New York: Google employees publicly protest against Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. The young software engineers protested by disrupting Google Israel Managing Director Barak Regev’s speech.
The incident took place at the Israel Tech Conference in New York on Monday. Young engineers also criticized Google’s plans with the Israeli army. Protesters chanted slogans against Israel.
‘I refuse to build technology that powers genocide!’
Google software engineer interrupts speech by Google Israel managing director in apparent protest of project with Israeli military pic.twitter.com/40JyCir4eu
‘I am Google Cloud Software Engineer. I don’t agree to build technology that strengthens genocide’ – shouted the young engineer. The protesters were then forcefully escorted out of the conference hall by security personnel.
Barak Regev has been Google’s Israel Managing Director since 2017. Regev lectured on Israel’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry. Israel has been accused of using AI technology to attack Gaza.
In 2021, Google has entered into a 1.2 million contract called Project Nimbus to provide cloud services to the Israeli government and army. The details of the agreement were published by the Guardian. The Guardian also pointed out that Google’s technology could allow more surveillance of Palestinians and illegal data collection to expand Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian land.
In December, Google employees protested in London over the killing of Palestinian software engineer My Obaid in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.
‘I refuse to build technology that powers genocide!’
Google software engineer interrupts speech by Google Israel managing director in apparent protest of project with Israeli military pic.twitter.com/40JyCir4eu