#Project Nimbus

[allthegeopolitics]

Several Google employees were arrested Tuesday evening (April 16) at the company’s offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California, after the company called police to break up a protest against Google’s work with the Israeli government. Police were seen entering a conference room at Google’s office in Sunnyvale and removing protesters wearing Palestinian keffiyehs and T-shirts reading, “Googler Against Genocide”. The protestors said their sit-in at company offices would continue until they were removed or their employer dropped its $1.2bn "Project Nimbus" contract with Israel’s government.

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[nando161mando]

"No Tech for Apartheid’s protest is as much about what the public doesn’t know about Project Nimbus as what it does. The contract is for Google and Amazon to provide AI and cloud computing services to the Israeli government and military, according to the Israeli finance ministry, which announced the deal in 2021.

Nimbus reportedly involves Google establishing a secure instance of Google Cloud on Israeli soil, which would allow the Israeli government to perform large-scale data analysis, AI training, database hosting, and other forms of powerful computing using Google’s technology, with little oversight by the company.

Google documents, first reported by the Intercept in 2022, suggest that the Google services on offer to Israel via its Cloud have capabilities such as AI-enabled facial detection, automated image categorization, and object tracking."

[news4dzhozhar]

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Baltimore activists take on Amazon: Stop investing in genocide; justice for workers

By Struggle-La Lucha Baltimore bureau

The “Amazon: Invest in Workers, not Genocide” campaign makes demands of both Amazon and the Baltimore City government. As the campaign grows, our demands will remain open to feedback from Amazon workers and the broader community. Currently, they are:

Amazon:

Institute a $30 minimum wage and proportional wage increases for all workers.

Full-time benefits for all workers.

Shut down Project Nimbus and all other projects, contracts, and investments with the apartheid government of Israel.

Baltimore City:

Hold an open forum for Amazon workers and the community to testify on working conditions without fear of reprisal.

Pass a city council resolution divesting the City from all projects, contracts, and investments with the apartheid government of Israel.

[alphamecha-mkii]

[commiepinkofag]

corporations cannot act with impunity;

workers are the true shareholders & must hold themselves accountable, for genocide, ecocide & systemic abuses;

eject the CEOs, managers, HR that uphold the fascist hierarchy;

individuals should not be held hostage by the reliance of income for basic necessities;

people-over-profit can avert the destruction of our modern civilization & a habitable planet;

unionize, whistle-blow, create mutual aid networks; protest, fight;

make it untenable; make it impossible for business as usual

[plethoraworldatlas]

In an aggressive and desperate act of retaliation, Google has fired 50 workers, including non-participating bystanders, as a response to April 16th's historic, coast-to-coast sit-ins that took place inside Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian's office in Sunnyvale, CA, as well as the 10th floor commons of Google NYC. Through this historic, worker action — and the first of its kind in tech — tech workers with the No Tech For Apartheid campaign demanded that Google cut its $1.2B contract with Israel, known as Project Nimbus.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian are genocide profiteers. Through Project Nimbus, Google is actively aiding & abetting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which has so far killed, disappeared, and wounded over 100,000 Palestinians, according to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. Just two weeks ago, TIME Magazine confirmed that Google has been lying to its own workers, consumers & the press for years, and is providing direct cloud/AI services to the Israeli Occupation Forces. What’s more, the corporation has actively deepened its partnership with Israeli military during the genocide in Gaza, signing a new $1M agreement as recently as one month ago.

These courageous workers put their bodies & jobs on the line inside their own workplaces, demonstrating their unwavering commitment to Palestinian liberation. For three years, through the No Tech For Apartheid campaign, thousands of workers at Google and Amazon have called on their employers to cut the billion-dollar Project Nimbus contract. It's simple: Workers at Google and Amazon don't want their labor to power Israeli apartheid or the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Google’s indiscriminate mass firings are a clear attempt to quash dissent, silence its workers, and reassert its power over them. Google is terrified of worker organizing for Palestine and embarrassed by last week’s show of worker power. In an attempt to assert control, Google decided to unceremoniously, and without due process, upend the livelihoods of over 50 workers, including many who did not actively participate in last Tuesday’s sit-ins. Google even called the police on its own workers at both sit-in locations, leading to the arrests of the Nimbus Nine, who were charged with trespassing at their own offices.

Unjustly fired Google workers include Palestinians who financially support families back home, workers with urgent healthcare needs, as well as those who relied on work visas to reside and work in the U.S. Irrespective of these extenuating circumstances, Google lashed out at any worker that was physically in the vicinity of the protest or who they identified through a dragnet of in-office surveillance.

Tech workers and workers everywhere will not allow their labor rights to be trampled on, nor their voices silenced. Workers need their voices heard, to be able to speak out in support of fellow workers who experience harassment and discrimination at work and who are personally and directly impacted by their bosses’ decisions about how their labor is used—in this case Palestinian Googlers being forced to watch their company’s tech being used to massacre their own people.

Join us to demand Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, and Google's Chief of HR Fiona Ciccone reinstate the 50 fired workers & stop the retaliation against workers speaking out on Palestine. Workers' sit-in demands included that the company stop allowing the harassment and discrimination of Palestinians, Muslim and Arab Googlers, and address the workplace health and safety crisis that Project Nimbus has created for Google workers who do not want their labor to power a genocide.

[allthegeopolitics]

Google announced on Thursday that it had dismissed 28 employees after some staff members had participated in protests against the company’s cloud contract with the Israeli government. The Alphabet (GOOGL.O) unit confirmed a small number of protesting employees entered and disrupted work at a few unspecified office locations. “Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behaviour,” the company disclosed in a statement.

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[nando161mando]

Google workers arrested after protesting company’s work with Israel

[news4dzhozhar]

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

This evening, Google indiscriminately fired over two dozen workers, including those among us who did not directly participate in yesterday’s historic, bicoastal 10-hour sit-in protests. This flagrant act of retaliation is a clear indication that Google values its $1.2 billion contract with the genocidal Israeli government and military more than its own workers. In the three years that we have been organizing against Project Nimbus, we have yet to hear from a single executive about our concerns. Google workers have the right to peacefully protest about terms and conditions of our labor. These firings were clearly retaliatory.

[craw1sv3rmin]

A warm-up for a bigger project. I'm starting a 5ft by 6ft canvas that's gonna be spliced with a little bit of everything I'm mad about. This represents project nimbus, and I hope people actually start seeing the shit going on so I don't have to sit here and waste my life away for rich people 🧡

[scienceswitch]

What is Google’s Project Nimbus and why is it controversial?

Google’s Project Nimbus is a cloud computing contract that Google and Amazon signed with the Israeli government in April 2021. With a hefty price tag of $1.2 billion, this collaboration between tech behemoths and the Israeli government was poised to revolutionize the way data is stored and processed. But not all is sunny with Project Nimbus; it’s a project that has  become as controversial as it…

[jrepin]

No Tech for Apartheid

Paris Marx is joined by Mohammad Khatami and Gabi Schubiner to discuss the complicity of Google, Amazon, and Microsoft in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and how tech workers are organizing to stop it.

[skeletonpandas]

Google has a contract to give tech to Israel.

I love Google, but I am also looking into alternatives. They have been doing morally questiionable things for quite some time now. Maybe I'll make a follow up post for this. You can follow my tags, to look for this.