Hear directly from workers who Google fired and arrested for protesting the company’s $1.2 billion contract with Israel, dubbed ‘Project Nimbus.’ Workers, including the Nimbus Nine, who were arrested and forcibly removed from their protest, will share testimony of what happened during the sit-in, details about Project Nimbus, and preview of what’s next in the fight. Organized by No Tech for Apartheid.
Transcript
0:00e
0:43all right hi everyone thank you so much for joining us today and uh also want to
0:48give a a special shout out and thank you to hey Market books for hosting this press conference my name is Zelda and
0:55I’m here with Google workers part of the not tech for AP paride campaign last week some of us engaged in an
1:01active protest against Google for project Nimbus the company’s $1.2 billion contract with Israeli military
1:07and government we did so with three demands drop project Nimbus address
1:13mental health and safety crisis of workers due to how their labor is being used without their consent and end the
1:19culture of abuse harassment and discrimination against Palestinian Arab and Muslim
1:26workers if you are a Google worker watching this uh and want to know more about what we’re talking about please go
1:32check out Gog goo- disregards dorker D
1:38safety on Tuesday Google ordered the arrest of nine of their own workers including myself for our Act of peaceful
1:46protest what’s more Google then fired 28 workers with a total lack of undue
1:52process including those who were not directly involved with the protest this flagrant Act of retaliation was
1:59indiscriminate unjust and wrong we’re also here to announce
2:04breaking news Google engaged in further indiscriminate retaliation against 20
2:09plus workers including many non-participating bystanders it is clear that Google is
2:15afraid and they’re trying to send a message that protesting for our labor conditions will not be tolerated within the
2:21company this is a legal fear mongering and it will not stop us from continuing to organize and fight for the company to
2:28drop project nimbus today we’re here to tell you more about our experience of the day clear up some
2:35misconceptions about project Nimbus and preview what’s next in our fight we’ll start by introducing a few
2:40of our colleagues and comrades who participated in last week’s protest some folks are not going to be on camera and
2:46will not be sharing names and this is due to the retaliation from Google and the retaliation from for former
2:53colleagues who have docs people in this group before we get started We join and
2:58Echo the calls of students faculty and alumni at Columbia Yale and other
3:03universities to stand in steadfast solidarity with the people of Palestine we condemn the repression faced by all
3:10who are unwavering in their commitment to end all complicity and profit from the genocide it is not lost on us that the
3:17workplace and college campus are facing increased aggression from the police state for refusing to stay
3:24silent now we’ll hear from a few members of the Nimbus nine and first we’ll hear from Hassan
3:32thank you Zelda as Zelda said my name is Hassan and I’m one of the nine Google employees who were arrested and fired
3:38last Tuesday I decid I decided to participate in the sit in because I could no longer ignore Google’s role in
3:45the AI power genocide in Palestine I was comfortable with the risks because realistically whatever doors this sit in
3:51closes are not doors I want open Google pays us enough to not think too much
3:57about what they are doing but it wasn’t worth it and I wanted to support my workers who my co-workers who have been
4:04harassed for standing up against this project there were four of us in New York and we stayed in that office for
4:10almost 10 hours before being arrested there was a good amount of us when we began at two at 12:00 p.m but once but
4:17once security ordered people to leave around two hours in it was just our group of four left on the ground that
4:24didn’t stop Google from firing people who had left when asked and even some people who had just stopped by the chat
4:30were also fired and now in addition to the 28 fired more than 20 additional
4:36workers have been retaliated against which brings the total to which brings the total number of retaliated workers
4:42to 50 regardless the four of us kept going strong throughout the day and into the
4:49evening we did some more chance periodically and people would come check us out would come check out what we were
4:54up to we often had people pass by and thank us for what we were doing there
5:00were some people who continued to sit near us throughout the chance and just did their work like we weren’t
5:05there there there was also a vending machine behind us that people were still able to and frequently did access people
5:13if people wanted to ignore it they did if people wanted to access the work they did it wasn’t a problem we just wanted
5:19to make our voices heard and people were there to hear us eventually there was hardly anyone in the building to hear us
5:25as the evening went on and people left at the end of the workday so we played a nice game of Uno and even invited the
5:32head of security to join us he declined once we were put on administrative leave around 7 p.m. we
5:38were explicitly told that we couldn’t use the bathrooms and that we would be physically blocked if we
5:44tried reminder throughout this day we were using the bathrooms they were right in front of us it wasn’t a big deal but
5:50once we were put on administrative leave and had our building access taken away um the head of security threatened to
5:57just block us if we even tried the other security we’re fine though finally at
6:029:30 p.m. we saw the boys in blue arrive and I quickly took a selfie to remember that moment if you’ve seen the videos
6:08going viral on Tik Tok and Instagram you’ll you’ll you’ll have remembered that selfie I hope you’ve all seen it by
6:14now it’s a pretty good selfie and with that I want to reiterate that we’re going to continue organizing to get project nru and we’re going to stop
6:21Google’s Aid of this genocide thank you thank you so much for sharing your
6:27experience hasson next up we be hearing from
6:33seed thank you Hassan hey uh I’m SED i’ like to start
6:39by saying actions speak louder than words on 4:16 I badged in at 9:00 a.m.
