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Google made some bold moves this week, but not the kind that would make their employees cheer. The tech giant terminated 28 employees who took part in protests against the company’s work with Israel. These protests, which took place in New York and California, were not your average water cooler chat. Google’s head of security labeled them as “Extremely disruptive” and claimed they made coworkers feel threatened. Now that’s one way to get the axe!

The protests centered around Project Nimbus, a collaboration between Google and Amazon providing AI and cloud computing services to Israel’s government and military. This partnership hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing, with previous dissent leading to the firing of a Google employee for disrupting a company event. In fact, more than 100 people, including Google workers, gathered to protest outside the company’s New York office last year. It’s clear that this issue isn’t going away quietly.

The group spearheading the protests, No Tech for Apartheid, isn’t mincing words in their campaign against Google and Amazon’s involvement in Project Nimbus. Their goal is simple: scrap the project. Google, on the other hand, maintains that it provides cloud computing services to governments in countries where it operates. However, the protesters aren’t buying it, as some even showed up at the office of Google’s cloud CEO.

Things took a dramatic turn during Tuesday’s protest when Google called the police as the demonstrators refused to leave. One of the employees arrested, Hasan Ibraheem, described how the protest unfolded in Google’s New York headquarters. Sitting in the office with a banner, giving speeches, and chanting – it was a scene straight out of a corporate revolution.

As the dust settles on this latest chapter of employee activism, it remains to be seen how Google will navigate the fallout. Will the terminated employees find a new voice elsewhere, or will the company’s actions have a chilling effect on future dissent? One thing is for sure, when it comes to speaking out against corporate decisions, these Google employees weren’t afraid to make some noise – even if it cost them their jobs.