Israel-Palestine war: Why Google fired an employee after official event in New York?
By Team Asianet Newsable | First Published Mar 11, 2024, 12:29 PM ISTThe employee, expressing opposition to technology enabling what they labeled as genocide, shouted, "No cloud for apartheid" before being booed and escorted out of the venue.
Amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza, Google finds itself ensnared in internal dissent as its business affiliations with the Israeli military come under scrutiny. The turmoil reached a public crescendo when an employee from Google's cloud division disrupted a keynote speech by the managing director of Google's Israel business at a New York event.
Publicly denouncing the company's involvement with the Israeli military, the protesting employee declared, "I refuse to build technology that powers genocide."
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The employee, expressing opposition to technology enabling what they labeled as genocide, shouted, "No cloud for apartheid" before being booed and escorted out of the venue.
In response to the disruption, Google Israel's managing director, Barak Regev, asserted that the company's democratic ethos allows for diverse opinions. However, according to reports, the protesting Google Cloud engineer has since been terminated for "interfering with an official company event" and unspecified policy violations, raising questions about the company's commitment to democratic values.
This incident marks another instance of Google navigating political and cultural clashes within its workforce. The tech giant has been contending with employee dissent, particularly concerning its role as a technology provider to various militaries, including the US. The controversy echoes the protests in 2018 against Google's Project Maven contract with the US Defense Department.
Adding to the strife, Google recently signed a $1.2 billion Project Nimbus deal to provide AI and cloud services to the Israeli government and military. In the aftermath of this move, over 600 Google employees reportedly signed a letter urging the company to withdraw its sponsorship of an Israeli tech conference.
This week also witnessed internal tensions related to the Gaza crisis, with Google's employee message board inundated with comments about the company's military contracts with Israel ahead of the International Women's Day Summit.
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