A group of Google employees staged protests in California and New York on Tuesday against the information technology company’s provision of cloud computing services to Israel, according to reports.
Protesters at Google’s Sunnyvale, Calif., location entered the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian on Tuesday morning to discuss negotiations with Amazon, which provides cloud services and data centers in Israel. He said he would only walk away if Google backed out of Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion joint deal.government, washington post report.
A similar protest was held in a common space at Google’s New York office, Zelda Montes, one of the protesters, told the outlet. According to the report, there were banners hanging above the common areas that read “Google worker sit-in,” “No to Project Nimbus,” and “We will not use technology for genocide.”
Protesters wore T-shirts with the slogans “Googlers against genocide” and “Apartheid doesn’t need technology.” according to Gizmodo.
Providing public cloud services to the Israeli government is the first of five “core tiers” of a “large, multi-year flagship project” launched in 2019. according to Israel Government Procurement Agency.Google and Amazon in April 2021 ignored other bidders who also bid for the contract, Reuters. report. (Related article: Hamas praises former Google employee who resigned over ties to Israel)
A group of Google employees staged a sit-in at the company’s offices to protest the tech giant’s cooperation with the Israeli government, escalating conflicts within the tech company over the Gaza war and whether U.S. companies should sell technology to Israel. . https://t.co/xGxXOnXrGW
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 16, 2024
Since then, various protests have erupted within Google and Amazon. Co-signed by over 90 Google employees and over 300 Amazon employees Anonymous October 2021 Letter It accused the companies of “aggressively” pursuing military and law enforcement contracts that are “part of a disturbing pattern of militarization, lack of transparency, and avoidance of oversight.” They called on both companies to “withdraw from the Nimbus program and sever all ties with the Israeli military.”
Two months after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, workers take to downtown San Francisco to protest Israel’s reported use of what appears to be a separate artificial intelligence program called “Gospel.” I did a “die-in” at a Google office. “In the military response to Hamas, according to San Francisco (SF) Chronicle.
In March, Google fired an employee who heckled a top Israeli executive during a meeting in New York, prompting Montes to consider the possibility of firing him, The Washington Post reported. . “I’ve been waiting for months for people to be in my position and ready to risk their jobs,” Montes told the outlet in part.
“Google is directly profiting from what’s happening in Gaza.”
Zelda Montes, a software engineer and No Technology for Apartheid activist, says tech workers are rallying to end Nimbus, the Google and Amazon project that enables apartheid in Israel. Talk⤵️ pic.twitter.com/VF3bC4PPSb
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 6, 2024
Montes also reportedly claimed that Google lied to employees about Project Nimbus.
A Google spokesperson told SF Chronicle that Project Nimbus is a public service program, not a military program.
