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US tech companies in spotlight over use of systems in Gaza

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Tech employees protest, demand transparency

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Employees advocating for Palestinian rights fired

By Nazih Osseiran and Avi Asher -Schapiro

BEIRUT/LOS ANGELES, Oct 7 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) -

I n pulverised Gaza, life has become almost medieval for

traumatised residents but the Israeli offensive that obliterated

their homes and killed their neighbours is defiantly modern and

has raised profound questions over the role of Big Tech in war.

More than any other major conflict this century, the

Israel-Hamas war has spotlighted how artificial intelligence and

machine learning can be used on the battlefield, and what

responsibility the makers of these tools should bear.

"From the early days of the war, the campaign has been

framed as an opportunity to test and refine how AI is used in

the field of war," said Sophia Goodfriend, a post-doctoral

fellow at Harvard University who studies Israel's use of AI and

automation in war.

"Gaza, like Ukraine, is seen as a war lab for the future."

Employees at Amazon, Microsoft ( MSFT ), and Alphabet Inc's

Google became increasingly concerned over whether their

companies were empowering Israel's military forces after a slew

of reports alleging the use of Big Tech products in Gaza.

Outrage over civilian casualties - the death toll in Gaza

stands at more than 41,600 with at least 10,000 believed missing

under the rubble - has fanned the flames of employee anger.

Some tech employees have joined workplace protests and been

fired, some have left and others have voiced their support for

Palestinians in internal groups.

Around this time last year, the number of Amazon workers

who had joined a virtual community for employees who support

Palestinian rights numbered around 800 people.

Today, it has grown fivefold, said an Amazon employee, who

is in the group and who did not want their name to be used for

fear of repercussions.

"Knowing how Amazon Web Services are being used (in Gaza) is

enough to drive people to get involved," the employee told the

Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Asked to comment on the use of its services by the Israeli

military, an Amazon spokesperson said: "AWS is focused on making

the benefits of our world-leading cloud technology available to

all our customers, wherever they are located."

The spokesperson added that the company was committed to

ensuring employees were safe and supporting those affected by

war.

Israel launched its assault on Gaza after Hamas fighters

stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7 last year, killing 1,200

people and capturing around 250 hostages, according to Israeli

tallies.

Goodfriend said the conflict in Gaza revealed the "lethal"

effect of the application of high-tech systems in war.

"The scale of the destruction has made it hard to see any of

this technology as neutral - and it's made a lot of people

within the tech industry quite critical of supplying systems

that are driving warfare," she told the Thomson Reuters

Foundation.

"There's no way Israel could have the technical

infrastructure that they do without the support of private

companies, and cloud computing infrastructure - they just

wouldn't be able to operate their AI systems without the major

tech conglomerates."

BLURRED LINES

Very little is officially known about how exactly Big Tech

firms' systems are being used by the Israeli military in Gaza.

Much scrutiny has focused on Project Nimbus, a $1.2

billion contract jointly awarded to Google and Amazon Web

Services to supply the Israeli government with cloud computing

infrastructure, AI and other tech services.

When it unveiled the project in May 2021, the Israeli

government said it was intended to "provide a comprehensive and

thorough response for the provision of cloud services to the

Government, the Security Services and other entities".

Later that year, Google and Amazon employees published an

open letter in the Guardian, condemning the project, which they

said "allows for further surveillance of and unlawful data

collection on Palestinians, and facilitates expansion of

Israel's illegal settlements on Palestinian land".

Since the start of the war in Gaza, there has been a slew of

media reports alleging the use of Project Nimbus technology by

the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the crowded strip, which is

home to 2.3 million people.

But the extent to which Project Nimbus is used by the

military remains unclear.

"Where (tech companies) draw the line is blurry," said

Deborah Brown, a technology researcher at Human Rights Watch.

"What they offer in the contracts and what the military does

with it is shrouded in mystery."

In April, Time magazine said it had seen a Google company

document that showed the firm provides cloud computing services

to the Israeli Ministry of Defence, and that the tech giant had

negotiated deepening its partnership during the war in Gaza.

In August, nonprofit +972 Magazine, which is run by Israeli

and Palestinian journalists, published a story citing a leaked

recording it said was of a senior IDF commander confirming that

the army was using cloud storage and AI services sourced from

Google, Microsoft ( MSFT ) and Amazon.

The previous November, the magazine had published a report

saying that the IDF uses AI to generate targets in Gaza.

Following that report, a group of tech workers known as

No Tech For Apartheid said that U.S. tech companies doing

business with the IDF, including Google and Amazon, were

"enabling the first AI-powered genocide."

Google did not respond to a request for comment.

Israel's Ministry of Defence declined to respond to

questions about the IDF's reliance on infrastructure provided by

U.S. tech companies, or the allegations in the +972 report.

Previously, the IDF has denied using AI to identify

suspected extremists.

"The IDF does not use an artificial intelligence system that

identifies terrorist operatives or tries to predict whether a

person is a terrorist. Information systems are merely tools for

analysts in the target identification process," the IDF said in

a statement in April.

Microsoft ( MSFT ) - which had cloud contracts with the IDF that

proceeded Nimbus - is still providing cloud computing services

to the military, according to reports.

In May, Microsoft ( MSFT ) employees launched "No Azure for

Apartheid," a campaign to pressure the company to stop providing

its Azure Cloud Services to Israel.

Microsoft ( MSFT ) did not respond to multiple requests for comment

about whether and how its technology was being used in Gaza.

Hossam Nasr, a Microsoft ( MSFT ) worker involved in the No Azure

for Apartheid campaign, said workers inside Microsoft ( MSFT ) became

increasingly uneasy as press reports described the IDF's

reliance on AI on the battlefield.

"Real humans are being fed into machines, and processed by

algorithms, and then with the press of a button it's decided if

they get to live another day." he said. "Seeing this happen has

been radicalising."

DISSENT RISING

As the death toll mounted in Gaza, so too did dissent among

employees at the tech giants.

Two former Google employees, who were among 50 people

fired in April for protesting over Project Nimbus, told the

Thomson Reuters Foundation that many employees at their company

came to believe that their work extended beyond civilian

applications. They were frustrated by the company's refusal to

act following reports about how their tech was being used.

"Generally speaking, Google has just dismissed and

downplayed concerns throughout the entire time," said Cheyne

Anderson, who worked out of Google's Washington office.

Any public discussion within the company around Project

Nimbus was shut down by Google during employee town halls and in

internal communications, said Mohammad Khatami, who was also

fired in April.

"Google would basically either take down the question,

delete the question, or close the email chains associated with

any kind of dissent regarding Project Nimbus," he said.

A few weeks after Oct. 7, Khatami, who is Muslim, circulated

an internal petition to pressure Google to drop Project Nimbus,

he said. He was the only person to be called in by the human

resources department and reprimanded, he added.

"They ... told me that essentially you are justifying

terrorism and you got to shut up about this and just put your

head down and keep working," he said.

Google did not respond to a request for comment on the

incident recounted by Khatami.

META CENSORSHIP CLAIMS

Tech giants have also come under fire for censoring

pro-Palestinian content on their social media sites,

particularly Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.

In a report released last year, Human Rights Watch said

"censorship of content related to Palestine on Instagram and

Facebook is systemic and global".

Asked about the report, Meta said: "We aim to apply our

global policies fairly but doing so at scale and during a

fast-moving, highly polarised and intense conflict, brings

challenges. We acknowledge we make errors that can be

frustrating for people, but the implication that we deliberately

and systematically suppress a particular voice is false."

Saima Akhter, who worked at the company's New York office

until she was fired in June, said reports of censure of

pro-Palestinian content prompted Meta staff to question team

leaders.

"At this time, we started noticing how Meta was deleting our

internal posts," she said, referring to posts in support of

Palestinians on employee resource groups, including posts

offering condolences to Meta staff who had lost family in Gaza.

"We were internally being heavily censored, and our

product concerns were not being taken seriously," Akhter said.

Akhter says she was fired after she uploaded a copy of a

document put together by staff detailing how the company

allegedly censors Palestinians into her personal cloud storage

application.

Meta said it tried to foster a company culture based around

"mutual respect and inclusivity" and that there were many

channels where employees could raise concerns.

It did not comment when asked to respond to Akhter's

comments that she was fired for uploading the document.

On the wider question of Big Tech involvement in war, HRW's

Brown said more scrutiny was needed before firms enter into

lucrative army contracts.

"Unless there is someone forcing them to do human rights due

diligence, to show their work, to be able to explain how they

will not be contributing to abuses, and to be able to stop

services if they are, then they're going to pursue their

profits."

(Reporting by Nazih Osseiran and Avi Asher-Schapiro ; Editing

by Clar Ni Chonghaile. The Thomson Reuters Foundation is the

charitable arm of Thomson Reuters. Visit https://context.news/)