Tech workers protest Peter Thiel’s Palantir to protect immigrants

Silicon Valley tech workers are organizing to protest Palantir, a software company owned by billionaire and Trump-supporter Peter Thiel. Workers are concerned that the company could help the Trump administration collect data on immigrants and foreign travelers entering the US, ultimately allowing the new administration to keep some of its most draconian campaign promises.

“We want to make it clear that the overall tech community is watching what Palantir does,” said Jason Prado, a software engineer at Facebook and member of the Tech Workers Coalition. “And we want to hold the tech community overall accountable for the values that we as a community have.”

In addition to his support for Donald Trump, Thiel made headlines last year when it was discovered that he bankrolled lawsuits against Gawker, a news and gossip website that had outed Thiel as gay nine years earlier, which bankrupted the company. “Many liberals and journalists are alarmed by the ease with which a rich and powerful man—a Trump supporter—can use the legal system to destroy an outlet that criticized him and his friends,” Nick Denton, founder and managing editor of Gawker, wrote on the site’s last day. “Peter Thiel has achieved his objectives.”

Links:

Tech workers to protest Palantir (The Hill, Jan. 17, 2017)

How Things Work (Gawker, Aug. 22, 2016)