Almost 1,600 Google employees signed a petition to CEO Sundar Pichai on Wednesday to stop selling all of its products to the police.
What We Know:
- Major companies such as Aunt Jemima, Tesla, and Adidas have decided to go over their policy again and established new mission statements for their fight against systemic racism.
- The petition, with almost 1,600 signatures from Google employees, has been signed and sent to their CEO in order to raise awareness and demand a to cut ties with the police and to support the “defunding of police in order to end systemic racism permanently”.
- This isn’t the first time Google employees have spoken up. In 2018, several employees resigned and 3,100 employees asked CEO Sundar Pichai to end military ties and end Project Maven, the artificial intelligence used to improve drone targeting.
- Twitter users had mixed feelings about the “demanding” of cutting ties with the police.
https://twitter.com/PaddyOReilly/status/1275527731980185600?s=20
https://twitter.com/TN11118/status/1275528124848103434?s=20
- Google employees expressed their “disappointment” that Google is still selling to police forces. The employees feel that the multi-billion dollar company is only seeking to expand their sales rather than to help “institutions responsible for the knee on George Floyd’s neck to be more effective organizationally”.
- However, Google is not the only a multi-billion dollar company helping the police. Reports show that Amazon just placed a one-year ban on selling its facial recognition technology to the police and Salesforce has an active contract with Customs and Border Patrol (CBP).
- The petition included the following:
“The racist legacy of police across the United States goes all the way back to its roots, when police forces emerged to protect the wealth gotten from slavery and genocide. We have a long way to go to address the full legacy of racism but to begin with — we should not be in the business of profiting from racist policing.”
- Google has recently released a statement to FOX News and expressed the importance of fighting against systemic racism and has made 500 product suggestions.
The death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor has sparked outrage and many companies such as Google have donated millions to the Black Lives Matter movement but employees are demanding more be done against racism.
