442

During a presentation by an executive with Google’s Israel branch on Monday, a Google Cloud engineer stood up and shouted, “I refuse to build technology that powers genocide or surveillance.” They were later fired.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/8/24094687/google-israel-project-nimbus-employee-fired

@news

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I actually don't understand their sentiment.

This isn't the only surveillance Google is enabling. You could MAYBE argue genocide but... let's just say it isn't just facebook that supports brutal regimes.

I've worked for.... questionable companies in the past. I still argue that you more or less can't do Research without getting blood on your hands because... blood money spends well and experiments/development without a defined product is expensive.

But... unless you are a complete moron, you understand that. Don't get me wrong, there are a LOT of graduate students out there who never question WHY there are government grants and why their advisor is talking to Major Johnson and so forth (Val Kilmer's Real Genius is probably the most accurate grad school movie ever made...). But you eventually figure it out. ESPECIALLY if you are working for a company and have to have a defined/target product. I know Google/Alphabet is notorious for the cutthroat/backstabbing among employees but you aren't going to be isolated as to why you are working on a graph search algorithm or how to conceal a camera in a device.

So I don't know if this engineer was just ridiculously ignorant or if they were hoping to "go viral" or what. But you don't wake up one day and realize you are the baddies. You more or less realize that your first day of work and spend time deciding if that will lead to alcoholism or activism.

this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2024
442 points (95.3% liked)

News

36412 readers
668 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.


Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.


7. No duplicate posts.


If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.


All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS