Not sure if that's what GP was referring too but there is mention in there of employees being terminated related to protests
I would also like to read the source for the last claim of that statement. The break-in is well established in multiple sources, and also documented on Wikipedia (citing one of those sources). CNBC also add that they planted microphones (using phones) as listening devices.
"In the aftermath of the protests, Smith claimed that the protestors had blocked people out of the office, planted listening devices in the form of phones, and refused to leave until they were removed by police. " (https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/28/microsoft-fires-two-employee...)
They've been raising the alarm for months. If this extreme action is what it took Microsoft to look into genocide and then terminate the contract, it was absolutely the right call
Not that you're implying this, but making an "absolutely the right call" does not in any way shield one from consequences.
Heck, it's usually because one will be punished that doing the right thing is in any manner noble. Otherwise it's just meeting minimum expectations as a human.
I am deeply opposed to the Israeli military, and sympathetic to the cause of the employees, but as the other poster pointed out, they were legitimately fired.
Moreover, their actions didn't improve anything and only serve as further fodder for painting their side here as radical.
