$45m seems cheap. I would think this was a discounted deal with a view to longterm GCP and other government service relationships.
Surely most governments do this? The outrage machine is on 11 because of the evils of the Netanyahu government but all governments pay people to put a positive spin on their national strategic message.
Personally I think the focus here should be terrorism, human shields, hostages, the rule of law, just war, war crimes and genocide. Not advertising budgets.
sjsdaiuasgdia•5mo ago
People don't have to accept money and do work for terrible people. Google chose to enter this contract. Google could have chosen to not enter the contract. No one forced their hand. $45M is certainly not an existential amount to Google. They could have easily turned down the business. It was completely within their power to say no.
They chose to take the money and do the work.
Calling out businesses for doing business with terrible people is a good thing to do. As to your closing paragraph, that's kind of the point - calling out Google for doing business with a government that is committing genocide. If not for Netanyahu's treatment of Gaza, this contract would not be newsworthy.
ggm•5mo ago
"calling out" is what I am reacting to I think. Firstly, it feels very performative because what isn't happening is the "calling out" of Amazon, Azure/Microsoft, all the other cloud choices. All of them. Oracle, SAP, you name it. And, its doubly performative because people are going to step outside, spend money with stripe (cloud hosted) on coffee (traded by shipping companies using cloud companies) in clothes bought from people using cloud companies.
Choosing who to attack like this, is choosing to ignore the other 99% of the world equally tied up. All the cloud helps the war in Gaza, backs Netanyahu, indirectly or directly. Taking their money to be overt about government PR? Why is that materially worse than the other thing?
I get it. IBM helped the holocaust. It happened. Google is helping a modern day collective-punishment on people. It's similar. But without over-doing it. so is the maker of your sausages, clothes, your coffee, the phone company, Intel...
Qatar house the leadership of Hamas. I am not hearing people call for the boycott of the airline. I dislike moral relativism and whataboutery, but the situation here is complicated and simple at the same time. Both Hamas, and Netenyahu are evil and need to be condemned. Google cannot take money from Hamas because of US law. Do you think google would decline to take $45m from the government of Pakistan on principle? or Afghanistan? or dare I say it, China?
Netenyahu continues to call all journalists who report on the war antisemitic. I don't stop reading them. he repudiates the work MSF do. I continue to fund them. Haaretz reports regularly on the evils of the settler movement. read them.
Complaining about googles $45m income is not particularly helpful. De-googling won't help.
ggm•5mo ago
Surely most governments do this? The outrage machine is on 11 because of the evils of the Netanyahu government but all governments pay people to put a positive spin on their national strategic message.
Personally I think the focus here should be terrorism, human shields, hostages, the rule of law, just war, war crimes and genocide. Not advertising budgets.
sjsdaiuasgdia•5mo ago
They chose to take the money and do the work.
Calling out businesses for doing business with terrible people is a good thing to do. As to your closing paragraph, that's kind of the point - calling out Google for doing business with a government that is committing genocide. If not for Netanyahu's treatment of Gaza, this contract would not be newsworthy.
ggm•5mo ago
Choosing who to attack like this, is choosing to ignore the other 99% of the world equally tied up. All the cloud helps the war in Gaza, backs Netanyahu, indirectly or directly. Taking their money to be overt about government PR? Why is that materially worse than the other thing?
I get it. IBM helped the holocaust. It happened. Google is helping a modern day collective-punishment on people. It's similar. But without over-doing it. so is the maker of your sausages, clothes, your coffee, the phone company, Intel...
Qatar house the leadership of Hamas. I am not hearing people call for the boycott of the airline. I dislike moral relativism and whataboutery, but the situation here is complicated and simple at the same time. Both Hamas, and Netenyahu are evil and need to be condemned. Google cannot take money from Hamas because of US law. Do you think google would decline to take $45m from the government of Pakistan on principle? or Afghanistan? or dare I say it, China?
Netenyahu continues to call all journalists who report on the war antisemitic. I don't stop reading them. he repudiates the work MSF do. I continue to fund them. Haaretz reports regularly on the evils of the settler movement. read them.
Complaining about googles $45m income is not particularly helpful. De-googling won't help.
sjsdaiuasgdia•5mo ago
sporkxrocket•5mo ago