Microsoft 365 Outage & Disability News in Japan Getting ‘Lost in Translation’

By Barrier Free Japan

January 28 2023

JAPAN – Not only did the Microsoft 365 outage – affecting Teams in my case – make it difficult for me to contact colleagues at work in Japan on Wednesday 25^th; it also meant that whilst trying to find news stories about disability in Japan through Google, I was flooded with news stories about the Microsoft 365 outage, as the words used to describe the problem with Microsoft 365 can also be used to describe issues to do with people with disabilities.

When Japanese news outlets reported the problems with software like Microsoft Teams, they used the term “障害”, and since the same term is often used in a news story about disability issues, it was difficult to find news about people with disabilities in Japan, as any Google search with the term “障害” only returned results to do with the Microsoft 365 outage.

Coincidentally “障害” – or ‘shogai’ can be translated as ‘disability’, ‘impairment’, as well as more troublingly, ‘hindrance’, ‘obstacle’ and ‘failure.’ A person with disabilities in Japan could be translated literally as a ‘failed’ or ‘obstacle’ person’.