Miliaku Nwabueze, a senior program manager at Code for Science & Society, had been concerned for some time about the role of technology in state violence. Then, on 7 October of last year, Hamas entered Israel, killing and kidnapping about 1,400 people. Less than a week later, as Israel ordered 1.1 million Palestinians out of northern Gaza in the onset of its deadly retaliation, Nwabueze decided to write a message to her colleagues on the US-based non-profit organization’s Slack channel.
“Hey y’all … I have been watching multiple genocides around the world,” she began, naming Palestine as well as Sudan, the Congo and Artsakh. “All of these have heavy linkages to the tech industry.” The 30-year-old went on to assert that CS&S – whose stated mission is to “advance the power of data to improve the social and economic lives of all people” – should say, at the minimum, “we support demands for a ceasefire” in Gaza.
“Can this be a topic of discussion at our next All-Hands meeting?” she asked. Six members of the organization’s core staff of 12 agreed, using the “100 [percent]” emoji.
Nwabueze did not anticipate that her one-paragraph Slack message would set in motion a series of escalating events that would tear the organization apart, with nearly all core staff members resigning and two being fired – including, in September of this year, Nwabueze herself.
The central issue: the organization’s board and executive director opposed a statement that staff wrote about Israel’s continuing assault on Gaza and tech’s role there and elsewhere, citing concerns such as “fiduciary responsibility”. The events propelled by the statement mirror others happening across US society since October of last year, in areas such as academia, media and big tech, where criticism of Israel from the rank-and-file comes under fire from leadership.
The events at CS&S are an example, according to Paul Biggar, of the label “progressive except for Palestine”. Biggar was dismissed from the board of CircleCI, a company he founded, after writing a blogpost in December about Israel’s bombardment of Gaza titled “I can’t sleep”. He went on to found Tech for Palestine, a coalition of tech professionals volunteering to help projects “in support of a free Palestine”.
Where does Biggar get the money to pay his rent/mortgage? Given his profile and place on the Canary Project blacklist, he’d be unemployable in the US, at least in any company answerable to institutional shareholders. Did he have enough shares to retire early, or does he do cash-in-hand work and/or rely on mutual aid from sympathisers prudent enough to not speak out?
He was founder of CircleCi and a pretty well off man. He gave it all up for Palestine.
I present to you: the NGO-industrial complex.
All that money comes from somewhere and “the donors” expect influence for their cash.
Who knew “Genocide is bad” would be such a controversial statement in 2024? Like, really?
it goes further than that; genocide is profitable if you can ignore it.
i’ve learned the hard way in my 20ish years as both it and software engineer in the tech field that genocides don’t matter and (if you bring it up) you’re the problem.
