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NeverFade | 1 year ago

They didn't just "protest" their company's work with Israel.

They took over company offices, including the office of Google Cloud CEO in Sunnyvale, and refused to vacate them for 9+ hours.

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sdenton4|1 year ago

Yes... That's what protest looks like.

otterley|1 year ago

There are lots of ways to protest, and plenty of them don’t involve impeding others or trespassing on private property to make their point. We have parks and government centers and sidewalks they can do it in. Your right to protest does not supersede the rights of others.

And these are (were) employees and it’s quite likely Google already has established mechanisms for hearing employee grievances. Google’s not going to allow a small but vocal and disruptive group to override those existing mechanisms, nor would any serious business.

maximinus_thrax|1 year ago

No.. that's what a stupid and illegal protest looks like. You can peacefully protest in public as much as you want, it's your right under the first amendment. This does not extend into private property. If you don't have permission from the property owner, that's no longer a protest, that's trespassing. One could argue that the whole thing is a meta-protest (along with the arrest and the media coverage) which would be more or less correct, but that's not what you're arguing.

See https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/protesters-rights

Anyway, if the protestors actually believe they changed minds with this, I will forever be disappointed by Google's hiring practices.

bingbangboom|1 year ago

No, you can't just occupy private property as a protest. Hence why they were arrested.

anon291|1 year ago

Yeah it's insane that anyone from Jan 6 was arrested and jailed for protest /s.

cvoss|1 year ago

It's important to remember, whenever a news headline reads "Y after X", that the headline does not actually claim "Y because of X". I find it a frustrating misdirection by the newspaper to employ such headlines, since they are so easy to misread in that way.

CommanderData|1 year ago

Historically civil rights protest movement have been disruptive. Protesting a genocide arguably be even more disruptive.

- Stonewall Riots (1969)

- Soweto Uprising (1976)

- Tiananmen Square protests (1989)

- Women's Suffrage Movement

- Anti-Apartheid Protests in South Africa

US politician are hostages, opposing Israel on the political stage puts your life at risk.

x-egghead|1 year ago

That the rich digerati have taken up the cause of the ongoing Palestinian man-made famine and genocide diverges from actions of similar demographics in the past. The genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia received little notice in the global press and received little global action. This is positive progress. Even if the effect of an individual protest causes no direct change, it is important voices are heard and directed toward the political class and the owners of capital who buy influence over the political class. Unfortunately though, far-right Christian fundamentalists hold too much clout in America for mystical theological reasons and will never chide Israel for any behavior, no matter how abhorrent.