MESSAGE
| DATE | 2025-08-28 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] First Google then Microsoft
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/first-google-now-microsoft-tech-staff-are-in-revolt-over-gaza/ar-AA1LmeSH
The Wall Street Journal
A demonstrator holding a Palestinian flag near tents during a protest at
Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Wash., this month. © David
Ryder/Bloomberg News
When a group of employees raised a Palestinian flag outside Microsoft’s
headquarters and occupied a top executive’s office, it marked an
escalation of unrest brewing inside Silicon Valley’s biggest companies
over their work with the Israeli military.
While tech giants have long given employees latitude to engage in
political speech at work, the latest wave of activism over the war in
Gaza has put some workers at odds with their employers. On Wednesday
Microsoft said it had fired two employees that were part of the group
that stormed its offices this week. Last year Google fired dozens of
workers after they staged similar sit-ins.
For months, employee discourse about Gaza has tested workplace policies
at Microsoft and Alphabet unit Google. Content moderators of internal
message boards have repeatedly deleted comments about the conflict,
according to current and former employees and internal correspondence
viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Microsoft’s moderators have deleted questions and conversation threads
related to the war in Gaza and the company’s work with Israel,
screenshots viewed by the Journal show. On a Microsoft-wide message
board, one employee wrote about the impact of food shortages and attacks
on people in Gaza. “How much more must we endure before we say
‘enough?’” the person wrote.
A content moderator replied with a reminder to follow community
guidelines outlining the company’s rules for respectful conversation.
“We are now closing this thread for comments,” the moderator wrote.
On Tuesday, after his office was breached, Microsoft President Brad
Smith said the company is reviewing claims that its technologies had
been used to target people in Gaza. The company earlier looked into
claims its software was being used to harm people but said it found no
evidence.
Smith also called the actions of protesters “not standard employee
conduct” and said that the company is examining the actions of employee
organizers, as well as reviewing its building security protocols. The
two now-fired software engineers were arrested by police, along with a
former Google employee and four former Microsoft staffers.
Abdo Mohamed, a former Microsoft employee who has helped to organize the
protests, said he observed numerous instances last year of content
moderators intervening when employees asked questions of executives
about the company’s work in Israel. “Microsoft really did its best to
use the tools at its hands to dismiss any concerns that were brought
up,” he said.
Microsoft said it takes action when content violates company policies
and guidelines, and that it creates designated forums for potentially
controversial conversations. “We have a responsibility and commitment to
creating an inclusive and safe digital workplace,” it said.
Internal political debate is a complicated matter for companies,
especially in industries such as tech where employees have a history of
activism and engagement. But some companies have gained more leverage
over employee exchanges in a shifting labor market, particularly those
related to controversial matters.
At Google, employees have protested military-related contracts and in
2018 convinced the company to quit partnering with the U.S. Defense
Department to develop artificial intelligence to identify potential
drone targets. Since then, the company has taken steps to curb debates
about politics and other controversial matters, in part by appointing
employees to moderate conversations.
Google last April fired 28 employees who protested the company’s $1.2
billion contract with the Israeli government, and then fired another 20
people a few days later. Google and Amazon together signed the contract
in 2021.
Police in New York and California had arrested some of the Google
employees following sit-in protests at its offices. Google said the
employees who were fired disrupted workspaces and made other employees
feel unsafe.
While discussing the war in Gaza and Google’s cloud-computing contract
with the Israeli government, Google employees who refer to genocide in
emails and chat boards have had their conversation threads locked or
deleted, according to screenshots viewed by the Journal. Some received
messages from content moderators explaining why.
Google said it was routine practice for its content moderation team to
remove posts that violate company policies on disruptive content, which
includes a range of topics in addition to genocide.
“We’ve been clear that our workplace isn’t somewhere to debate politics
or have disruptive discussions—on any divisive topic,” said spokeswoman
Courtenay Mencini. “We’ve consistently reminded our employees of this
and regularly take steps to enforce the rare instances where employees
violate our policies.”
Moderators informed a former Google employee who made a document
explaining her feelings about the conflict in Gaza that included links
to news coverage of the company’s contract that they felt it was too
disruptive for the workplace. Moderators have also removed discussions
about topics such as the use of surveillance technology during the conflict.
Many of the moderation instances center on use of the word “genocide.”
How and when to use the term has remained a subject of fierce debate,
and its application to conflicts in Armenia, Rwanda and elsewhere have
been controversial.
The current war in Gaza was triggered by the October 2023 attack on
Israel by Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas, which killed about
1,200 people, mostly Israeli citizens. More than 60,000 Palestinians
have been killed in Gaza by Israel since the onset of the war, Gaza’s
Health Ministry has said.
When a Google employee wrote “genocide” in a chat last month, co-founder
Sergey Brin intervened with a sharp warning, according to screenshots
viewed by the Journal. The interaction was earlier reported by the
Washington Post.
The conversation touched on a recent report from a United Nations
Special Rapporteur that said work by a range of corporations, including
Google, were sustaining Israel’s war against Hamas, which it called a
“genocidal campaign.”
“The only bright spot here is that we’re spending all of our time and
money on Gemini and not something more useful for genocide,” the
employee wrote, referring to Google’s AI model and chatbot.
Brin responded: “With all due respect, throwing around the term genocide
is deeply offensive to many people who have suffered actual genocides. I
would also be careful citing transparently antisemitic organizations
like the UN in relation to these issues.”
Write to Katherine Blunt at katherine.blunt-at-wsj.com and Sebastian
Herrera at sebastian.herrera-at-wsj.com
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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