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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
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Google fires 28 employees for protesting Israel cloud deal
By Hanna Ziady, CNN
Updated:
7:08 AM EDT, Thu April 18, 2024
Source: CNN
Google has fired more than two dozen employees who protested this week
against the company’s cloud computing contract with the Israeli
government.
The workers were dismissed after an investigation found that they had
staged protests inside Google’s offices in New York and Sunnyvale,
California. In Sunnyvale, they entered the office of Google Cloud CEO
Thomas Kurian, according to a by the group that organized the
demonstration, No Tech For Apartheid.
Protesters held banners that read “No More Genocide For Profit” and
“We Stand with Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Googlers.”
A Google spokesperson told CNN Thursday that the protests “were part
of a long-standing campaign by a group of organizations and people who
largely don’t work” at the company.
“A small number of employee protesters entered and disrupted a few of
our locations. Physically impeding other employees’ work and
preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of
our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior. After refusing
multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to
remove them to ensure office safety,” the spokesperson added.
“We have so far concluded individual investigations that resulted in
the termination of employment for 28 employees, and will continue to
investigate and take action as needed.”
Google and Amazon have a $1.2 billion contract to provide cloud
computing services to the Israeli government and military, known as
Project Nimbus, according to No Tech For Apartheid, who have strongly
condemned the dismissals.
“This flagrant act of retaliation is a clear indication that Google
values its $1.2 billion contract with the genocidal Israeli government
and military more than its own workers,” the group said in a
published on Medium Thursday.
Israel has it is committing genocide in Gaza, arguing that it is
fighting its war against Hamas in self-defense. Hamas attacked Israel
on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250
hostages.
Google Cloud and Israel
Google Cloud’s contract with the Israeli government dates back to
2021, when the company that it had been chosen to provide “public
cloud services to help address the country’s challenges within the
public sector, including in healthcare, transportation, and
education.”
But the protests followed a in Time magazine earlier this month, citing
an internal company document, that Israel’s Ministry of Defense is a
Google Cloud customer.
According to Time, the ministry has its own secure entry point to
Google-provided computing infrastructure, which would allow it to store
and process data, and access artificial intelligence services. Earlier
this year, the ministry also sought consulting assistance from Google
to expand its Google Cloud access, Time reported.
No Tech for Apartheid said the article showed that Google had “built
custom tools” for the Ministry of Defense and had “doubled down on
contracting” with Israel’s military since the war broke out.
The Google spokesperson said Google Cloud “supports numerous
governments around the world, including the Israeli government.”
“We have been very clear that the Nimbus contract is for workloads
running on our commercial cloud by Israeli government ministries, who
agree to comply with our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy.
This work is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military
workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services,” the
spokesperson added.
Separately, Google confirmed that it is making an unspecified number of
fresh layoffs as part of an internal reorganization. The job cuts will
not be company-wide, and impacted employees will be able to apply for
other open roles across Google.
Google laid off hundreds of employees , adding to a wave of job cuts in
the tech and media industries, including at Amazon, and the Los Angeles
Times.
This story has been updated with additional information.
Olesya Dmitracova contributed reporting.
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