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Read Google's memo warning employees to 'think again'
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- SamSkjord 2y ago'Don't be evil'
- rchaud 2y ago...to our shareholders and nation-state partners.
- Culonavirus 2y agoWho?
- TiredOfLife 2y agoExactly. Don't support the side that doesn't wear uniforms, hides among civilians and targets mainly civilians.
- js8 2y agoThat's the banality of evil.
- jolj 2y agoa better example of the banality of evil: denying the holocaust through comparing it to other dissimilar events in order to minimize the catastrophe and reduce cultural complicity
- timr 2y agoWhat is? It's a workplace. You don't like what the company does? You're free to quit, and/or to say whatever you want. Post online, go to the park and have a march. Stop using their products. Put a big banner in front of HQ. Or even...do a sit-in of the CEO, if you like. Just don't be surprised when you get arrested. If you work there, don't be surprised if you get fired. Your right to free speech does not extend to private property, and Google does not have to respect your opinions. But it is the pinnacle of entitlement to think that you can storm into a private place and not suffer consequences for your actions. Even more extreme, to do so as an employee of a company and believe you will not get fired for doing so...I don't know where people get these ideas.
- CommanderData 2y agoDid Nazi Germany's media brandished people protesting Germany's extinction of Jews as a fringe group and a bit wacky? I think people lost their jobs and sometimes killed for protesting extermination of a population. Today we remember them as brave heroes.
- gotoeleven 2y agoI'm struggling to find any accounts of jews in 1930s germany raping and kidnapping and murdering a bunch of germans people and then hiding in tunnels under hospitals and schools. Has anyone asked the palestinians if they consent to being used as human shields? If they do, then well they're getting what they asked for but if not, then the only bad guy here is hamas.
- CommanderData 2y agoAre you reading from the latest Israeli propaganda guide? Because you have covered all the latest talking points. The world and recently David Cameron called on Israel to stop illegal occupation/settlements. Occupation and invasion it is, and it's recognised by most of the world.
- euW3EeBe 2y ago> Has anyone asked the palestinians if they consent to being used as human shields? If they do, then well they're getting what they asked for but if not, then the only bad guy here is hamas. I usually don't comment on these things, but I found this comment so evil... I want to remind you that Israel and the US have consistently denied peace talks, and Israeli leadership talks about the Palestinians like they are vermin.
- CommanderData 2y agoCare to share some links on how they speak about Palestinians? I like to remind myself how evil a human can be.
- TiredOfLife 2y ago
- wunderland 2y agoThis happened two days ago, but I didn't hear anything about it until today. I am a heavy HN user. Why wasn't this on the front page? Edit: it appears that every post about Israel is getting flagged (often after receiving tons of upvotes and often hundreds of comments): https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=false&query=Israel&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=fa... where is this censorship coming from? @dang?
- nickthegreek 2y agoIt was. https://www.google.com/search?q=hacker+news+google+protest+site:news.ycombinator.com&sca_esv=09379ecd0b6efd91&sca_upv=1&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS713US713&hl=en-US&prmd=nvi&sxsrf=ACQVn08Wu3Gl-ztM-hmsDXeO5eUIQQhGNQ:1713544456399&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi1n4XF2s6FAxWXkokEHduGBNEQrQIoBHoECBgQBQ&biw=428&bih=824&dpr=3 https://www.google.com/search?q=hacker+news+google+protest+s...
- paxys 2y agoDiscussion about it has been constantly flagged and removed (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40087063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40087063)
- wunderland 2y agoWow. I left my parent comment 2 minutes ago and this thread has already been removed from the front page. Story has 46 points and is 29 minutes old at the time I'm writing this comment. Are we not allowed to discuss the actions of one of the largest tech companies?
- wbronitsky 2y agoThe comments are just a flame war about Israel. Maybe that's why so many people are flagging it.
- paxys 2y ago
- justinsaccount 2y ago> The overwhelming majority of our employees do the right thing. Do they?
- altairprime 2y ago> Google fired 28 employees involved in protests This is incorrect; every uninvolved worker who spoke to them was also terminated. https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/google-worker-fired-protest-israel-project-nimbus https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/google-worker-fired-protest-i...
- gruez 2y ago>Like we had no reason to suspect that someone who wasn't affiliated with us or wasn't even wearing a shirt or anything related to our sit-in—we had no reason to think that they would be retaliated against. This is from one of the organizers of the sit-in/protest. I'd want to get third party confirmation and/or google's side of the story before confidently claiming "This is incorrect; every uninvolved worker who spoke to them was also terminated".
