A Google engineer who disrupted a New York City technology conference earlier this week by standing up and declaring that he refuses to “build technology that promotes genocide” has reportedly been fired.
“I refuse to build technology that powers genocide, apartheid, and surveillance,” the engineer shouted during a speech at the Mind the Tech conference in New York City on Monday. I’m giving a lecture.
“Project Nimbus is putting Palestinian community members at risk,” the anonymous worker added, referring to Google’s $1.2 billion contract to provide cloud services to the Israeli military and government.
A staff member who wore an orange Google T-shirt during a pro-Israel meeting was subsequently fired. According to CNBC.
It was not immediately clear who the staffer was or when he was fired from the Mountain View, Calif., company.
A Google spokesperson confirmed the employee’s termination to the Post, saying, “The employee violated our policies and was terminated.”
A Google representative added, “Regardless of the nature of the issue, this behavior is bad.”
Regev’s keynote wasn’t the only time Google was at the center of controversy this week over events in the Middle East.
Ahead of Thursday’s International Women’s Day Summit in Silicon Valley, a Google employee bulletin board posted a message about the company’s contract with Israel to provide “comprehensive cloud solutions” to government agencies, including defense installations. The staff members were inundated with comments. To CNBC.
Google’s involvement with foreign militaries has polarized opinion among the company’s more than 260,000 global employees, at least since 2018, when the Pentagon approved an artificial intelligence initiative with Google called Project Maven. It has become a hot topic.
Google subsequently withdrew from Project Maven, but in April 2021 it signed Project Nimbus with the Israeli government.
Tensions over the deal have been rising since October 7, when Hamas terrorists launched an attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 Israeli soldiers and civilians and taking hundreds of others hostage.
In the months that followed, Israel conducted military operations in the Gaza Strip that have so far claimed the lives of an estimated 30,000 Palestinians.
In November, a group of Google staff including “anti-Zionist” Jews, Muslims, Palestinians, and Arabs circulated an open letter It demanded that management terminate the Nimbus contract for “providing material support to this genocide.”