6:45into the New York City office as I usually do at around noon we began our Act of resistance by taking a collective
6:52picture to depict worker power I let my colleagues know from Dei groups ergs
6:58employee research groups like the indigenous black and latinx networks my old Global YouTube operations team and
7:05all of my higher ups up to the Chief Executive Officer Sundar know why I was
7:10participating in the sit in to demand Google drop Nimbus and in further fueling the genocide in Palestine as
7:17I’ve previously been doxed for speaking up internally I was careful to keep my identity hidden from the surveillance
7:23State this was because we expected racist Zionist googlers to show up in masses play victim MH report everyone to
7:30HR and C the cops on their own which they did I refused to be intimidated and
7:36stood my ground along with the four others in New York City Google’s intimidation tactics from 12:30 p.m. to
7:439:00 p.m. were as follows first warning was for too much noise second was for
7:49disrupting work environment third was a threat to C in ypd after I asked if my
7:56exess was revoked the response was I’m asking you to leave the building from there some people complied others
8:03didn’t the four of us who didn’t were put on ministrative leave immediately told we had to give up our Badges and
8:09that we could not use a restroom or a micro kitchen or even drink water we were then told we were now trespassing
8:17shortly after NYPD arrived and arrested US to exit we were taken down the cargo
8:22elevator in secrecy like if we were the FBI Most Wanted once in the Slama they
8:28struggled to remove my cuffs manipulated us to think they’re on our side took one hour to bring us water allow us to use a
8:35restroom and even through my belongings at me as I walked out the door after being
8:41released NYPD still has some of my property to this date NYPD also lied to other prisoners
8:49in there one an 18-year-old boy who had school the next day the next day I
8:54returned to pick up missing property and a copy of my citation I was told I could could get the out and they
9:00dehumanized me once again by everyone including the lieutenant at precinct 10
9:06this is after myself and others hosted police brutality talks in 2019 for Google
9:12employees Google knows NYPD doesn’t represent the people and they still decided to put the four of us all black
9:19and indigenous people of color in danger in the words of Michael Jackson I like
9:24to end with this all I want to say is that they don’t really care about us like Hassan said we’ll keep fighting and
9:31I promise you we won’t stop until project nimus is
9:40dropped thank you so much seed the last of the nimous nine who
9:45will be speaking today BB hi everyone um so I chose to
9:52participate in this s in as an act of peaceful protest because I believe that we had exhausted all measures to get
9:58Google leadership to address our concerns I was tired of hearing about my colleagues being harassed and doxed and
10:06um who because they had chosen to speak up about project Nimbus I myself also was docked doxed because I chose to
10:13speak up about project Nimbus uh we filed dozens of tickets with HR only to have them go nowhere or to have those
10:19tickets result in direct retaliation against the people who actually filed them Google made no effort to protect us
10:25from these fearmongering tactics and in fact they’ve doubled down on those fearmonger mongering tactics since the
10:30retaliation if you’ve seen the threatening email from Chris Rao you know what I’m talking about the morning
10:36of the event I showed up on campus I walked into the building and I walked into the office of Thomas curan and
10:43solemnly sat down with my colleagues many of us remained there when security asked us to leave but a lot of people
10:49left only five of us remained um but Google didn’t care that people actually left and followed the guidelines of
10:56security they chose to fire them anyways Google is saying that we were disruptive that we blocked our colleagues paths and
11:02destroyed property this really couldn’t be further from the truth we were sitting in a small office cordoned off
11:09by ourselves during that time we were in the office we quietly sat and read testimonials on a twitch live stream
11:15about how learning about project Nimbus affected the mental health of our colleagues if anyone can be called
11:21disruptive it would be the security guards themselves who blocked our path to the bathroom and even tried to bait
11:27us with water and food placed outside of our room and forcibly grabbed me when I tried to retrieve it we’ve seen that
11:34Google would rather fire and arrest its workers the people who build their technology who make their company work
11:40rather than speak to us about our concerns this is shameful behavior and we won’t stay silent while Google
11:45continues to engage in harmful in a harmful contract with the Israeli government and Military and tries to slander us and our colleagues and the
11:51broader public thank you so much for for sharing
11:58BB um um and now next we actually have one more member of the Miss n who will
12:03be speaking um Shane hi there my name is Shane I’m one
12:10of the former Google workers who was arrested for sitting in at Thomas duan’s office we’re going to talk a little about why I did this and how it
12:18went my understanding of things is that the history of the United States is one of exploitation and colonization and
12:24this history continues in Palestine the same tactics are employed to for Palestinians off their land the United
12:31States has backed this endeavor through continual financial and military aid and now the Israeli government is on trial
12:38under the international court of justice which has already found claims of genocide to be plausible the nations of
12:43the world have overwhelmingly voted in favor of a ceasefire and Palestinian statehood at the UN the UN has also been