- altairprime 2y ago[deleted]
- gruez 2y ago1. Note that I'm not demanding for smoking gun proof like an internal email saying "fire this guy because they spoke to the protesters". I thought that was obvious in my previous comment, because I was asking for "google's side of the story" (ie. a public statement from them), not some sort of internal memo proving their guilt. In other words I'm just looking for any sort of additional information to corroborate the claim that "every uninvolved worker who spoke to them was also terminated", and to clarify what "uninvolved" in that context meant (does that only mean they weren't involved in the protest, but made a ruckus on company communication channels? or did they only DM the protesters involved?). Right now the only thing we have supporting that claim was a comment from the protest organizer. There isn't even anything from the people who were actually fired. In terms of quality of evidence demanded I think there's a wide gulf between the evidence presented so far and "impossible burden of proof" that you're implying. 2. If it's a he-said-she-said type of situation as you admit, maybe you shouldn't confidently claim that others are incorrect? At best, you can say that others dispute google's statement.
- endtime 2y agoI have a strong preference for non-activist workplaces. If I'm not values-aligned with an employer I can always leave. So I'm glad to see Google take a firm stance here. I'd expect the same reaction if the protesters were chanting about the Israeli hostages held by Hamas rather than in support of the other side. Meta: this thread is much more useful and relevant to HN as a discussion of workplace culture than a flamewar about Israel.
- drewrv 2y agoI suspect for many of the employees this was an intentional way of leaving. Personally I could never work for a company that profits from war like Lockheed or Raytheon. Few people think of Google in that light, so bringing attention to it on your way out seems reasonable. That's not how I'd handle it, but it seems understandable to me.
- UtopiaPunk 2y agoGoogle's motto used to be "don't be evil." If someone is looking for a company that aligns with their values, Google might've seemed like a good fit. They work hard and become invested in their workplace. It's not absurd to see how several people would be disenchanted with Google's stances on a very controversial and deadly war. And in an effort to live up to the motto "don't be evil," the workers took a stand to change Google's actions. That's a good thing to do. If people think that workers should just keep their heads down and politely obey, well, I don't know what to say. That's bleak. That's a sad society. It's like the American propaganda representations of sad, dreary authoritarian communist countries. Stay quiet and work, or face the consequences.
- nh23423fefe 2y agoI dont want to be chanted at during the commute while the freeway is blocked. Chanted at during lunch at the cafe. Chanted at while looking at artwork defaced with mashed potatoes. I dont care about your values. I trade time for money. Go away and stop telling me what to care about, I have a life of my own.
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- javier123454321 2y agoI mean, regardless of the opinion on the issue at hand, the 'protesters' did what they set out to do. They brought attention to google's polices that are in relation to the war. At any rate, if you are taking over your employers' campus, preventing others from working, your expectation should be that you will not be working there anymore. The thing that confuses me is the narrative that them being fired is a kind of unexpected move.
- paxys 2y agoRead the interview of one of the fired engineers – https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/google-worker-fired-protest-israel-project-nimbus https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/google-worker-fired-protest-i.... He was genuinely shocked that the company would take action against him, and compared it to fascism. I'd wager that most/all of them expected to keep their jobs, as has happened before with similar protests at Google and other tech companies.
- myself248 2y ago> The overwhelming majority of our employees do the right thing. Who's defining "right", here?
- zypher99 2y agoI've seen a lot prominent folks deriding the employees. It's well known that IBM played a key role in the Holocaust [1]. It's also clear at this point that Israel's offensive has reached or is close to 'Genocide' status [2]. It's incredibly poor taste to deride these employees for doing whatever means are in their disposal to prevent what happened with IBM. What would you do if you worked at IBM during the Holocaust? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust [2] https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/26/israel-not-complying-world-court-order-genocide-case https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/26/israel-not-complying-wor...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- paxys 2y agoThere are people who think Israel is committing war crimes. There are also people who think that HAMAS/Houthis/anti-Israel Arab states are the ones committing these crimes. There are people who strongly feel that AI will destroy humanity. There are people who are pro nuclear power and people who are vehemently anti nuclear power. There are people who feel that advertising and social media are a cancer to society. Google is involved in all of these causes (and lots more) one way or another. If they accommodated every employee protest and shut down projects as and when a random group of 20 was opposed to it, there would be no company left. So no, they are under no obligation to stop selling cloud computing to Israel or the US DoD or anyone else. Whether they are judged to be the same as IBM during the holocaust or as the saviors of humanity will be decided by historians 50 years from now.
