Several Google workers were arrested Tuesday after staging sit-ins at the company’s offices in New York City and California to protest the tech giant’s contract with the Israeli government.
A total of nine protesters were arrested at both locations on Tuesday. Staff at the Sunnyvale campus were livestreaming their protest to Twitch when another employee walked in around the eighth hour.
“We’d like to see if you could do it voluntarily. It’s been a while, so can you do it for us?” the man asked, urging them to clear the space and contact Human Resources.
‘Could you contact TK about this?’ a woman responded, referring to Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, in whose office they were sitting.
When the workers refused to leave, a stream of police came in and ordered them to put their hands behind their backs.
Several Google employees were arrested Tuesday after staging sit-ins at the company’s offices in California and New York.
Police officers chased protesters out of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s office as hundreds of people watched a livestream.
Hundreds of people watched online as the employees were detained. A video posted on social media shows police leading them out of the Sunnyvale office in handcuffs.
“Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and we will investigate and take action,” a Google spokesperson said. Washington Post.
‘These employees were placed on administrative leave and had access to our systems cut off. After rejecting multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was tasked with removing them to ensure the safety of the office.
Protesters entered offices in New York and California on Tuesday afternoon, vowing to sit out until Google canceled its $1.2 billion contract with Israel.
Under the 2021 agreement, known as Project Nimbus, Google and Amazon jointly provide artificial intelligence and cloud computing services across all branches of the Israeli government.
While the contract faced some pushback at the time of its inception, protests have only intensified amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas that has left more than 30,000 Palestinian civilians dead.
In December, employees staged a ‘die-in’ outside one of Google’s offices in San Francisco, paralyzing traffic while chanting and waving flags at a busy intersection.
Last month, the tech giant fired an engineer who protested during a keynote speech at the mgeneral director of Google’s business in Israel.
The nine arrested employees were placed on administrative leave, according to a spokesperson for the tech giant.
Demonstrators protested Google’s $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government, which supplies them with artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure.
Opponents fear that the contract, known as Project Nimbus, lays the groundwork for the Israeli military to surveil Palestinians en masse.
The workers’ concerns arise from a clause in the agreement that prohibits Google and Amazon from denying services to specific parts of the government, prompting speculation that the technology could be used by the Israel Defense Forces.
Protesters swarmed Kurian’s California office on Tuesday, displaying signs splashed with the colors of Google’s logo and a sign urging him to “leave Nimbus.”
At the New York office, workers unfurled a banner over a railing that read “Google workers sit-in against Project Nimbus,” along with the rallying cry: “No to technology for genocide.”
A truck outside the building displayed messages on giant screens. One read: “An IDF soldier admitted to the New York Times that they use Google Photos to make a list of targets with little evidence.”
He appeared to reference a March report detailing the IDF’s use of facial recognition technology in the besieged Gaza Strip.
In that article, an anonymous Israeli official claimed that Google Photos worked better than any alternative facial recognition technology and could help in efforts to identify Hamas members in crowds.
A post on the No Tech for Apartheid Instagram page presents a list of workers’ demands.
Among them are calls to cancel the Project Nimbus contract, “stop harassment, intimidation, bullying, silencing and censorship of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Google employees” and “address the health and safety crisis.” among Google workers.
At the New York office, workers displayed a banner that read: “No technology for genocide.”
Protesters at the Sunnyvale office (pictured) were seen being led out of the office in handcuffs.
The workers’ demands include cancellation of the Project Nimbus contract and an end to “harassment, intimidation, harassment, silencing and censorship of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Googlers.”
A truck outside the New York office referenced a March report in which an Israeli official claimed that Google Photos performed better than any alternative facial recognition technology.
The sit-ins came amid a wave of similar protests at Amazon, which co-signed the Project Nimbus 2021 contract, and across the country generally.
Amazon employees also attended protests Tuesday to denounce Project Nimbus, the latest in a series of clashes within the company.
On April 12, the Anti-Defamation League and JLens, a network of Jewish investors, filed a notice of exemption request with the Securities and Exchange Commission in response to a proposal submitted by shareholders in the company’s 2024 proxy statement. .
Proposition 6 of Amazon’s 2024 proxy statement includes a request that the tech giant’s board of directors commission an independent third-party report to determine whether customers’ use of Amazon services “contributes to violations of human rights or violates international humanitarian law.
The ADL and JLens insist that the proposal “contains information that seeks to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist” and that its supporting statement, which claims that Israel “uses AWS to support the apartheid system,” is defamatory.
Tuesday’s sit-ins came amid protests across the United States. Just a day earlier, protesters blocked the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, snarling traffic and leading to a series of arrests.
California Governor Gavin Newsom later stated that the 38 detained protesters “must be held accountable for their actions.”
Protesters filled airport entrances and blocked highways in other states as part of coordinated demonstrations against US military support for Israel.