A Google Cloud engineer just interrupted Google Israel managing director Barak Regev at the Israeli tech industry conference MindTheTech this morning in NY.
"I refuse to build technology that powers genocide!"
he yelled, referring to Google's Project Nimbus contract pic.twitter.com/vM9mMFlJRS
— Caroline Haskins (@car0linehaskins) March 4, 2024
Google fired an engineer in its cloud department after he chanted slogans against Israel during a technology conference in New York.
During the speech of Barak Regev, CEO of Google in Israel, the employee protested Google's cooperation in the Nimbos project, the cloud calculator project of the IDF and the government offices.
"I'm a software engineer at Google, and I refuse to build technology that encourages genocide, apartheid or surveillance," the employee shouted just before being removed by the security guards, and added: "Project Nimbus endangers Palestinian citizens, I refuse to build technology that is going to be used for apartheid-cloud!. Release You are Palestine!".
Google confirmed the dismissal, which was first reported by CNBC, where they said: "Earlier this week, an employee interrupted a colleague during a presentation at an official company-sponsored event. This behavior is unacceptable, regardless of the topic, and the employee was fired for violating our policies."
BREAKING—PRO-PALESTINE @googlecloud ENGINEER DISRUPTS @Google ISRAEL DIRECTOR AT GOOGLE-SPONSORED ISRAELI TECH CONFERENCE IN NYC.
The worker demanded that Google STOP using worker labor to power genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
#NoTechForApartheid pic.twitter.com/t2mqCqFFay
— No Tech For Apartheid (@NoTechApartheid) March 4, 2024
Google faced public pressure for its involvement in the Nimbus project when the contract was signed in 2021.
Hundreds of employees at Google and Amazon published an open letter protesting the deal, claiming that the technologies "enable additional surveillance and illegal data collection on Palestinians."
The "No Hi-Tech for Apartheid" organization, which opposes the Nimbus project, published a statement on Friday regarding the firing of the engineer.
"Google's intentions are clear: the company is trying to silence employees to hide its moral failings."
Since the outbreak of the war on October 7, workers have staged a "walkout" at the company's San Francisco offices to protest the cloud services contract, and more than 600 workers have signed a letter demanding Google end its sponsorship of the Mind the Tech conference, according to a Wired report. .
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