A software engineer who was fired from Google in connection to internal protests at the company’s offices says the company retaliated against him for merely watching the demonstration against an Israeli defense contract.
Technology
Google worker fired over protest says he wasn’t even protesting
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24016883/STK093_Google_06.jpg?ssl=1 "Google worker fired over protest says he wasn’t even protesting")
The former employee, who asked to remain anonymous, said he went to the lounge on the 10th floor of Google’s New York City office around lunchtime to check out the protest.
“When I got there, there were probably 20-ish people sitting on the floor. I didn’t talk to any of them, I talked to folks who were standing up, passing out flyers, doing other roles,” he said, adding that the protesters were wearing matching T-shirts.
The worker then went back to his desk before returning to the protest around 5PM. “I chatted with them for maybe four minutes, like, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re still sitting here! How’s it going?’” he said. Then, he finished the workday from a nearby couch. The worker says he returned to Google the following day without incident. That night, while at dinner, he got an email from Google saying he had been terminated.
“I think it’s all part of this bigger context of Google cracking down on workers having a voice,” said the former employee, who worked at Google for almost three years and was part of the Alphabet Workers Union leadership. (The Alphabet Workers Union is a non-contract union, meaning it hasn’t been recognized by the NLRB.)
Google initially put nine employees on administrative leave for occupying its offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California, in protest of Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with the Israeli government. Those workers were also arrested. The company then fired 28 employees in connection with the protests. In an internal memo to staff, Chris Rackow, Google’s head of global security, said the company would take further action if needed.
“The overwhelming majority of our employees do the right thing,” Rackow’s statement read. “If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again. The company takes this extremely seriously, and we will continue to apply our longstanding policies to take action against disruptive behavior — up to and including termination.”
Less than a week later, Google fired more than 20 other employees, some of whom said they hadn’t participated in the protests at all.
In a statement to The Verge, Google spokesperson Bailey Tomson said the company investigated the “physical disruption inside our buildings on April 16, looking at additional details provided by coworkers who were physically disrupted” to determine which workers had been involved.”
But the software engineer who was fired says he was never contacted by HR or asked whether he had actually been involved in the protests. “They didn’t even reach out to me,” he said. “This was a total shock; I had no hint that this was coming.”
The software engineer who was fired says he was never contacted by HR or asked whether he had actually been involved in the protests
The worker said that while he was watching the protest, a security guard approached him and others in the lounge and asked to see their Google badges to make sure there were no outside participants. “It didn’t even occur to me that I shouldn’t show him my badge. He’s the security guard in the place that I work, and I was doing nothing wrong,” the worker said.
More than 50 workers who were fired by Google in connection with protests over the company’s ties to the Israeli government filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board on Monday. The workers have alleged unlawful retaliation and are asking for their jobs back, according to an emailed statement from No Tech For Apartheid, the group that organized the protests.
Google “retaliated against approximately 50 employees and interfered with their Section 7 rights by terminating and/or placing them on administrative leave in response to their protected concerted activity, namely, participation (or perceived participation) in a peaceful, non-disruptive protest that was directly and explicitly connected to their terms and conditions of work,” the complaint reads.
Jane Chung, a spokesperson for No Tech For Apartheid, previously told The Verge that the firings included “non-participating bystanders.” Google disputes this. Tomson, the Google spokesperson, told The Verge that all of the workers who were fired were “personally and definitively involved in disruptive activity inside our buildings.”
This is a marked departure from the way Google has handled employee dissent in the past. In 2018, more than 600 Google workers signed an open letter opposing Project Dragonfly, an effort to build a search engine for China. As The Verge reported at the time, the petition began with an internally shared Google Doc, and all subsequent steps were also organized using Google products. Employees also urged Google to drop Project Maven, its contract with the US Department of Defense. That same year, over 20,000 Google employees staged a walkout in protest of the company’s handling of sexual harassment allegations against executives.
