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Big tech would build a Muslim register

by on05 December 2016


No one remembers IBM, including IBM

It seems that the top tech companies have learnt nothing from the experience of IBM during the 1930s and are happy to help build Donald “Prince of Orange” Trump’s Muslim database.

For those who came in late, in the 1930s Biggish Blue’s German branch made a killing flogging the machines which helped the Nazi regime efficiently funnel Jews, Roma and communists into death camps. After the war, it faced more than a few law suits from those who felt that IBM’s efficient machines had helped kill their loved ones.

It seems that Biggish Blue has forgotten all that. Shortly after the election, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty wrote a personal letter to President-elect Trump in which she offered her congratulations, and more importantly, the services of her company.

The six different areas she identified as potential business opportunities between a Trump White House and IBM and while these were all harmless they sparked the resignation of a senior content strategist named Elizabeth Wood.

“Your letter offered the backing of IBM’s global workforce in support of his agenda that preys on marginalised people and threatens my well-being as a woman, a Latina and a concerned citizen. The president-elect has demonstrated contempt for immigrants, veterans, people with disabilities, Black, Latin, Jewish, Muslim and LGBTQ communities,” she wrote. “These groups comprise a growing portion of the company you lead, Ms. Rometty. They work every day for IBM’s success and have been silenced by your words,” she wrote.

The Intercept  wondered if Big Tech would face similar issues and asked nine of the most prominent such firms, from Facebook to Booz Allen Hamilton if they would sell their services to help create a national Muslim registry, an idea recently resurfaced by Donald Trump’s transition team. Only Twitter said no.

This surprised the Intercept which thought that such a project would provide American technology companies an easy line to draw in the sand. After all tracking individuals purely on the basis of their religious beliefs is pretty much a non-brainer, even to the moral pigmies of corporate America.

To be fair, those surveyed including Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Apple, IBM and Booz Allen Hamilton, SGI and SRA International basically refused to answer. But it seems that only Twitter was prepared to come up with the right answer. Namely it was company policy to prohibit anyone the use of “Twitter data for surveillance purposes. Period”.

Microsoft in the past has said that it was committed to promoting not just diversity and that “it will remain important for those in government and the tech sector to continue to work together to strike a balance that protects privacy and public safety in what remains a dangerous time”.

Last modified on 05 December 2016
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