12:50discussing the prominent role that artificial intelligence has played throughout these facts alone should give
12:56you pause especially if you work in Tech and yet the US government continues to
13:02send weapons to Israel and yet Google continues to sign new contracts with the Israel Ministry of
13:08Defense Google workers have been advocating against nimus for years we have tried escalating through the proper
13:14channels I myself consulted my managers and followed their advice I organized a group of more than 10 people in Cloud to
13:19request a meeting with a senior executive to discuss our concerns we never received a response not even a can
13:25thank you for sharing your concerns throughout my entire time organizing with with this campaign I’ve consistently seen people afraid afraid
13:32to speak out afraid to lose their jobs their Healthcare their citizenship protests are what people
13:37turn to when other means have failed I knew what I was risking doing the sit in I made the choice to participate because
13:43Google refused to hear us and because I am fortunate enough to weather the risks that others couldn’t which is why I am
13:49enraged that Google chose to retaliate against so many of our colleagues who did not participate in the Sin people
13:55who left immediately when asked people who merely attended a peaceful rally no meetings no calls with HR just instant
14:01retaliation our protest was peaceful we sat in an office for 9 hours the most
14:06disruptive thing we did was some protest chants near the beginning otherwise we passed our time
14:13by reading testimonies from our fellow workers news articles in the obituary of mayed we did not destroy property or
14:20block anyone from going anywhere so long as Google refuses to engage to listen to our concerns and
14:26take them seriously Google workers will continue to organize and build this movement I remain committed to this movement and to the larger movement for
14:32Palestinian Liberation I wake up every day afraid that I will hear horrifying news from Gaza where more than a million
14:39refugees are concentrated in Rafa and people are still suffering from famine water shortage and the constant threat
14:44of bombardment and attack thank you thank you to all of you for such
14:52powerful testimonies now we’ll hear from folks who despite Google’s lies that they were
14:58disrupting inside the buildings did not at all participate in such activities
15:03first up we’ll hear from Oreo hey everyone first I want to
15:11apologize for being anonymous and not connecting more closely with our viewers
15:16and listeners I’m on a hunt for a job and I hope you understand I don’t want my statement to skew my hiring
15:23prospects this is because I’ve just come to learn that our opinions at the workplace can
15:29come back and Hur us despite the mantras that we hear like bring your whole self to work and Company X or company why
15:37values debate and diversity so let’s get into it I’m a Palestinian American ex
15:45Google employee I’m in a particular place of distress because I have family members in Gaza but that’s not what
15:52makes me special or what makes my case special I’m not what does make it
15:57special and unique is that I never participated in the stings and yet I
16:03still got fired with my colleagues who did on the morning off I went briefly
16:08into the building for a meet and greet since I never met most of the team before I said hello I took a group photo
16:15with them and I left shortly after and never went back to the building and so I
16:20never entered the CEO’s office I was never asked to leave the premise or had contention with security or the police
16:27or otherwise caused the alleged disruption to the workplace I went
16:32outside I held a sign I stood by a bush to avoid blocking the walkways and I
16:39chanted peacefully in support of the demands of those who were at the S I guess I was encouraged to express my
16:46opinion at Google after seeing many Executives at Google including Sundar himself passionately Express their
16:53opinion and emotions at work on October 7th as they should because peaceful
17:00expression of opinion is at the essence of what America stands for and what
17:05Google promised it would stand for so I felt safer about speaking and I followed
17:12their lead I shared my opinion peacefully I’ll be it my opinion differed from that of Sundar and other
17:19Executives I’m not naive I know this is a business that needs to be productive and generate value for shareholders
17:27versus say appeasing me or the other employees I was super careful to keep
17:32that in mind on the day off while expressing my opinion I also don’t feel
17:37entitled to anything other than being treated fairly and within the bounds of the law it was totally okay if Google
17:44did not listen to me or took action I wish they did but I didn’t expect them
17:50to but to fire me for having a descenting opinion was not my idea of
17:55what the American workplace should be let alone what the company of do no evil
18:01should be on the day after the event I was not asked any questions I was not
18:06called in for an investigation I was terminated by an automated email and all
18:11communication went dark after so I couldn’t explain to anyone that I wasn’t at the cence and just had to adapt to
18:18Google’s decision and start planning my next steps I have to be honest this incident
18:24hit me harder than most not because I was not at the cence but as Middle
18:29Eastern immigrant who always aspired even as a child to escape the Tyranny
18:35and the One Man shows of the Middle East and to start a life in the United States
18:42the ultimate Haven for those who want to work hard and seek freedom and equality
18:48but I was in for a reality check and I hope this was an exception
18:54and not what myself and fellow Americans should expect here on if they decide to
19:00express themselves peacefully whether at the workplace or outside the workplace
