Anti-Israel protest disrupts Google conference: 'Google Cloud rains blood'
Protesters at Google’s developer conference in Mountain View, California chanted "Shame on Google" and "Google Cloud rains blood" while blocking entrance into the event this morning.
According to The Los Angeles Times, demands of the anti-Israel demonstrators at the event were that the company cease its business with the Israeli government through Google’s Nimbus project, a $1.2-billion cloud-computing and artificial intelligence services contract.
While waiting in line for the conference, software security engineer Andres Haro told the LA Times, "I feel that it is worth a shot to listen to others when they have a point of view."
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"We want to make sure that every single person who comes here and who might think that today’s a day about celebrating technological advancements — every single one of those people needs to understand that the reality is much darker than what Google has painted," former Google employee Ariel Koren told the LA Times.
Roni Zeiger, a product developer and protester, told the newspaper, "We’re asking more questions about what role we and our employers are playing in the world. World events have continued to evolve and ... people, including employees, are asking harder questions and wanting to work at places that are consistent with their values."
The demonstration ended at 11 a.m. and conference attendees were redirected to another entrance line as anti-Israel protesters held a sign reading "Google Stop Fueling Genocide."
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Despite Google denying claims that Project Nimbus was providing Israel with weapons and intelligence assistance during the ongoing Gaza Strip conflict, the protesters at the conference known as No Tech for Genocide continue to voice demands for the tech giant to end the project.
The tech conglomerate released a statement in April regarding Project Nimbus that read, "This work is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services."
However, this protest is not the only outcry from Google employees. It simply marks the latest demonstration of anti-Israel sentiment from the tech giant’s workers.
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On April 16, other Google employees held protests across three of the company’s corporate offices, resulting in the termination of over two dozen workers.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai was motivated to speak out after the sit-ins.
"We have a culture of vibrant, open discussion that enables us to create amazing products and turn great ideas into action. That's important to preserve," he wrote in a statement.
"Ultimately, we are a workplace and our policies and expectations are clear: this is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform, or to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics."