The recent global outage experienced by Microsoft services, leading to shuttered banks, retailers, and grounded flights worldwide, has sparked concerns about the company’s focus on non-technical matters. Silicon Valley companies have increasingly allocated attention and resources towards left-wing diversity initiatives and political censorship crusades, often at the expense of their core technological products.
The New York Times reported that Friday’s global cyber crash was not solely due to CrowdStrike’s failure – a cybersecurity service used by many Microsoft systems. An earlier outage affecting some users of Azure, Microsoft’s cloud hosting provider, also contributed to the chaos. While it is uncertain whether these events would have occurred regardless of Microsoft’s focus on non-technical matters, there is no denying that the tech giant has been particularly preoccupied with political crusades in recent years.
One example of this preoccupation is the official partnership between Microsoft and NewsGuard, a so-called “news rating” project that creates blacklists of disfavored news outlets to sell to advertisers, cutting off their revenue. Despite its claims to combat misinformation, NewsGuard’s leading figures have spread misinformation about major national news stories themselves.
Another aspect of Microsoft’s wokeness is evident in the Microsoft 365 suite, formerly known as Microsoft Office. Users can now add pronouns to their profiles, and senior Microsoft employees open public conferences with statements about their race and gender, while others acknowledge that the company’s headquarters are built on originally indigenous land in Washington State. In 2020, Microsoft pledged new race-based hiring targets to address “racial injustice.
Elon Musk has called attention to the preoccupation with DEI at CrowdStrike, which mirrors Microsoft’s dedication to these issues. The left-wing media is attempting to discredit criticism of the corporate DEI agenda, but the tide of criticism continues to grow. While Microsoft has recently laid off some members of its bloated DEI department, a company spokesman stated that their focus on diversity and inclusion remains unchanged.
Given last Friday’s global outage, many are questioning whether Microsoft should prioritize ensuring the functionality of its core products above all else. Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News, covering issues of free speech and online censorship.