19:05thank you for listening thank you so much Oreo that was a very powerful
19:12testimony next up we’ll be hearing um an an anonymous testimony that’s going to
19:19be read by Hassan again well yeah so this testimony was
19:26not written by me but I will be reading it for the person who had written it we talk a lot about feedback in our
19:32workplace and this is exactly what we were trying to do regarding project nimus and about the treatment of our
19:38Palestinian Arab and Muslim colleagues were were receiving through petitions through through petitions emails Dory
19:45questions Etc but they kept getting ignored during
19:51during International women’s day the theme of Celebration was her power her voice yet I saw how the voices of women
19:57asking questions about our involvement with a military that is actively killing Palestinian women be shut down
20:04completely I saw how my co-workers were doxed and harassed constantly without any action by Google further further
20:11empowering the perpetrators this is what led me to want to support my co-workers in this action I did not participate in
20:18the sit in though and left and left to fly outside the office after we took a
20:23group picture around noon I’ve flyed across New York City many times for many
20:29different causes so I felt comfortable engaging in this activity I also spoke at the rally in support of workers and
20:34urging my employer to hear our demands because I have also done this before so I felt comfortable I knew that Google
20:41had a history of retaliating against workers in the past from workers organizing to drop other military
20:47contracts such as Maven to workers organizing against the sexual harassment Happening by top Executives and I had
20:53expressed my fear of retaliation before but I never thought it would be so violent and disruptive instead of being
20:59googly and having an open dialogue with their workers Google decided to collectively punish all of us and
21:06abruptly cut us off from our community we built within various spaces at Google our health care our livelihood and our
21:14livelihood to add insult to injury Google is blatantly lying about what really happened and sending intimidating
21:21emails furthering the culture of fear that has eclipsed the open culture it once bragged about thank you
21:31thank you so much next up we’ll hear from C thank you Zelda um so over the last
21:40few months I have seen firsthand the level of harassment silencing and retaliation that others have experienced
21:46at Google were speaking up against this contract Google has done nothing when these things were brought to them over
21:52and over again the reason that I was at the sden in New York was actually to protect the people there from this kind
21:58of harassment um and and this was made necessary almost immediately within maybe 20 minutes of
22:05starting the s in um the person who had been stalking one of the s in participants sat down um he was even
22:11closer to the s in than where I was standing I was off to the side um and he began filming people and trying to zoom
22:18in on their faces um we we ignored this for quite a while um and eventually I
22:25went over to go and talk with him um I asked him like we’ve like hey we’ve been experiencing a
22:31lot of um harassment and doxing um I asked him to please like please don’t post the video online um and wherever he
22:38does send it like to please avoid getting people’s faces um or their badges because the badges have the names on them um and and what he told me was
22:46that he he would be sharing this to let people know exactly who had been
22:51involved um after this happened I was very very concerned about having my own
22:57information posted on line and my own safety in the office and this is why I am not showing my face or my name right
23:03now um this is just one example of the harassment that we experienced um during
23:08the S itself and well before that as well um but Google security made it clear that um they would not do anything
23:17about this um during the events of the S uh during all of this I I was talking
23:23directly with Google security the entirety of the two hours that I was there um checking in about Google policy
23:29and making sure that everything was okay I I even asked at one point um if it was
23:35okay that I was there because I was standing off to the side and not participating and from what I understood
23:40it was fine um when they told us that we couldn’t do this s like at all anymore
23:45um I left this was after maybe two hours um and the next day after work I got an
23:51email saying that I had been fired um it it wasn’t just me who was fired like this I texted one one of my
23:58friends once the s in had started that he could come say hi if he wanted um he came over to chat with me for a bit and
24:05uh I I think we complained that day about having had too many meetings um
24:10yeah and he was also fired too there are a lot of people who are in similar situations and I have spent the last few
24:16days checking in on them because I have no idea who could be next um I still
24:22have not been told what if any action I took was against people’s policies I have not been contacted by HR and as far
24:28as I know there was no investigation at all um the the last thing that I want to
24:33say is that I really want to encourage others to continue to speak up even though I was retaliated against Google
24:40cannot actually prevent its workers from speaking up about their working conditions and this is especially true
24:46when those employees are in large numbers so again please keep speaking out thank
24:53you thank you so much C echoing that call to please
24:59continue the fight against project nimus at work um next up we’ll be hearing from
25:06Goose uh yes uh after all the destruction in Gaza I couldn’t sit back
25:11and let Google continue to profit off the oppression of the Palestinian people on the day of action I was there at the
