Google worker accuses it of ‘powering genocide’ in Israel
AN EMPLOYEE of Google has accused the company of “powering genocide” in a clash with the head of its Israel divsion. Barak Regev, the managing director of Google Israel, stopped speaking as a man identifying himself as a cloud engineer for the US tech giant stood up and criticised the tech giant’s Project Nimbus work for the Israeli government and its military.
Video shared on social media shows Mr Regev addressing the Mindthetech conference in New York before a man stood up. He said: “I refuse to build technology that powers genocide, apartheid or surveillance.
“Project Nimbus puts Palestinian community members in danger.”
The man shouted “don’t cloud for apartheid, don’t tech for apartheid” as security ushered him out of the room.
Mr Regev abruptly ended his speech after a second protester interrupted shouting “free Palestine”.
Audience members could be heard shouting “go and support terrorism somewhere else”.
Google’s $1.2bn (£945m) Project Nimbus was announced in April 2021 and is intended to provide Israel’s government, defence establishment and others with “an all-encompassing cloud solution”. Critics have argued that it allows
Israel to collect unlawful data on Palestinians and to increase surveillance.
Speaking after his protest, the Google worker said: “As an engineer working on Google Cloud infrastructure, I was compelled to stand up in a room of decision-makers today and say that I refuse to build cloud technology for genocide, apartheid and surveillance.
“The terms of Project Nimbus put our Palestinian users and co-workers in danger by leaving the door open for military use that violates our company’s professed values and my own ethics.”
Google was contacted for comment.