Two Google employees who helped organize walkouts say they've faced demotions or dramatically changed roles, plan a town hall to share stories of retaliation
both at research institutions like @AINowInstitute, and at places like Google, which need calls for change and self-reflection from strong voices within. http://www.nytimes.com/... Kate Conger / @kateconger : “If we can't fight fear, then people aren't going to speak up and we're not going to listen to the voices that need to be heard.” http://www.nytimes.com/... Rasmus Kleis Nielsen / @rasmus_kleis : Seems like some accused of sexual harassment get multi-million dollar exit packages, while some of those challenging the culture and organization that seems to allow sexism and harassment face retaliation... http://www.nytimes.com/... Amr Gaber / @amrtgaber : Thread: This isn't just about the Walkout organizers. Retaliation is a common fear tactic and one that I saw frequently when I was organizing fast food and retail workers. This tells me that behind the mask of playfulness and positivity, Google is just another ruthless business. http://twitter.com/... Naomi Klein / @naomiaklein : Tell @Google to back off its attempts to silence key organizers of the #GoogleWalkout, some of whom are also raising the alarm about AI “ethics” and google-military collaborations. A company with Google's world-dominating ambitions should have room for a few dissenters... http://twitter.com/... Dragana / @draganakaurin : Folks from digital rights orgs often join FB or Google promising they'll “make changes from within the company”— but @mer__edith is actually walking the walk. It's entirely possible to care about your workplace and at the same time fight for ethical practices + accountability. http://twitter.com/... Tom Warren / @tomwarren : Google had the opportunity to listen to its employees who walked out. Instead, it showed once again that it's a giant corporation that only cares about $$$ http://www.nytimes.com/... Mar Hicks / @histoftech : Gurgle is running scared & getting mean(er): “In addition to the demotion, Stapleton said Google instructed her to take medical leave even though she was not sick. Whittaker said she had been told to abandon her external research at NYU, on AI & ethics.” http://www.nytimes.com/... Jenny Messerly / @codewitchjen : Every time I think, surely Google can't get any worse, they find a way. I'm relieved that my leave of absence starts next week. http://twitter.com/... @nytimesbusiness : In a letter shared with co-workers and reviewed by The New York Times, Claire Stapleton, a marketing manager at YouTube, said Google had demoted her after she urged colleagues to walk out from the company last year over its treatment of sexual harassment. http://www.nytimes.com/... http://twitter.com/... @amznforclimate : We stand with the brave @GoogleWalkout organizers @mer__edith and @clairewaves. An attack against them is an attack against all workers who courageously demand their companies do the right thing. http://twitter.com/... Sansa Stan / @sidneyfussell : The “Google can regulate itself” stance is even more absurd now that it's openly threatening workers who dare to take a stand :/ http://twitter.com/... Hamed Haddadi / @realhamed : Google and ethics remain in dichotomy: “Whittaker said she was told that, in order to stay at the company, she would have to “abandon” her work on AI ethics and her role at AI Now Institute, a research center she cofounded at New York University.” http://www.wired.com/... Kate Crawford / @katecrawford : I support the walkout organizers - thanks to them, Google ended forced arbitration. They deserve better than this. And asking @mer__edith to stop working on AI and ethics issues? That would be a loss to the *whole field* http://twitter.com/... Matt Cagle / @matt_cagle : Google should be finalizing a commitment to avoid selling facial recognition tech to governments, as its AI principles require. Instead, this: http://twitter.com/... Ben Green / @benzevgreen : Whoa it's almost as if Google's embrace of ethics is a PR move designed to make them look good without actually forcing any structural changes http://twitter.com/... Emily Feng / @emilyzfeng : The organizers behind this face risks too even though they're based in US. See how Google has retaliated against its employees who have protested its ethics: http://www.wired.com/... http://twitter.com/... Ben Tarnoff / @bentarnoff : Google is retaliating against workers for exercising their federally protected right to engage in concerted activity for their mutual aid or protection. Solidarity with @mer__edith and @clairewaves. https://www.wired.com/... Liz Fong-Jones / @lizthegrey : This is a terrifying move that should discourage literally every academic from accepting co-employment to collaborate with a company. http://twitter.com/... Cheryl Platz / @muppetaphrodite : When the only recourse for discrimination is to report problems to the people with control over your career, the system is broken. It's so much easier to shut one squeaky wheel down than do the hard work of cultural repair. Anti-retaliation policies are useless out of court. http://twitter.com/... David Carroll / @profcarroll : WTAF: @mer__edith told she would have to abandon her co-founding role at @AINowInstitute in retaliation for organizing walkout at Google. It's almost as if Google doesn't even want to be challenged to be a much more ethical company. http://www.wired.com/... via @nitashatiku Suresh Venkatasubramanian / @geomblog : This is an important story. And the juxtaposition of Google's failed ethics council and their pressure on @mer__edith re: her work on AINow is not pretty. http://twitter.com/... Audrey Eschright / @ameschright : Retaliation is sickeningly common. Don't think that companies are too cautious to punish organizers or aware enough to realize it won't stop people from speaking out. http://twitter.com/... Michael Veale / @mikarv : Google prefers Tech Won't Question It to Tech Won't Build It: it's retaliating against @AINowInstitute co-founder @mer__edith for criticising the current state of AI ethicswashing & standing up for workers. If chairing a panel w/ Google on it—make sure to ask them about this. http://twitter.com/... Rumman Chowdhury / @ruchowdh : In solidarity with my colleagues in industry who are facing retaliation for their actions to push for truly ethical use of technology. We hear you and we support you. http://twitter.com/... Tom Simonite / @tsimonite : .@mer__edith “was told that, in order to stay at [Google] she would have to ‘abandon’ her work on AI ethics and her role at AI Now Institute, a research center she cofounded at New York University.” http://twitter.com/... Liz Fong-Jones / @lizthegrey : The good news: in my case, the company paid me off to leave. All I got was one milli-Rubin (about $90k). The damage here is the signal it sends to the organizing movement that the company would like us gone, rather than financial consequences for me, in my specific case. Frank Pasquale / @frankpasquale : “Google has a culture of retaliation, which too often works to silence women, people of color, & gender minorities. Retaliation isn't always obvious. It's often confusing & drawn out, consisting of icy conversations, gaslighting, project cancellations, or demotions.” http://twitter.com/... Liz Fong-Jones / @lizthegrey : I, too, was retaliated against. The company forced me out early when I announced my exit, despite the fact that there was no policy requiring it, and plenty of others had been allowed to stay until their last day. HR blamed my mgmt chain, and my mgmt chain blamed HR. http://twitter.com/... William Fitzgerald / @william_fitz : .@Google, this is very wrong and you won't get away with it. You've done this to countless people who don't fall in line. Stand down shitty Google managers & HR teams, it won't work out well for you. http://www.wired.com/... @techworkersco : “I'm told that to remain at the company I will have to abandon my work on AI ethics and the AI Now Institute.” “My manager started ignoring me, my work was given to other people, and I was told to go on medical leave, even though I'm not sick.” http://www.wired.com/... Nitasha Tiku / @nitashatiku : Includes full text of the message shared internally today about retaliation against walkout organizers: calls to abandon AI ethics work, demotion, and more bringing attention to these issues has come at a professional cost the employees who spoke outhttps://t.co/SwomyntJQj
Context & Ripple Effects
Eighteen months after the global walkout, two of its organizers say Google answered their activism with demotion and ultimatums: Claire Stapleton was demoted after urging colleagues to join, and Meredith Whittaker was told she would have to abandon her AI ethics research and her role with the AI Now Institute/NYU to keep her job. Their planned town hall turns private grievances into a public ledger of alleged retaliation.
The story reads differently now than it did in April 2019, because the pattern it flagged kept repeating: a Googler was later fired for pushing labor-rights pop-ups through an internal browser plugin, Timnit Gebru's exit became a case study in how tech co-opts internal criticism of its AI systems, and in 2024 Google fired 28 employees over a sit-in protesting its business ties with Israel.
First-order effects
- Stapleton and Whittaker face immediate career damage — a demotion and a forced choice between research identity and employment — while the town hall gives other employees who allege retaliation a venue to go on record.
- Liz Fong-Jones' account of being pushed out early with a payout shows the company's exit-package playbook already operating alongside the quieter demotions.
Second-order effects
- Every subsequent organizer now prices retaliation into the decision to speak up, which pushes dissent toward anonymous channels and external press rather than internal ones.
- Google's HR response — offering mental health counseling and medical leave to staff who complain about racism and sexism, per later reporting — becomes part of the same management toolkit the town hall is challenging.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, internal activism at Google migrates from ad-hoc walkouts toward formalized structures — the unionization and research-protection demands that surfaced around the Gebru firing — because informal protest demonstrably carries personal cost.
- Google's later move to double its AI ethics team looks like institutional absorption of the criticism Whittaker embodied, raising the question of whether ethics research inside the company can stay independent of the people who fund it.
The trend: Internal dissent at Google has been met repeatedly with demotions, forced exits, and firings, steadily converting employee activism from spontaneous walkouts into organized, externally visible movements.