25:17start but I did not participate in the s in I did not speak with security and
25:23left the office in under an hour uh and there were even still people working
25:29nearby outside I passed out flyers and gave a short speech at the rally before
25:34the day of action i’ witnessed several acts of harassment against workers who have been speaking out against and
25:40raising awareness of project Nimbus people have been doxed and threatened flying about this and Google
25:46has failed to protect them despite the fact that Google that people doing flying at Google has been a normal thing
25:51going back to at least the maven campaign
25:59thank you goose and last we’ll hear from
26:11Evan hi I’m Evan and like many of the others you have heard from Oreo C Goose
26:19AIA I peacefully participated in the protest I was non-disruptive complied
26:24with every one of my co-workers and securities requests and then was unceremoniously without warning or as
26:32far as I can tell investigation placed on administrative leave and then fired my stance on why I was involved on
26:40April 6th can be summarized by an old Chinese saying when the wrong man uses the right means right means work in the
26:46wrong way to put another way a hammer is a hammer it does not care if it being used to build someone’s house or to bash
26:54their skull in if you’re working at the hammer Factory the end of the the day you might feel pretty accomplished even
27:00though you don’t know how to build a house or a desk you know that your work incrementally helped make such things
27:06possible then one day a memo comes across your desk saying your top customer is not the Home Builders
27:13Association of America but serial killers weekly you go to your boss and they dismiss your concern saying well
27:20serial killers need homes too while true over time there is more and more
27:25mounting evidence that our hammers the hammer that you and your co-workers made are being misused bloody hammers are
27:32being returned as the customer no longer needs them orising death by skull bashing and people like you asking
27:39legitimate questions get fired and unjustly retaliated against eventually
27:44you have to take a stand I want to be able to sleep at night knowing that our
27:50tools the tools that I helped create are being used morally and responsibly I want to be able to go to bed with the
27:56knowledge that I helped make the world better Place project Nimbus and many other contracts like it that Google is
28:03pursuing and participating in do the exact opposite in our textbook
28:16evil thank you so much Evan now that we’ve heard such powerful
28:23testimonies from workers we’ll be hearing from Ry who will tell tell us about project nibus and dispel some of
28:30the lies that Google has been spreading about the contract if you have any questions for the group please start
28:36dropping them in the chat thank you yeah and thank you for
28:41having me um project Nimbus is a1.2 billion contract between Google Amazon
28:47and the Israeli government and Military um this contract provides powerful cloud computing tools and AI
28:54tools directly to the Israeli government and Military um um this comes at a time
28:59when the Israeli state is enabling the world’s first AI power genocide um a
29:07recent investigation by 972 magazine revealed that the Israeli military is using artificial intelligence to Target
29:12and assassinate Palestinians in GZA um Google has over and over again um
29:20tried to redirect worker descent by claiming that it’s not a military contract by claiming that it’s not
29:26directed towards highly sens sensitive classified or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence
29:33Services um we’ve known from the beginning that this is a mischaracterization of the contract um
29:40in the very first press release on Project Nimbus um the Israeli government
29:46announced that the uh contract was under the leadership of the Israeli military
29:52along with multiple other um the Israeli military the Israeli Ministry of Defense
29:58along with other um Israeli Ministries um we also know that the IDF
30:04played a big hand in selecting Google and Amazon as recipients of the contract
30:11um they chose Google and Amazon over Oracle specifically for Google and
30:16Amazon’s ability to support Big Data analysis artificial intelligence and machine learning for the
30:23military um through this contra fact Google and
30:28Amazon are aiding and abetting the Israeli apartheid state and genocidal campaign in Gaza against
30:34Palestinians um instead of you know cleaning up T realizing the ethical
30:40concerns of the contract listening to workers um Google has decided to punch down on its workers that have decided to
30:46speak out retaliate against them allow them to be doxed and harassed um the
30:53company is tried to misdirect worker descent and silence workers to hide their own moral
30:59failings um despite um Google’s statements
31:06otherwise to site their continued statements that it’s not a military contract just this month Time Magazine
31:12has proven otherwise and for the first time revealed um specific parts of the
31:18contract where Google has agreed to build custom tools for the Israeli Ministry of defense and doubling down
31:24its Contracting with the Israeli occupation forces um since the start of the genocide
31:31against Palestinians in Gaza
31:37um by continuing its lies Google is blatantly disrespecting its consumers
31:43its users the media and its workers and the workers us as workers former workers
31:49will continue to speak out thank you thank you so much Ray now we’ll be
31:56opening it up to general questions if you are a reporter who is watching this
32:02press conference please identify yourself and the outl that you’re coming from thank you so
32:12much okay so our first question how do these deals project Nimbus square with
32:20Google’s AI principles
32:31Shane and then Nadia I would say they don’t I think
32:41um Google has tried to deny that they violate our principles by claiming that
