Advertisement

Protests supporting fired Google employee have been postponed

The organizer cited “credible threats” against the events as the reason.

wellesenterprises via Getty Images

The multi-city Google protests organized by alt-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec have been called off for now. Posobiec began planning the protests after James Damore was fired by Google for circulating his ridiculous, nonsensical anti-diversity memo and the marches scheduled in multiple cities across the country were said to be demonstrations in support of free speech. "Google is a monopoly, and its abusing its power to silence dissent and manipulate election results. Their company YouTube is censoring and silencing dissenting voices by creating 'ghettos' for videos questioning the dominant narrative," said Posobiec on Medium. "The firing of James Damore for calling out Google's Echo Chamber of Ideology is only further proof of Google's insidious anti-free speech agenda."

But in an early morning tweet and a post on the protest's website, Posobiec announced that the marches have been postponed due to "credible Alt Left terrorist threats for the safety of our citizen participants." This is something Posobiec has been going on about on Twitter for the last few days, usually referring to the protests as a peaceful march on Google, strong emphasis on the "peaceful." He points to the tiny code of conduct he created for the event as evidence of the peacefulness of the protests and seems outraged that others have (supposedly) threatened that peace. However, throwing around the word peaceful, doesn't make something so, and a code of conduct isn't going to ensure it either.

Plus, it wouldn't be at all surprising if these "credible threats" don't actually exist. Posobiec was active in spreading the PizzaGate and Seth Rich conspiracy narratives, so his credibility isn't exactly up to snuff. The real explanation for the postponements could be a lack of engagement with the events. Facebook events for marches in Pittsburgh, Boulder and Austin, for example had just five, one and three confirmed attendees, respectively.

Posobiec appears to be holding out hope that people will jump on board though. In his post about the postponement he said, "We hope to hold our peaceful march in a few weeks' time."