Atrocity-free tech? Yes please!

9. mars

Today’s atrocities are tech atrocities. From Facebook’s impact on the genocide in Myanmar to Israel running its genocidal campaign in Gaza on systems supported by some of the biggest names in the sector, tech is implicated in crimes arising from war and repression.

Many technology employees have responded to their company’s involvement with Israeli repression of Palestinians by insisting that working for a technology company should not involve the risk of being made complicit in international crimes. The same applies to the rest of us - individual consumers and the organisations we work for - who rely on big tech for all kinds of digital solutions. We should not have to worry that our purchases are linking us international crimes.

Do we have no choice but to subsidize corporate involvement in international crimes through our dependence on big tech? Is there no “atrocity-free” tech?

We decided to see if it was possible to identify software products and online services NOT involved in international crimes. That experiment was the basis for the atrocity-free tech whitelist.

We used tech company involvement in Israeli repression of Palestinians as a test case. We identified the risk of tech involvement in international crimes by looking at credible, evidence-based claims in the public domain concerning tech support to reported Israeli crimes of apartheid, genocide, or violations of international law under illegal occupation (see some example sources below). We identified the software, platforms or online services at issue in the reported violations, looked for alternative providers or solutions, and then checked these alternative providers for evidence of involvement in international crimes in Israel-Palestine. The result was the whitelist published here.

Method

OK. Now for some clarifications on method, disclaimers, etc.

For this exercise, we opted for a narrow scope (international crimes) and did not frame the scope as human rights more broadly. We stuck to assessing the risk of company involvement in international crimes and not, for example, hate speech (tech - especially social media - has a big responsibility when it comes to hate speech, including all kinds of racism, Islamophobia and Antisemitism). Our narrow focus was intentional. The whitelist is, after all, a test. We did not have the resources to address a wider set of human rights issues. If you would like to see the list deepened or expanded, let us know, donate!, or do it yourself.

We limited the focus to Israel-Palestine because there is an urgent need to respond to an ongoing genocide. This also means there is abundant analysis by reputable human rights groups and international judicial bodies on this topic that is already in the public domain. This material identifies potential international crimes and, crucially, is readily available to any tech company interested to respect human rights. But the risk of tech involvement in international crimes is not limited to Israel. In fact, as big tech in the US moves to take advantage of military contracts, the risk of tech connections to crimes committed during war may be increasing.

The whitelist we have compiled is based on open source checks for credible reports of risks of corporate connections to international crimes, defined as genocide, crimes against humanity (which includes the crime of apartheid) and war crimes. In the whitelist, we included companies where we found no credible reports of such risks. This doesn’t make these companies ‘ethical’ but it does mean that, to the best of our knowledge, they are not involved in international crimes.

It is up to companies themselves to check for risks of connections to international crimes. Any operations in, or in connection to, a place where such violations are being perpetrated should prompt companies to investigate their own operations and take action to prevent or mitigate those risks. This what is called human rights due diligence, which is the globally accepted method for business respect for human rights.

Of course, information about possible tech connections to international crimes should prompt the relevant authorities to launch investigations. Companies should be aware that there are liability risks from such involvements. Ultimately, any assessment of business responsibility for negative human rights impacts, including international crimes, will involve an analysis of the facts and law, including what the company has done (or not done) to manage the risk of causing, contributing or being linked to international crimes.

As far as we can tell, this white list is a first. We are not aware of a white list focused on alternatives to big tech providers connected to international crimes. There are sites that offer alternatives to Israeli tech or European tech alternatives to US providers. With verification, these can be helpful sources of information. But we believe ethical choices about what tech to use should be based on a company’s respect for international standards, not national identity.

We firmly believe that we shouldn’t have to be doing this. All companies have a responsibility to respect human rights and that, in practice, this means acting with due diligence to ensure they are not causing, contributing to, or are directly linked to negative impacts on rights through their business relationships.

The fact that big companies are failing to take these responsibilities seriously should not be mistaken for an acceptable state of affairs. It is a system failure that will not be fixed by shaming individuals into shopping better. The point of this whitelist is to show all consumers - especially big, institutional buyers of tech (you know, the companies and organisations that many of us work for) - that there are alternatives. And, of course, to show tech companies that they can do business differently.