32:48we’re only working on the infrastructure supporting these Technologies
32:54um but that to me seems like avoidance
33:00like when you know what your customer is doing what you know what kind of
33:05Technology they’re using when you’re providing them technology that will Aid and Ed them in
33:11doing those things even if they’re just your you know standard Suite of advanced AI
33:19Services you know what you’re doing you know you’re being complicit trying to deny otherwise to me
33:26is just
33:32absurd Nadia do you have anything to add yeah just to Echo that exactly they
33:37don’t really kind of the AI principles state that these um any of our
33:43technology that we develop any of our contracts will not be used in kind of use of harm but there’s really no way
33:50for Google to be enforcing that kind of oversight when building these contracts and developing these contracts with any
33:58kind of client especially a government entity I believe it’s also enshrined in the contract that there’s actually not
34:04the ability to ctail um how the technology and how the Google cloud
34:10services that are provided are used um there’s also no clarification on how
34:15that would be enforced even if that were true that we would be able to limit such a thing all kind of we have to go off of
34:22based on kind of Google statement is the statement itself that it won’t be used that way without any c clarification on
34:28what sort of guard rails are available to do such a thing so frankly no this contract does not fall in line with AI
34:36principles thank you niio for a little bit of context I was one of the um sit in attendees who was arrested in
34:43Sunnyville hello I didn’t get to introduce myself at the start thank you
34:51Aman hi yeah I also wanted to add on to the point um on Google standing with
34:57their AI principles and project Nimbus um uh Google likes to use the
35:03talking point adding on to Shane that because Nimbus is largely
35:09infrastructure um that there’s may be some sort of gray area that uh we can’t
35:14be held accountable or we can’t be complicit in this genocide as um a
35:19software engineer who used to work for Google’s Cloud infrastructure uh I would
35:24like to speak out against uh any kind of claims saying that uh engineering
35:29infrastructure engineering um somehow puts you uh in a gray area somehow makes
35:35you safe uh from the outcomes of how your engineering is going to be used if
35:41anything being an engineer on infrastructure you are responsible for
35:47the streamlining of your customers Tech so what I’m seeing if I hear that
35:54my my labor for Cloud infrastructure is being used to
36:01streamline genocide reliably that doesn’t sound like it should align with any kind of principles
36:08whether that be AI principles or any moral principles uh in engineering and so I would like to really emphasize that
36:14point that um throwing around the term the the word infrastructure as if it’s
36:21supposed to pull you away uh from any sort of responsibility is absolutely absurd and honestly an to all of our
36:29infrastructure and prod engineers at Google who work very hard um and I seen
36:35that myself so if you are an engineer yourself you should understand that’s um
36:42on how that claim is absurd thank you uh and for context um my name is Iman uh I
36:48was participating in the sit in uh at Sunnyville but I was not arrested but I was
36:56fired thank you we’ll get on with the next question uh
37:02who is doing the doxing are they other Google
37:09employees uh we’ll hear
37:15Mohamed excuse me one second voice isolation yeah so um my uh my
37:22understanding of the the doxing and harassment and discrimination that is taking place is such that it is systemic
37:29in the sense that Google has created the atmosphere for it to not only be very
37:35easy for it to be protected for people to docs workers and for for them to
37:41allow it to be part of the culture um myself I faced discrimination in one of
37:47the most flagrant examples um in during our organizing time wherein myself and a
37:54group of other worker organizers shared identic petitions with identical messaging um and in the aftermath of the
38:02submission where we got a vast number of signatures it was significantly popular um the the message and the petition were
38:11reported um and I was the singular um worker
38:16organizer uh amongst a group of white and other races of worker organizers who
38:22was called into an hro meeting and directly accused of supporting terrorism
38:27um which I’ve mentioned this before but it’s something that I genuinely have not heard since I was a child I’ve not been
38:33called a terrorist uh since I was a child and at the Zenith of uh you know
38:39software engineering um Prestige at Google is where I’m hearing this uh this
38:45terminology again um it was genuinely heartbreaking and I think that is the
38:51most uh perfect example you need to see of it’s It’s a systemic problem within
38:56Google it is something that they are happy to indulge in and happy to create intimidation and happy to um cause
39:02problems for their workers in um and in in that you know other workers can can
39:08follow suit and feel completely comfortable um harassing harassing anyone they want in the company so
39:15that’s my understanding of it thank you for sharing
39:21Muhammad Shane um I too have been doxed
39:29um when one time we had a group lunch
39:34where we sat you know at a table inviting people to come talk to us about project nimus and why we were concerned
39:40about it and um uh our photo was taken of like the
39:47whole table put out on Twitter along with insulting disparaging comments um
39:52and that’s relatively denying compared to other stories I’ve heard from other people
40:02thank you seed and then I’m on thank you yeah for my understanding
40:08it is other googlers who initiate these doxing attacks and they more than likely
40:14also recruit and share their doxing request with non-g googler
