Google fires engineer who protested at company-sponsored Israeli tech conference

Google reportedly fired a cloud engineer who interrupted a speech by Barak Regev, managing director of Google’s Israel operations, at an Israeli tech event in New York. CNBC. “I’m a Google software engineer and I refuse to build technology that supports genocide or surveillance!” the engineer was seen and heard yelling in one room video The photos taken by freelance journalist Caroline Haskins went viral. While being dragged away by security and amid jeers from the audience, he continued speaking and mentioned Project Nimbus. This is a $1.2 billion contract won by Google and Amazon to provide artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies to the Israeli military.

Last year, a group of Google employees published an open letter urging the company to cancel the Nimbus project, citing the “hatred, abuse and retaliation” Arab, Muslim and Palestinian workers suffered within the company. “Project Nimbus puts Palestinian community members at risk! I refuse to build technology that will be used for cloud apartheid,” the engineer said. After he was led out of the venue, Regev told the audience “[p]The privileged art of working for a company that represents democratic values ​​is providing a stage for dissent. He ended his speech after a second protester interrupted and accused Google of participating in genocide.

The incident occurred during the MindTheTech conference in New York. This year’s theme is apparently “Standing with Israeli Tech,” as investment in Israel slowed following the October 7 Hamas attack. Haskins described in detail what she witnessed at the event, but she was unable to stay until the end of the event because she, too, was kicked out by security.

The Google engineer who interrupted the event told Haskins that he wanted “other Google Cloud engineers to know that this is what engineering is like – standing with the communities that are impacted by your work.” He spoke to reporters anonymously to avoid professional repercussions , but Google found out exactly who he was.A Google spokesperson told CNBC He was fired for “interfering with an official company-sponsored event.” They also told the news organization that his “conduct was not good in any way” and that “the employee was terminated for violating the rules.” [Google’s] policy”.

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