Ariel Koren didn’t shy away when it came down to speaking her mind. She accused the search engine giant of complicity in its violations of human rights belonging to Palestinians. This came in the form of a letter that was recently addressed to fellow Google members.
Koren also boldly declared how bad she and other employees were made to feel when they decided to raise their voices and speak for Palestine. In the same way, she adds that instead of Google being fair and listening to what she and others said, as mentioned in their ethics policy, the firm shut them out completely.
The search engine giant also chose to aggressively put ahead military contracts and banned people from voicing their thoughts via a classic silencing pattern. This came in the form of retaliation toward her and so many others. Koren expressed these thoughts on a Medium blog as well.
The Jewish employee also outlined how she’s been affiliated with the organization for nearly seven years now. And she just so happened to be one of the two members of the firm who spoke against the company last year when Project Nimbus was announced.
The latter was a deal held between Google, Israel’s government, Amazon, and the military too. This came ahead when Israel was involved in killing innocent Palestinians located in Gaza. And on that note, Google decided it wished to be a part of the project, raising eyebrows for many.
It was declared that via this project Nimbus, both Google and Amazon would provide their assistance in creating a computing system. Moreover, this would help give Israel’s government and its military the support they required as far as artificial intelligence with support through machine learning tools was concerned.
Koren didn't stop there. She highlighted that during her tenure, she constantly saw Google behaving unfairly and silencing those that supported Palestinians. It also didn’t have a keen interest in diversity, hence failing to live up to its claims of being an ethical organization.
But it’s not just Palestine that Google doesn't support, Koren claims. It’s Arabs, Muslims, and Jews too who raise voices against violations of human rights for Palestinians. And if that means retaliating against their own employees and instilling an aura of fear, then so be it.
Koren called out Google’s behavior as weaponizing and one that was unjust for various reasons. She said that to retaliate against employees that stand up for what’s right and raise their voices against the firm’s work is just wrong.
There is previous evidence that showed how the company requested Koren to shift to Brazil in 2021 after she raised her voice against Project Nimbus. At that time, she happened to be on disability leave.
While Koren adds that her decision to quit the organization was a tough one, she knows that it was the right decision. After all, this was the only way she could raise her voice against the oppression taking place.
She called herself fortunate for having the privilege to talk against Google in a safe manner. And that’s one thing that her fellow colleagues and pals hailing from Palestine do not have.
Recently, an email was shared by Insider that showed a spokesperson from Google confirming that they do not allow retaliation at its workplace. They also investigated claims by former employee Koren, sharing that there was zero retaliation over there too.
In addition to that, Google says that the case was also dismissed by one government agency when the same employee filed claims of facing retaliation at the firm.
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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World
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