Google employee Eman Hashem speaks to the media as other demonstrators protest the Gaza war and Google's cooperation with the Israeli government in front of Google's offices in Sunnyvale, California, on Tuesday, April 16, 2024. Dai Kanno/Bay Area News) Group)
Written by Michael Liedke | AP Technology Writer
Google has fired 28 employees following protests over technology the internet company is providing to the Israeli government during the Gaza war, further escalating tensions over the high-profile deal.
The layoffs, which Google confirmed late Wednesday, were announced a day after nine employees were arrested during sit-in protests at offices in New York and Sunnyvale, Calif., and after the company called police.
The focus of the opposition rocking Google is “Project Nimbus,” a $1.2 billion contract signed in 2021 that calls for Google and Amazon to provide cloud computing and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli government. ing.
The protests are primarily organized by a group called “No Tech For Aparttheid.” Google says Nimbus is not used for weapons or intelligence gathering.
Google said in a statement that the firing of the 28 employees was due to “totally unacceptable behavior” that prevented some employees from performing their jobs and created a threatening atmosphere. The Mountain View, California, company added that it was still investigating what happened during the protest and suggested that more workers could be fired.
In a blog post, No Tech For Apartheid claims that Google lied about what happened inside its offices during a “peaceful sit-in” that received overwhelming support from other workers who were not participating in the protests. I accused him of being there.
“This flagrant act of retaliation clearly shows that Google cares more about its $1.2 billion contract with the genocidal Israeli government and military than its own workers.” Tech for Apartheid claimed.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai did not name any specific incidents, but in a blog post on Thursday he said the company is working to improve AI technology at a pivotal time for the industry, and by extension, humanity. He suggested that employees would find themselves in a bind as they ramped up efforts to achieve this goal.
“This is a business, and it's a place where you behave in a way that disrupts colleagues, makes them feel unsafe, tries to use the company as a personal platform, fights over disruptive issues, or debates politics. Not,” Pichai wrote. “This is too important a moment for businesses to be distracted.”
The deal, which has drawn the ire of some Google employees, is being done within the company's cloud computing division, which is overseen by former Oracle executive Thomas Kurian.
Under Kurian's leadership, cloud computing has emerged as one of Google's fastest-growing divisions, with revenue of $33 billion last year, a 26% increase from 2022. governments around the world.
Google employees regularly hold angry protests against other deals the company is working on, and have also raised ethical concerns about how it develops artificial intelligence.
One of the earlier employee revolts led Google to decide in 2018 to end a contract with the US Department of Defense called “Project Maven,” which involved helping the military with military video analysis.
But Google has continued to grow despite internal concerns about how it gets some of its revenue. Most of its revenue comes from digital advertising sold through its internet empire, which relies on the dominant search engine as its main pillar.
Google's parent company Alphabet Inc. made $74 billion in profits last year and now employs about 182,000 people worldwide, more than in 2018 when the company abandoned Project Maven. Approximately 83,000 more people.
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