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What a difference a few years makes. Top comment here : "Don’t do it at work." Top comment a few years ago : "If you work at Google and you have participated

What a difference a few years makes. Top comment here : "Don’t do it at work." Top comment a few years ago : "If you work at Google and you have participated in this protest: Thank you." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17776276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17776276 The comments back then were very supportive of google employees protesting against china's censorship. While the top comments here seem to be against google employees protesting israeli war crimes. Why? A bit of a head scratcher.

BobaFloutist 2y ago
>Hundreds of Google employees, upset at the company’s decision to secretly build a censored version of its search engine for China, have signed a letter demanding more transparency to understand the ethical consequences of their work. >Google fired 28 employees in connection with sit-in protests at two of its offices this week...Some of them occupied the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian until they were forcibly removed by law enforcement.
acoard 2y ago
> Why? A bit of a head scratcher. It is because not everyone sees Israel as committing war crimes. I'm not looking in getting into a debate about it, I don't think this is the appropriate thread and do not want to run afoul of HN guidelines. But to treat your question as if it is serious and sincere (i.e. not a rhetorical question) the answer is because many do not see Israel as committing war crimes but basically everyone agreed China was censoring. I'd also add that censorship can be a particularly sensitive topic the tech community is largely more polarized against than the wider country, whereas weapons of war are viewed by some as valid defensive work. Basically, nerds care about censorship disproportionately. And of course, opinions on both China and Israel would be baked into this too. Again, not looking to get into the actual substance of these points here, merely answering your question for why large amounts of people see these as different.
- keefle 2y ago
  While true, i think this answer misses the hypocrisy of the situation. 1. The same people who were supportive of the previous protests, are today's people who suggest "don't do it at work". 2. Regardless of whether Israel is commiting war crimes or not, if one is to be consistent, they must advocate that both the China censorship and genocide protests be done outside of work. 3. The main takeaway here is the bias (justified or not), and disappoint and disturbing hypocrisy in the reaction to the aforementioned protest
cyanydeez 2y ago
Free moneytrain is over and google is going full IBM Dinosaur, at best. Oracle dinosaur towards worse.
stormfather 2y ago
Part of it is likely to be how the US government will react. If Google is seen as anti-China that is fine, if they are seen as anti-Israel they might lose important contracts.
smsm42 2y ago
I understand in the China case they didn't actually physically occupied workspace and prevented others from doing their work? They wrote a letter. I think there's a bit of a difference between writing a letter and barging into your bosses office and telling them you're not leaving until they do what you want.
shmatt 2y ago
Imagine if all these protesters did was to sign a letter. We could only wish, and get on with our jobs
AtlasBarfed 2y ago
If you look at it in terms of AI, I think it makes more sense. Google the information enabler was a clear benefit to mankind. Pretty easy to be aspirational there. Happy fun liberal improve the world thinking. Expand participation and information awareness. Google the surveillance tool and AI merchant for governments and corporations for leveraging total surveillance? .... Yeah. But that's where the bucks are. Google has clearly moved very far into full enshittimonification of its information. It needs compliant obedient workers to shut up and make it money. Alphabet the big ideas has pretty much totally failed, the only thing succeeding is surveillance: Android and Search. Google doesn't need free, liberal, smart thinkers. It needs order takers.
cad31 2y ago
This has nothing to do with "a few years", and has everything to do with Israel being perceived as a US ally and China being perceived as an enemy. Basically nothing has changed.

BobaFloutist 2y ago

>Hundreds of Google employees, upset at the company’s decision to secretly build a censored version of its search engine for China, have signed a letter demanding more transparency to understand the ethical consequences of their work. >Google fired 28 employees in connection with sit-in protests at two of its offices this week...Some of them occupied the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian until they were forcibly removed by law enforcement.

acoard 2y ago

> Why? A bit of a head scratcher. It is because not everyone sees Israel as committing war crimes. I'm not looking in getting into a debate about it, I don't think this is the appropriate thread and do not want to run afoul of HN guidelines. But to treat your question as if it is serious and sincere (i.e. not a rhetorical question) the answer is because many do not see Israel as committing war crimes but basically everyone agreed China was censoring. I'd also add that censorship can be a particularly sensitive topic the tech community is largely more polarized against than the wider country, whereas weapons of war are viewed by some as valid defensive work. Basically, nerds care about censorship disproportionately. And of course, opinions on both China and Israel would be baked into this too. Again, not looking to get into the actual substance of these points here, merely answering your question for why large amounts of people see these as different.

keefle 2y ago
While true, i think this answer misses the hypocrisy of the situation. 1. The same people who were supportive of the previous protests, are today's people who suggest "don't do it at work". 2. Regardless of whether Israel is commiting war crimes or not, if one is to be consistent, they must advocate that both the China censorship and genocide protests be done outside of work. 3. The main takeaway here is the bias (justified or not), and disappoint and disturbing hypocrisy in the reaction to the aforementioned protest

cyanydeez 2y ago

Free moneytrain is over and google is going full IBM Dinosaur, at best. Oracle dinosaur towards worse.

stormfather 2y ago

Part of it is likely to be how the US government will react. If Google is seen as anti-China that is fine, if they are seen as anti-Israel they might lose important contracts.

smsm42 2y ago

I understand in the China case they didn't actually physically occupied workspace and prevented others from doing their work? They wrote a letter. I think there's a bit of a difference between writing a letter and barging into your bosses office and telling them you're not leaving until they do what you want.

shmatt 2y ago

Imagine if all these protesters did was to sign a letter. We could only wish, and get on with our jobs

AtlasBarfed 2y ago

If you look at it in terms of AI, I think it makes more sense. Google the information enabler was a clear benefit to mankind. Pretty easy to be aspirational there. Happy fun liberal improve the world thinking. Expand participation and information awareness. Google the surveillance tool and AI merchant for governments and corporations for leveraging total surveillance? .... Yeah. But that's where the bucks are. Google has clearly moved very far into full enshittimonification of its information. It needs compliant obedient workers to shut up and make it money. Alphabet the big ideas has pretty much totally failed, the only thing succeeding is surveillance: Android and Search. Google doesn't need free, liberal, smart thinkers. It needs order takers.

cad31 2y ago

This has nothing to do with "a few years", and has everything to do with Israel being perceived as a US ally and China being perceived as an enemy. Basically nothing has changed.