A Google engineer who disrupted a New York City tech conference earlier this week by standing up and proclaiming that he refuses “to build technology that powers genocide” has reportedly been fired.
“I refuse to build technology that powers genocide, apartheid or surveillance,” the engineer shouted in the middle of a lecture at the “Mind the Tech” conference in New York City on Monday — while Barak Regev, managing director of Google Israel, was delivering a lecture.
“Project Nimbus puts Palestinian community members in danger,” added the unidentified worker, referring to Google’s $1.2 billion contract to provide cloud services to the Israeli military and government.
The staffer — who donned an orange Google T-shirt during the pro-Israel conference — was subsequently fired, according to CNBC.
It wasn’t immediately clear who the staffer was, or when he had been axed from the Mountain View, Calif.-bsaed firm.
A spokesperson for Google confirmed the worker’s ousting to The Post, noting that “the employee was terminated for violating our policies.”
“This behavior is not okay, regardless of the issue,” the Google rep added.
The incident during Regev’s keynote speech wasn’t the only time this week that Google found itself at the center of controversy over events in the Middle East.
Ahead of an International Women’s Day Summit in Silicon Valley on Thursday, Google’s employee message board was flooded with comments from staffers about the company’s contract with Israel, which provides an “all-encompassing cloud solution” to government agencies, including its defense establishment, according to CNBC.
Caroline Haskins on Twitter: “A Google Cloud engineer just interrupted Google Israel managing director Barak Regev at Israeli tech industry conference MindTheTech this morning in NY.”I refuse to build technology that powers genocide!” he yelled, referring to Google’s Project Nimbus contract pic.twitter.com/vM9mMFlJRS / Twitter”
A Google Cloud engineer just interrupted Google Israel managing director Barak Regev at Israeli tech industry conference MindTheTech this morning in NY.”I refuse to build technology that powers genocide!” he yelled, referring to Google’s Project Nimbus contract pic.twitter.com/vM9mMFlJRS