Meredith Whittaker, a program manager at Google who helped organize the 2018 walkout, left the company in 2019 of her own volition. In 2019, workers also held a sit-in protesting alleged retaliation against their colleagues who had spoken out.
“There’s been a total change in the way Google responds to employees trying to have a voice in their workplace,” the fired software engineer said. “It’s night and day from the Google of even five, 10 years ago.”
Continue Reading
When Oregon resident Isabelle Reksopuro heard Google was gobbling up public land to fuel its data centers in her home state, she didn’t initially know what to believe. “There’s a lot of misinformation about data centers,” she said. “Google has denied taking that land.”
Technically, she explains, The Dalles, a city near the Washington state border, sought to reclaim that land, “and Google is just a big, unnamed power user.” The city had in fact asked for ownership of a 150-acre portion of Mount Hood National Forest, claiming it needs access to Mount Hood’s watershed to meet municipal needs as its population — 16,010 as of the 2020 census — grows. But critics, including environmentalists, say the city is trying to secure more water for Google, which has a sprawling data center campus in The Dalles that already consumes about one-third of the city’s water supply.
This controversy made Reksopuro curious about the backlash to data centers being built in other communities. So Reksopuro, a student at the University of Washington who studies the connections between tech and public policy, decided to map it out. Using information collected by Epoch AI and data scraped from legislation on data centers, she built an interactive map tracking AI policy around the world. She designed it to be simple enough for anyone to use. “I wanted it to be something that my younger sisters could play through and explore to understand what are the data centers in the area and what’s actually being done about it,” Reksopuro said. She hoped to shift their opinions that way, “instead of like, through TikTok.”
Four times a day, the map searches for new sources and checks them against the existing database Reksopuro built out. “Once it does that, it will write a new summary, add it to the news feed, and populate it on the sidebar,” she said. “I wanted it to be self-updating, since I’m also a student.”
Reksopuro isn’t against data centers, but she thinks tech giants benefit from a lack of transparency around data center policies. “Right now, it’s this really opaque thing — and all of a sudden, there’s a facility,” she said. “I think that if people knew about data centers beforehand, it would give them leverage. They would be able to negotiate: ask for job training programs, tax revenue, environmental monitoring, things to improve their community.”
UCF commencement speaker Gloria Caulfield (University of Central Florida via Storyful)
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Welcome to Fox News’ Artificial Intelligence newsletter with the latest AI technology advancements.
IN TODAY’S NEWSLETTER:
– UCF graduates clobber commencement speaker with boos after she says AI is the ‘next Industrial Revolution’
– OPINION: DIRECTOR KASH PATEL: We brought the FBI out of the past and into the AI age
– OpenAI backs creation of global AI governance body led by the U.S. that would include China as a member
TOUGH CROWD: During a recent commencement ceremony at the University of Central Florida, a speaker was met with loud boos from the graduating class after declaring that artificial intelligence represents the next industrial revolution. Fox News Digital reporting captures this tense cultural moment, illustrating the mixed public sentiment and skepticism surrounding AI’s growing footprint in daily life.
A statue on the campus of the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida. (iStock)
BADGE MEETS BYTE: Reflecting on the modernization of national security in a Fox News op-ed, FBI Director Kash Patel explores how the bureau must adapt its strategies to address modern threats and advance beyond the artificial intelligence age.
TECH DIPLOMACY: OpenAI is throwing its support behind the establishment of a new global artificial intelligence governance organization that would be led by the United States while notably including China as a member. Fox News Digital reporting examines the geopolitical dynamics and regulatory implications of this proposed framework as global powers race to set the standards for AI development.
EQUITY ELEVATION: The massive wave of wealth generated by the explosive growth of ChatGPT and the broader AI industry is driving a sudden surge in the San Francisco Bay Area’s luxury real estate market. Fox News Digital reporting breaks down how the influx of new tech capital is reshaping local housing dynamics and fueling a high-end property frenzy.
