Microsoft employees demand Microsoft defy Chinese government 996.ICU-related censorship

Microsoft employees have shown their solidarity with overworked Chinese tech workers who have been using GitHub repository to protest extreme working hours.

They’ve released a petition to defend the trending repository which is under threat of censorship.

996.ICU was established this March to protest the 9am-9pm, 6 days a week working hour system that some Chinese internet companies are illegally enforcing.

Tencent, Alibaba, Xiaomi and Qihoo 360 have already hidden the petition from their browsers.  996.ICU is hosted on GitHub, and the repository can’t be blocked at a network level without blocking the entire site. Individual browsers can refuse to load the page, but the blocks can be circumvented by simply changing browsers.

Compliance with local laws is mandatory, so Microsoft has to censor search results on Bing when necessary.  This may mean that there’s a risk that Microsoft will be forced to do the same on their own software development platform, removing it from GitHub..

The petition reads as follows:

We, the workers of Microsoft and GitHub, support the 996.ICU movement and stand in solidarity with tech workers in China. We know this is a problem that crosses national borders. These same issues permeate across full time and contingent jobs at Microsoft and the industry as a whole. Another reason we must take a stand in solidarity with Chinese workers is that history tells us that multinational companies will pit workers against each other in a race to the bottom as they outsource jobs and take advantage of weak labor standards in the pursuit of profit. We have to come together across national boundaries to ensure just working conditions for everyone around the globe.

We encourage Microsoft and GitHub to keep the 996.ICU GitHub repository uncensored and available to everyone.

To other tech workers and industry supporters, we urge you to join us in our support of the 996.ICU movement.

Silicon Valley employees have become increasingly politically active of late, with Microsoft employees in particular registering their unhappiness with Microsoft’s military work for the USA and the company’s sexist culture internally. The first protest fell on deaf ears, while the later has attracted promises of change. It remains to be seen how Microsoft will respond to this latest demand from their employees.

Source: theverge