-27 points

I don’t get the comment here, they didn’t ‘express their opinion’ about Israel. They behaved like a bunch of lunatics within Google’s offices. If you want to protest Google’s actions send a signed letter of resignation stating the reason, send it to the press and form a union of techies that won’t work for companies that work with Israel recursively.

On a side note, I like how none of them mind building mass surveillance tools, pushing ads, Google-China relations, etc… But Israel’s genocide is trending, so they jump on that. What a bunch of shallow fucks.

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29 points

I don’t get the comment here, they didn’t ‘express their opinion’ about Israel. They behaved like a bunch of lunatics within Google’s offices.

Yes, they did express their opinion on the ongoing genocide. They did that in a fashion that disturbed the workplace - which some comments seem to deem holy ground that should never be disturbed by anything - but they did express their opinion.

If you want to protest Google’s actions send a signed letter of resignation stating the reason, send it to the press and form a union of techies that won’t work for companies that work with Israel recursively.

Iirc they tried some regular stuff before resorting to this method. Also, it’s always funny how when people try to change things, they never seem to do it the right way.

On a side note, I like how none of them mind building mass surveillance tools, pushing ads, Google-China relations, etc… But Israel’s genocide is trending, so they jump on that. What a bunch of shallow fucks.

Well congrats on being less of a hyprocrite than the rest of us.
The world is shit, nothing goes in the right direction, and some of us are more sensitive to some issues than others.
I mean I despise alphabet and their business model, but I also understand than people are less horrified by their work being used to serve ads than it being used in a genocide. And again, I hate that ads exist.

Protestation and strike are supposed to inconvenience the higher ups, please stop advising to use methods that don’t disturb anything.

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-23 points

This protest achieved nothing so far.

If you want to actually make a difference, leave Google, go do bioinformatics (am biased here), exact agriculture or any other shit that actually solves real problem.

All I see in those rallies a bunch of people that work at Google to maximize their earnings that are mad when Google does the same.

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1 point

If you want to actually make a difference, leave Google, go do bioinformatics (am biased here), exact agriculture or any other shit that actually solves real problem

People get to decide what is a “real problem”.

I don’t see how finding out your labor supports genocide isn’t a real problem.

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3 points

This protest achieved nothing so far.

I’m not saying the protest solved the issue, I was merely explaining why I disagreed with your arguments. Please don’t try and make me say things I didn’t.
As for the protest achieving nothing, I’m not sure how you back up that claim. It definitely changed how google is perceived by a few people who care a lot more about the genocide than they do about online privacy and ads. It also, sadly, probably made more employees afraid to express themselves on their workplace.

If you want to actually make a difference, leave Google, go do bioinformatics (am biased here), exact agriculture or any other shit that actually solves real problem.

There are countless ways to try and make a difference. I could argue that your work in bioinformatics is meaningless in a capitalist world and that you should either take up arms and organize raids to execute CEOs or do nothing (I actually disagree with this point, it’s just an extreme example).
Let’s not discourage the people who try and do things. Maybe they make mistakes, maybe they could be more efficient… but at least they try.

All I see in those rallies a bunch of people that work at Google to maximize their earnings that are mad when Google does the same.

Of course they’re mad. They went to work at Google, not Lockheed Martin or “insert other weapons manufacturer here”. And it’s a good thing ! Of course they still sold their time and skills to a shitty company and had an overall negative impact on the world, but they still care about human suffering when they are aware of it, and I prefer that to people who don’t care at all.

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29 points

It’s achieved a lot of people talking about it and has achieved damage to the Brand.

Which is better than nothing.

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-6 points

Iirc they tried some regular stuff before resorting to this method. Also, it’s always funny how when people try to change things, they never seem to do it the right way.

Did they resign though?

If you’re an employee protesting your own company you’re surprised they’d fire you?

Shouldn’t they have resigned first? Or did they really expect random employees with posters would make Google change their mind?