- jolj 2y agoThe holocaust cost 6 million lives before counting homosexuals, roma people, soviet pows and others. The Gaza war amount of casualties according to hamas numbers, is currently 6% of the casualties in the syrian civil war, which happens 400km away from gaza and no one calls a genocide. by comparing that war to real genocides or the holocaust you simply minimize the word which refers to systematic murder of a people. by minimizing that word you deprive the real people that are being murdered all around the world from political protection as all war is now 'genocide'
- dbrueck 2y agoPersonally, I like Google's response to this, and the whole idea of publicly campaigning against your employer (especially during normal business hours) is completely foreign to me. Maybe I'm just an old fogey, but "back in my day" you'd earn lots of money and then go use that money to advance your social causes on your own time and in your own way. If you disagree with the company's direction, then do what you can through normal channels to change it. If you don't have that kind of power, then vote with your feet and leave. Go work somewhere else. Go start your own company and run it how you want. And BTW, if your protest can't have any meaningful consequences to you - if there's no real potential "cost" to you - then it's not a protest but a performance.
- kevinh 2y agoThis protest did have a cost for them - they were fired.
- dbrueck 2y agoExactly, and that's how it should be. But all too often (both with this protest and earlier ones at Google), the people who receive consequences seem shocked about being fired.
- happytoexplain 2y agoThis is the classic fallacy of "outrage == surprise". You can expect a person or entity might do something you personally find morally wrong and still sound angry when it happens - that's not hypocrisy or ignorance. You might even use words like "shocking" to describe their behavior, because, no matter how expected it might be, immoral behavior is shocking - and should be! Long story short, sometimes people try to use "expectation" to downplay bad behavior, and that's clearly irrelevant. The "expectation" for a business to do absolutely anything legal for profit is perhaps the most common manifestation of this fallacy.
- dbrueck 2y agoNo, no fallacy - in interviews with activist employees who got fired, it's not uncommon to see both surprise as well as outrage. Regardless, I was commenting on the ones who seem genuinely surprised that being fired was a possible outcome of their protests. It's as if that possibility never crossed their minds, which is itself surprising.
- Balvarez 2y agoWhile it is within Google's rights to do what they did. I find myself less and less inclined to use Google's products.
- JohnMakin 2y agoPretty disappointing to see this site censoring this story
- hsp6 2y agoProblem is the "leaders" who survive longest within corporate wonderland, dont really stand for anything, beyond their own survival. Its like dealing with a race of machines.
- drewrv 2y agoIs there any deeper reporting on this? There seems like a big disconnect between Google's claims: "defaced our property, physically impeded the work of other Googlers... and made co-workers feel threatened" and the claims of the arrested employee: "The group of employees sat in the office and gave chants and speeches every 15 to 20 minutes until about 6 p.m."
- paxys 2y ago"The office" is also where other people work. If people were waving flags, chanting, giving speeches, barricading doors and blocking entry/exit, resisting security and police...I wouldn't exactly feel safe as a regular employee.
- javier123454321 2y agoEspecially a Jewish one.
- jolj 2y agoProbably 6 (?) years too late but it's about time Google handles their vast amount of employees who feel like they own the company. Shame it happened after they lost LLMs to OpenAI through misguided AI "ethics" groups who are really the same people as above
- BitwiseFool 2y ago>"If you're one of the few who are tempted to think we're going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again," Google said in the memo. "The company takes this extremely seriously." Sounds like past protests and symbolic gestures on other topics were tolerated because those views had no effect on Google's bottom line, or because management agreed with those views. Not on this one, though. When it really counts dissent will not be tolerated.
- paxys 2y agoIt was tolerated because such groups had a lot of political power within the company and outside. As little as 5 years ago Google would have been crucified for daring to silence employees and taking action against them for protesting at the office. Today people are generally in support of the action.
- colpabar 2y agoYeah, maybe, but there are also laws in the US that makes some forms of protest against israel illegal for federal employees. These protests aren't just about the outrage du jour, they're about israel, the us government's greatest i̶n̶f̶l̶u̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ ally.
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoRelated: Google CEO: Building for our AI future https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40085758 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40085758
- stevemk14ebr 2y agonot at all related
- gjvc 2y ago[flagged]
- zac23or 2y agoFlagged again. Is HN like this now?
- swat535 2y agoI wonder if the reaction from Google would the reaction be the same if they were protesting for LGBTQ? or BLM? or would they be happily cheered on here. And should those employees had been fired, would HN have a melt down about free speech and expression? I could absolutely imagine a full investigation into Google's leadership in that case. Let's not pretend that certain causes gets a free pass while others don't. Will there no longer be politics at Google now? I guess we will have to wait until the BLM outbreak to determine but I doubt it. For the record I don't have any specific comments on this war and I think what Google thing was right and politics don't have a place in the workforce but I feel obliged to point out the hypocrisy. Either you are a company full of activist and embrace it or you shut it down entirely. You don't get to pick and choose your favorite cause; it just makes you look spineless.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y agoSounds like one of America's "Best Places to Work".