FBI Director Kash Patel listened as Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche spoke during a press conference at the Department of Justice on April 28, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
STRATEGY RESET: Tech giant Cisco is planning to eliminate thousands of jobs as the company shifts its primary focus to accelerate its artificial intelligence initiatives, a move that comes despite the company beating earnings expectations. Fox News Digital reporting details the corporate restructuring and broader economic trends pushing legacy tech firms to aggressively pivot toward AI.
ROAD HAZARD: Waymo is issuing a sweeping recall of its autonomous vehicle fleet following a concerning incident that highlighted significant safety issues with the self-driving technology. Fox News Digital reporting outlines the specifics of the recall, the nature of the safety flaw, and what this setback means for the future of fully autonomous transportation on public roads.
BOTS IN THE BAY: A newly developed, artificial intelligence-powered robot has been engineered to seamlessly change and balance vehicle tires without human intervention. Fox News Digital reporting showcases this latest innovation, exploring how automation and AI mechanics could soon revolutionize the automotive service and repair industry.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the 2026 Infrastructure Summit in Washington, D.C., on March 11, 2026. (Kylie Cooper/Reuters)
FOLLOW FOX NEWS ON SOCIAL MEDIA
YouTube
SIGN UP FOR OUR OTHER NEWSLETTERS
Fox News First
Fox News Opinion
Fox News Lifestyle
Fox News Health
DOWNLOAD OUR APPS
Fox News
FOX Business
Fox Weather
Fox Sports
Tubi
WATCH FOX NEWS ONLINE
Fox News Go
STREAM FOX NATION
Fox Nation
Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future with Fox News here.
Microsoft Edge is adding a new feature that will allow its Copilot AI chatbot to gather information from all of your open tabs. When you start a conversation with Copilot, you can ask the chatbot questions about what’s in your tabs, compare the products you’re looking at, summarize your open articles, and more.
In its announcement, Microsoft says you can “select which experiences you want or leave off the ones you don’t.” The company is retiring Copilot Mode as well, which could similarly draw information from your tabs but offered some agentic features, like the ability to book a reservation on your behalf. Microsoft has since folded these agentic capabilities into its “Browse with Copilot” tool.
Several other AI features are coming to Edge, including an AI-powered “Study and Learn” mode that can turn the article you’re looking at into a study session or interactive quiz. There’s a new tool that turns your tabs into AI-powered podcasts as well, similar to what you’d find on NotebookLM, and an AI writing assistant that will pop up when you start entering text on a webpage.
You can also give Copilot permission to access your browsing history to provide more “relevant, high-quality answers,” according to Microsoft. Copilot in Edge on desktop and mobile will come with “long-term memory” as well, which can tailor its responses based on your previous conversations. And, when you open up a new tab, you’ll see a redesigned page that combines chat, search, and web navigation, along with the Journeys feature, which uses AI to organize your browsing history into categories that you can revisit.
Meanwhile, an update to Edge’s mobile app will allow you to share your screen with Copilot and talk through the questions about what you’re seeing. Microsoft says you’ll see “clear visual cues” when Copilot is active, “so you know when it’s taking an action, helping, listening, or viewing.”
-
Kentucky3 seconds agoFormer Kentucky FOP spokesperson pleads guilty to wire fraud
-
Louisiana6 minutes agoLouisiana receives $18.9 million in FEMA grants for hurricane recovery
-
Maine12 minutes agoMaine Trash Kings turns clutter into cash across Searsport
-
Maryland18 minutes agoSee which baby names were the most popular in DC, Maryland, and Virginia in 2025
-
Michigan24 minutes agoMan curses Arab candidate after allegedly tossing brick at office
-
Massachusetts30 minutes agoTrauma foam developed by Massachusetts company used to stop internal bleeding in first patient
-
Minnesota36 minutes agoMinnesota could see northern lights tonight, here’s how
-
Mississippi42 minutes agoGolden Spikes watchlist features players from Mississippi State, Ole Miss – SuperTalk Mississippi