Open Letter: Google Workers Condemn Internal Culture of Hate, Abuse, and Retaliation
We are Muslim, Palestinian, and Arab Google employees joined by anti-Zionist Jewish colleagues. We cannot remain silent in the face of the hate, abuse, and retaliation that we are being subjected to in the workplace in this moment.
As we mourn the continued and relentless loss of innocent Palestinian lives, including those of our own loved ones, our collective grief is exacerbated by campaigns of hate, abuse and retaliation inside Google. Palestinians have been publicly called “animals” on official Google work platforms, as leadership has stood idly by. Muslims have endured accusations of supporting terrorism as part of their religion and associated slander against the Prophet Muhammad — again, as leadership has stood idly by. Google managers have called employees “sick” and a “lost cause” for showing empathy towards the besieged residents of Gaza, and have even publicly asked Arab and Muslim Googlers if they support Hamas as a response to said Googlers expressing empathy or concern for Palestinian families’ safety. There are even coordinated efforts to stalk the public lives of workers sympathetic to Palestine and to report them both to Google and law enforcement for “supporting terrorism.” Other examples of repressing and punishing Google employees who speak out against what they rightfully deem a genocide against the Palestinian people — as well as other examples of widespread anti-Muslim hatred systematically condoned by Google leadership — have also included:
- Google leadership allowing dehumanizing, racist comments against Palestinians as a people on official Google work platforms. For example, Googlers’ heartfelt appeals to donate to a Google-sponsored charity to provide food and medicine to Gazans were met with multiple comments dehumanizing Gazans as being “animals,” disregarding their plight, and calling upon Googlers to boycott relief work for civilians due to the fact that Palestinian schools and hospitals were being used for “terrorism.”
- Google managers inappropriately using their rank to question, report, and attempt to get fired Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian Googlers who express sympathy with the plight of the besieged Palestinian people. For example, a Google manager engaged with multiple Muslim Google employees to ask if they support Hamas and if they deny that Hamas is responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Israel-Palestine. Like-minded managers have posted the need to “support each other” and to report those who sympathize with the besieged Palestinian population facing collective punishment and genocide. In one instance, a Google manager tacitly endorsed the surveillance of Google employees on social media, and then harassed them openly about their sympathies on Google work platforms with other employees. Together, these collaborators are targeting employees who express sympathies with the plight of the Palestinian people in order to report them to said employees’ entire reporting chain up to the CEO Sundar Pichai in an effort to remove these employees from the company.
- Google executives and managers having a double standard when it comes to freedom of expression for Israeli Googlers versus Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian Googlers. While Google executives such as Ruth Porat have expressed their support for and solidarity with Israeli Googlers, no effort has been made to combat the vicious retaliation and harassment campaigns that Google’s own leadership is engaged in against Arab and Muslim Google employees (and their allies). In fact, in one case, Arab and Muslim Googlers were told to refrain from making comments in support of Palestinians or even acknowledging the Israeli occupation under the guise of being “respectful in the workplace.”
These tactics of hate, intimidation and abuse perpetrated and celebrated in the workplace are unconscionable. The impunity by which Google executives have allowed this behavior to continue speaks to the culture that has developed within Google that allows them to flourish without any repercussions.
As Google executives continue to engage with Israeli workers and extend their support to them, showing support for Palestinians and affected Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian Googlers is met with threats from Human Resources. This is unacceptable. We demand the following, including reiterating the demands of the letter that hundreds of our colleagues have already signed:
We demand that Google leadership immediately halt its continuous empowerment of hate, abuse, and retaliation against those who speak out and establish a working environment where Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian Googlers are not subject to harassment, racism, and collusion against them.
We demand that Sundar Pichai, Thomas Kurian, and other Google leadership issue a public condemnation of the ongoing genocide in the strongest possible terms.
We demand that Google stop providing material support to this genocide by canceling its Project Nimbus contract and immediately cease doing business with the Israeli apartheid government and military.
Described above are just a few of many documented examples of hate, abuse, and retaliation that our Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian colleagues are facing.
The No Tech For Apartheid Campaign is publishing this piece on behalf of the Muslim, Palestinian, and Arab Google employees who drafted this open letter. Learn more at notechforapartheid.com
