Google employee says proud to be fired for supporting Gaza, Palestine
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The No Tech for Apartheid campaign labels Google's Project Nimbus as the 'world's first AI-powered genocide'.
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Two men hold up a banner and signs along Market Street during a tech workers protest against Google and Amazon for their contracts with the Israeli occupation government in San Francisco, Thursday, September 8, 2022. (AP)
The No Tech for Apartheid campaign released a statement on X yesterday against Google for firing the cloud software engineer employee who spoke against Project Nimbus, accusing Google of enabling the "world's first AI-powered genocide" through the project adding that the employee is proud to be fired.
“Google has engaged in a clear-cut act of retaliation against its own worker for speaking up about the terms and conditions of their labor,” the statement revealed.
The group further pointed out Google's hypocrisy by stating "While touting the importance of 'democratic values' in the workplace, Google is shutting down free speech and silencing debate and dissent among workers within the company."
"Google's aims are clear: the corporation is trying to silence workers to hide their moral failings. Google is enabling the world's first AI-powered genocide through Project Nimbus," the statement emphasized.
BREAKING—Full statement from the #NoTechForApartheid Campaign on Google’s retaliation against and firing of Google Cloud Software Engineer who disrupted the Israeli AI and surveillance MindTheTech Conferencehttps://t.co/FaUxkbrt2G pic.twitter.com/HiPP24g5or
— No Tech For Apartheid (@NoTechApartheid) March 8, 2024
They added that the ex-employee is proud of being fired as they stated that, “While terminating this brave worker, Google HR asked how they were feeling. The worker replied: proud to be fired for refusing to be complicit in genocide.”
Google fires employee for speaking up against genocide in Gaza
The Google Cloud engineer who protested during a company event was dismissed, according to CNBC on March 8, marking yet another bad moment for Google, which has been embroiled in a slew of political and cultural battles in recent years and has battled to quash employee dissent.
On March 4, at a keynote speech in New York by the managing director of Google's "Israel" business, one employee in the company's cloud division openly objected, saying, "I refuse to build technology that powers genocide."
At the conference, the Google Cloud software engineer interrupted remarks by Barak Regev, Google "Israel's" CEO, by saying that his work should not be used for surveillance and genocide against the Palestinians.
Google's employees have been concerned with many technologies since at least 2018, when they opposed a Defense Department contract known as Project Maven. This was followed by a dispute around Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion artificial intelligence and computer services arrangement between Google, Amazon Web Services, and the Israeli government and military that began in 2021.
Google employees disapprove of the tech giant
Over 600 staff members at Google signed a letter demanding Google marketing to drop its sponsorship of the annual conference promoting the Israeli tech industry called Mind the Tech in New York this week, WIRED reported on March 5.
“Please withdraw from Mind the Tech, issue an apology, and stand with Googlers and customers who are despairing over the overwhelming loss of life in Gaza; we need Google to do better,” the letter on the event read.
