28 Google employees decided to stage a protest in front of their Google offices holding signs that accuse their employer, Google, of allowing their AI tools to be used by Israel in its effort to allegedly commit genocide against the Palestinian people.
As a result of the protestors directly accusing Google of committing war crimes, the employer decided it was time to let these people go as they may be a security risk in the future given their open hostility towards the company.
Excerpt from abc7news.com
SUNNYVALE, Calif. (KGO) — Following a day of action in the Bay Area, Google employees protested the war in Gaza in front of their offices across the country.
Working at Google may be seen as a dream career for many, but software engineer Emaan Haseem has moral disagreements with the company involving the war in Gaza…
“I would not like to lose my job,” Haseem said. “But I think that it is impossible for me to continue coming into work every week without acknowledging and loudly condemning Project Nimbus and any support for the Israeli government.”
One read: “I am not proud to work for Google. I am ashamed to work for Google. And the only reason I’m still working for Google is because of my fellow workers at NoTechForApartheid organizing against tech complicit genocide.”
Excerpt from opindia.com
Google has fired 28 employees after they were involved in protests against Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion joint contract with Amazon.com Inc. to provide the Israeli government with AI and cloud services. The employees had taken part in a sit-in protest at the tech giant’s offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California.
According to a New York Post report, the pro-Palestinian employees donning traditional Arab headscarves had stormed and occupied the office of a top executive in California on Tuesday, April 16. They were terminated late on Wednesday, April 17, after an internal investigation. The news of the firing was shared by Google vice president of global security, Chris Rackow, in a company-wide memo.
The protesters in New York office of the company had occupied the 10th floor of the building in Manhattan. There were protests in the Seattle offices of Google as well.
In the memo, Rackow reportedly wrote, “They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers. Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made co-workers feel threatened.”