40:20Zionist outside the company from my own personal experience during the international women’s day Summit on
40:28March 8th that was held I posted a question on the Dory regarding the theme
40:33which was her power her voice imploring everyone to keep intersectional feminism at the Forefront and essentially what
40:40happened is I wanted to use that as an opportunity to amplify Palestinian women’s voices and what happened is
40:48people with malicious intent at the company so googlers who were my colleagues took pictures of my questions
40:54others questions and leaked our name name our email address our office and
41:01our um picture of our face essentially online and that has then resulted in
41:07people giving me unwanted calls from unknown numbers emails and so because of
41:15that and the lack of essentially ownership that Google has taken to keep
41:20my safety um secure my psychological and physical safety have been compromised
41:27since then I’m sorry that’s been happening
41:33seed am on uh yeah I was also one of the many um
41:41Google workers who were harassed IND doxed uh I also had a picture of myself
41:46taken and um shared to a hateful page uh
41:53where people commented racist and sexist things uh about myself being a brown
41:58woman and when I followed up on this case and an investigation with Google um
42:04so that we could hold accountable whoever took and shared the picture I was met with a lot of slowdowns a lot of
42:12um excuses on why this investigation is different and why it needs to be taken
42:19um specially uh which or differently from other doxing cases uh and it would
42:27take months to complete and uh I even urge that we have to follow up with this
42:33quickly to uh hold accountable this activity so it doesn’t happen again and only like less than two weeks later were
42:40several more employees doxed um and I find that a great failure on Google’s
42:46part as people who speak up uh for um for their co-workers who are being
42:52harassed people who speak out against project nimus people who hold safe bases for the Palestinian co-workers are being
42:59doxed um it’s an absolute shame and during these investigations I was
43:05even um my investigator even insinuated that I only cared because of myself
43:11being a brown woman and that I probably had family in Aza I do not uh I am
43:16simply a person with good conscience and so I instead demand Google to take their
43:22investigation seriously rather than come up with some sort of assumption
43:28uh in order to delay the process even more as um several more employees get
43:33doxed because of their laziness thank you for sharing um I
43:41myself was also doc um I have lots of thoughts on this but we’ll move on to the next
43:47question I’m writing an article about no tech for aarthi and I’m researching and trying to find out if there are proofs
43:55that show that the AI technique used by the Israeli occupation forces right now is part of the Nimbus
44:05project mamed yeah this question is really important because frankly Google has
44:12done their their deception really in this in this in this field in this area and their uh ability to mystify this
44:20topic is astounding genuinely but from the outset of the announcement of project Nimbus the defense Ministry of
44:27Israel has gone on record stating that the project would be beneficial um for
44:33their defense goals so right from the outset we have them admitting that this is the that the um that the benefits are
44:40for their defense Ministry um in the aftermath of that statement um Google has basically answered this by just
44:47ignoring the question by deflecting the question just pretending like oh the applications are entirely commercial
44:54there’s no association with defense there’s no relationship there despite the words of the defense Ministry
44:59themselves and then on April 12th this was once again just blown right out of the water um when we literally saw time
45:09break that Google had build the IDF the Israeli defense ministry as I call them
45:15the Israeli occupation forces um so there this is the most there is not any more proof that is needed than that it
45:22is blatant in the open um the dealings are specifically with the defense
45:27Ministry the bills are specifically going to the defense Ministry um it’s
45:33it’s as clear as they really and they and I appreciate you asking this question just because it points to how
45:38effective they have been at Deception up until now thank you yeah
45:45Nadia yeah I think there’s a few points also made the iof is the primary branch
45:50of the ministry of Defense um which we have just awarded kind of a special Landing Zone into the project nimus
45:58contract with also with again how little oversight we can have into gcp products
46:04and how our clients use them the kind of notion I think there’s a point to be made that the burden of proof is us to
46:11prove whether there is like a direct relationship with the iOS specifically rather than for the burden for Google to
46:19prove that the nation in which they awarding this contract which has documented human rights abuses for
46:24decades by multiple International organizations is currently you know has been on trial in the icj the
46:30international um court of justice where’s the burden on them to prove to us that it’s not being used in this way
46:37why is there some sort of burden of proof to prove that it is going to be used this way which there is there’s a
46:42body of evidence for that but this is like from like a risk perspective
46:48there’s like that should not be employees responsibility to try to or anyone’s responsibility to try to
46:53identify proof in that sense rather than Google to identify why you know they’ve even entered this
46:59contract in the first place and how they’re keeping people
47:05safe thank you Orel you have something to add just wanna very quickly offer a