Finally, drop us a line if you think a company included in the whitelist has a connection to international crimes that we do not know about, in Israel-Palestine or elsewhere. If there is a company not listed in the whitelist that you think should be, let us know and we will be happy to consider including them (the more atrocity-free tech, the better!). And, of course, if you’re a company that has made changes for the better, we’d be happy to discuss how you can get whitelisted.

Disclaimers: Exclusion from the whitelist does not imply company involvement in international crimes or other human rights violations. Oh, and we have no investments in any of the companies on the whitelist.

Some relevant sources

Amnesty International. (2022). Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity. Amnesty International. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/5141/2022/en/

Amnesty International. (2024). ‘You feel like you are subhuman’: Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Amnesty International. https://amnesty.no/sites/default/files/2024-12/2024-11-29_Gaza_genocide_report__full_report.pdf

AP News (2025, February 18). As Israel uses US-made AI models in war, concerns arise about tech’s role in who lives and who dies. https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-ai-technology-737bc17af7b03e98c29cec4e15d0f108

Al Jazeera Staff (2024). What is Project Nimbus, and why are Google workers protesting Israel deal? Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/23/what-is-project-nimbus-and-why-are-google-workers-protesting-israel-deal

Ben-David, R. (2021). Oracle inaugurates regional cloud center in Jerusalem, plans to open 2nd site. The Times of Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/oracle-inaugurates-regional-cloud-center-in-jerusalem-plans-to-open-2nd-site/

Biddle, S. (2022, July 24). Documents Reveal Advanced AI Tools Google Is Selling to Israel. The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2022/07/24/google-israel-artificial-intelligence-project-nimbus/

Haskins, C. (2024). The Hidden Ties Between Google and Amazon’s Project Nimbus and Israel’s Military. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-google-project-nimbus-israel-idf/

Hill, C. (2021). Hundreds of Amazon workers call on Bezos to sever contracts with IDF and support Palestinian rights. The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/amazon-workers-jeff-bezos-palestine-israel-b1854469.html

International Court of Justice. (2024). Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. International Court of Justice.

Jafarnia, N. (2024). Extermination and Acts of Genocide: Israel Deliberately Depriving Palestinians in Gaza of Water. Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/report/2024/12/19/extermination-and-acts-genocide/israel-deliberately-depriving-palestinians-gaza

Meta and Lavender. (2024, April 16). Paul Biggar. https://blog.paulbiggar.com/meta-and-lavender/

Middle East Monitor. (2024). Apple under fire for matching employee donations to IDF and illegal settlements. Middle East Monitor. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240612-apple-under-fire-for-matching-employee-donations-to-idf-and-illegal-settlements/

Ministry of Finance. (2023). Another step in the transition of the Israeli government to the cloud computing domain – the ‘Project Nimbus’: The Amazon AWS (Amazon Web Services) company activated today the local cloud zone in Israel for the first time. Www.Gov.Il. https://www.gov.il/en/pages/press_01082023_b

Reiff, B. (2024, August 4). ‘Order from Amazon’: Tech giants storing mass data for Israel’s war. +972 Magazine. https://www.972mag.com/cloud-israeli-army-gaza-amazon-google-microsoft/

Reiff, B. (2025, January 23). Leaked documents expose deep ties between Israeli army and Microsoft. +972 Magazine. https://www.972mag.com/microsoft-azure-openai-israeli-army-cloud/

Rubinstein, M. D. (2023, November 14). Hi-tech at war: 4 weeks at Oracle - a CEO’s story of unwavering international support. Ynetnews. https://www.ynetnews.com/business/article/s1117hne4t

Shareholders and Current and Former Employees of Apple Inc. (2024). Apple Cease Funding for Illegal Settlements and Israeli Military. https://openletter.earth/apple-cease-funding-for-illegal-settlements-and-israeli-military-d5e63fa8

Younes, R. (2023). Meta’s Broken Promises. Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/systemic-censorship-palestine-content-instagram-and