Unless there are those who need certain words for their jobs, I can kinda understand why Microsoft wouldn't want emails from work addresses to go out with political agendas... for either side.

Sure. Then block both sides, and not only the one not bringing you money.

Work emails should just be about work. Too many people use their work emails like a personal email... with their banking, shopping, etc. That's what personal email addresses are for.

No one uses their company email for their personal banking, simply for the reason because if you'd leave, you'd lose your access, and since most companies run behind firewalls, vpns, 2fa tokens and similar additional credentials, it's simply harder to use.

This policy should go for many non-work related topics too. IT can unblock the words for certain users who need to use them for their job.

Of course, let's waste resources to maintain idiotic blocklists that are out of date the moment they are rolled out, and additional resources to make the blocklist actually work. Palestine, p4lestine, pale s tine, p a l e s t i n e, paleztine. Need more?

You're not at work for someone with this kind of unhinged mentality watching you working for 8 hours a day straight with no breaks and no distractions. You're there to get your work done. In my current team, we've had the best ideas talking about our problems at the coffee machine. I personally focus best when I have music on. We're doing sports together once a week on a company fitness incentive, which boosted our team dynamic massively. None of this would be possible in such a controlled environment.