47:13resource uh to the person conducting the research and thank you for doing that by the way there’s an article by isra
47:21magazine called plus 972 magazine that’s the name of the magazine it has
47:27statements by uh Israeli soldiers who talk about how AI is used to uh Target
47:35generate Target lists and uh in a lot of cases causing a lot of collateral damage
47:42and you were from 20 to 100 people per Target the article name is a mass
47:48assassination Factory inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza I’ll repeat a
47:55mass assassination Factory inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza please go read it I highly
48:02recommend it thank you for doing the
48:07research thank you Oreo for that Source it’s it’s a very important one and one that uh we at not tech for paride
48:13reference a lot in in in um in the work that we do am
48:20on uh yeah so I guess like talking about like the links between how nimus is
48:27being used right now uh in the genocide inza um I would argue
48:34that the contract has begun if I refer back to the recent Time Magazine uh
48:42article in which we find out that uh Google’s Pro providing consulting
48:47services to which they gave the Israeli government a 15% discount uh on how they
48:54can best assess nimbus into the Israeli infrastructure and to which the iof and
49:03uh Israeli military tells us that they have prepared a landing area for this
49:09Cloud infrastructure to effectively dock into I would say for you to form that
49:15landing area you would have you would have to have um sufficient Consulting
49:21between your uh between these like Engineers uh you would have to know what
49:27what your docking area needs to look like so I would argue that um Nimbus is
49:34being used right now as the Israeli government prepares its infrastructure
49:39uh As It prepares for um uh for this
49:45streamlining and reliability of genocide um the project starts with the
49:52conversations and we know the kinds of AI technology that are going to be onboarded onto uh this AI supported
50:01Cloud infrastructure and uh yeah like Oreo said we can refer back to 972 mag
50:08along with several other articles on different kinds of disgusting AI technologies that are being used to
50:13Massacre
50:21Palestinians okay so we have one last question um is there any kind of
50:27compliance mechanism at Google before contracts are signed with clients to
50:32check if the client is following us and international laws
50:39Evan so myself and a number of other googlers
50:45actually tried to pursue the answer to this question internally about Nimbus
50:50and other contracts via you know emailing Executives directly and asking
50:56them what what due diligence was done and most of the time this was completely
51:01ignored but the closest thing to an answer we got was someone claiming well
51:07I didn’t see the compliance work that was done but I hope that they did it
51:12correctly when I worked at Google I was a site reliability engineer our slogan
51:17is Hope is not a strategy and just hoping that people do things ethically
51:22and morally especially when there’s so much money on the line is embarrassing
51:28and honestly a little bit insulting so yes there technically is compliance
51:35mechanisms at Google are they being used are people caring about it I have no
51:40idea and I’ve seen no evidence to support
51:46that J yes I’ll just add that you know I
51:52tried to find the answer to this question at Google um tried to locate like you know who should actually be
51:58making these decisions off of them and never found a satisfying answer um like
52:04we did find like a a couple of groups which seem to be self-organized if
52:09anything um and some groups um that would like you know basically just refer us back to the HEI principles and not
52:16give us any more information beyond that um I also saw some of those groups kind of turn over in the time I was at Google
52:23which was not you know not terribly long um
52:28so yeah like I do not know what that body is if if there is one I have not heard what it’s called or what it’s
52:35doing and I don’t know how employees are supposed to engage with
52:42it thank you Shane there are some questions that we’ve received about legal next steps um
52:50there are no immediate planed steps as workers are still dealing with the psychological impact of these retaliatory firings
52:57actions we’ve also been receiving some questions about the 20 plus additional workers who are indiscriminately
53:03retaliated against including non-participating bystanders out of an abundance of
53:09caution we are not sharing sensitive information about individual
53:14questions um now that we’ve wrapped up the Q&A portion of this I wanted to just reiterate our
53:21demands draw project Nimbus address the mental health and safety crisis around weaponizing workers
53:27labor without their consent and end the culture of abuse harassment and discrimination against Palestinian Arab
53:34and Muslim Google workers oh one more actually reinstate all the workers because we haven’t done anything wrong
53:41by saying no tech for a paride and no tech for genocide um I wanted to share a couple
53:47um other resources for reaching out to us our press email is no Tech the number
53:53four aarthi protonmail.com our Twitter and Instagram are both OT
53:59Tech foraride and uh again thank you so much to hey Market books for hosting us for
54:05this press conference and and uh giving the workers the ability to um to speak
54:11on these experiences because that’s very important and bringing the labor struggle uh in into into the same
54:18struggle as the Palestinian labor strugle for Liberation and um stay tuned for further action we won’t be backing
54:25down and we’ll we’re we’re we’re actually super busy now so um you’ll see you’ll see no Tech foraride um out and about and and at the
54:33college campuses supporting the students who are doing incredible work in themselves standing up against um the
54:40repression that they’re facing
