New York City – A Google engineer was recently terminated after publicly protesting against Google Israel’s $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government. The employee disrupted a presentation by Barak Regev, Google Israel’s managing director, shouting, “I refuse to build technology that powers genocide, apartheid, or surveillance.”
Google confirmed the termination, stating that the employee violated company policies by interfering with an official company event. The incident occurred during Mind the Tech, an annual Israeli tech conference in New York City.
The employee’s protest was directed at Project Nimbus, a cloud-computing contract between Google, Amazon, and the Israeli government. Concerns have been raised by Google workers that this contract could potentially support military activities, although Google executives have denied these claims.
Following the employee’s termination, more than 100 people, including Google workers, protested outside Google’s New York office against Project Nimbus. The situation escalated as individuals flooded the company’s employee message board with comments, leading to the forum’s shutdown for being “divisive content that is disruptive to the workplace.”
In a separate incident, the entire YouTube music team was laid off by Alphabet Worker’s Union before they could enter a meeting promoting a resolution calling on Google to bargain with them. The union has also called for the resignation of Alphabet and Google CEO, Sundar Pichai.
With recent controversies surrounding Google’s AI innovations and advertising practices, the tech giant faces mounting challenges. These incidents highlight the growing discontent among employees and external stakeholders regarding Google’s business decisions and company culture.