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7 points

The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

No way them resigning would have gotten this level of publicity, but you know that.

You just want to prevent people from doing things that annoy you by pretending they are ineffective.

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30 points
*

Bringing protest signs = ABSOLUTE LUNATICS!!!

Proceeds to whataboutism questions far less impactful than the Genocide of Gaza which is by far the worst human rights violation worldwide right now.

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2 points

Being a reactionary is not a substitute for an actual personality mate.

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3 points

On a side note, I like how none of them mind building mass surveillance tools, pushing ads, Google-China relations, etc… But Israel’s genocide is trending, so they jump on that. What a bunch of shallow fucks.

Billions of Google users will not comment to your comment nor be critical about Google but will continue sleeping watching their YouTube videos, use Google Gmail and do the most horrible things which we will never know about. Meanwhile the planet is burning by climate crisis and ridiculous wars in the so called civilized world. Yes, let’s be silent about Google and instead point fingers to those who dare to be critical for a few moments.

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-3 points

Your comment is unrelated what-so-ever to what I wrote.

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7 points

Protests are meant to disrupt, block, and inconvenience.

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-4 points

Where did I say they shouldn’t?

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4 points

When you suggested that they should have resigned instead, which causes far less inconvenience to the company.

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-1 points
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Removed by mod
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0 points

Still more correct to not call it “work” but “slavery” in that country.

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-1 points
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Never worked for one of the big tech firms, but I have been in the working world for ~16 years and one of the few things anyone that has been around for awhile can and will agree on is you don’t talk about salary within earshot of the boss, you don’t badmouth company decisions within earshot of the boss, you don’t talk about politically charged topics, and you certainly don’t combine 2 of those 3 and protest company decisions on politically charged issues literally in the office.

You also don’t do those things on company provided equipment, software, or services. If you want to bitch about something the company is doing, you go out to lunch or do it after hours, preferably without written or video evidence.

While I think it is gross that Google fired them for this, given the history of the company almost encouraging such things, I can say these people just got a hard lesson that most of us learn about the corporate world long before we make it to working for the likes of Google.

Rightly or wrongly freedom of speech, assembly, etc protects you from the Government, not your boss. And your boss is a petty little ego maniac that controls your livelihood, so best to stay out of his gaze on matters you know he/she would view negatively where at all possible.

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1 point

They weren’t just making a random protest. It was intended to show leadership their dissatisfaction. When your company is the size of tens of thousands of employees, your only real way to get within earshot is something like a protest.

Rightly or wrongly freedom of speech, assembly, etc protects you from the Government, not your boss.

Tired of this. The 1st amendment protects you from the government, but the idea of “freedom of speech” is much broader than that. We are allowed to be dissatisfied with how speech is suppressed even if a government is not involved.

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-1 points
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And like it or not they are allowed to fire you for voicing that dissatisfaction. Don’t like it? Protesting the company is the wrong seat of power to point your dissatisfaction at. “Freedom of speech” says you can say what you want, but does not mean you are free from the consequences of that speech either when it comes to your dealings with non-government bodies.

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9 points

Unless the goal is to make a political statement with your departure.

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4 points

exactly, which is what those workers did, they could’ve just resigned but they wanted to make a political statement and they did so

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13 points

All of which is a problem, not something we should passively accept as the status quo. These employees were advocating for change to fix exactly those sorts of problems.

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1 point

you don’t talk about salary within earshot of the boss, you don’t badmouth company decisions within earshot of the boss

Or, do these things all the time if you can base your working hours around making your company more money.

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42 points

The little-known genocide assistance exception to “don’t be evil.” You have to read the fine print these days.

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16 points

They dropped that line some time ago

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6 points

If I’m not mistaken there’s a more long winded watered down version at the end of a bunch of bs now. I may be misremembering or out of the loop on subsequent updates and changes though

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5 points

Yes it’s still there, it was just moved, albeit from a very noticeable position to quite an obscure one.

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