Israel’s attack on Gaza has sparked conflict among companies around the world. At Google, a company that has often sought to build a public reputation for openness, the war appears to be sparking a growing number of employee protests or resignations.
time magazine Report think protest groups apartheid without technologyThe group lobbies against Google’s involvement in the Israeli government and currently has at least 40 Google employees. Recently, one member of the group, then-Google software engineer Eddie Hatfield, 23, stood up at a company meeting and shouted: “I’m a Google Cloud software engineer and I refuse to build things that contribute to genocide.” Technology, apartheid, or surveillance!” Hatfield was fired shortly after, according to Time magazine.
Two Google employees have since said they have been fired over the company’s ongoing Project Nimbus, $1.2 billion cloud Contract with the Israeli Government. Nimbus is a joint project between Google and Amazon to provide cloud, machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities to the Israeli Ministry of Defense. The full purpose of Nimbus has yet to be determined.The Israeli government previously describes the project It aims to “provide a full range of cloud solutions for governments, defense agencies and other institutions.”
Time paints a picture of people like Hatfield and Google employees who resigned as part of a “growing movement” within the company that wanted to abandon the Israeli cloud project. People involved in the activist group claimed that in addition to the dozens of Google employees in the group, there are “hundreds of employees” [who are] Sympathy” for their goals. Gizmodo reached out to Google for comment and will update this story if Google responds.
exist its websiteApartheid Without Technology claims that “Google and Amazon are fueling genocidal attacks on Gaza through $1.2 billion worth of contracts with the Israeli government and military” and asks visitors to “demand that these companies cancel Nimbus immediately , to end their complicity in Israeli war crimes.” ”
Google and Amazon employees have been protesting the Nimbus project for many years-since a long time ago The Hamas attack on October 7 and the subsequent Israeli attack on Gaza. Still, the recent outbreak of violence appears to have thrust the controversial issue back to the forefront of corporate culture wars.
Google has recently taken other steps to limit discussions of Gaza in its offices.New York Times Report The company recently worked to “quell” hostility on its internal message board Memegen. The forum is a long-standing feature of the company’s office culture, allowing Google employees to express themselves freely and even criticize Google executives and policies. The New York Times said that Google recently removed some key features of Memegen, including the ability to downvote posts. Some Google employees criticized the moves, claiming it would “censor their free speech,” the newspaper reported.
On October 7, Hamas militants launched an attack on Israel. Kidnapped as many as 250 people, and killed approximately 1,200 people. Israel then launched a war against Hamas, resulting in large numbers of civilian deaths. Since the war began, human rights groups estimate that Israel has killed as many as 30,000 Palestinians. Includes over 12,000 children.The war also caused hunger crisis For millions of Gazans. Israeli forces recently opened fire on seven workers at the World Central Kitchen, an aid organization delivering food to the Gaza Strip, killing seven workers.The United Nations estimates that as many as 224 humanitarian aid workers killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war. Israel claims the attack on WCK workers was a “grave mistake.”