The Washington Post - USA (2022-06-12)

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SUNDAY, JUNE 12 , 2022. SECTION G AX FN FS LF PW DC BD PG AA FD HO MN MS SM

BY TRACY BROWN HAMILTON

IN AMSTERDAM

I

n December, over the objections of many locals, the

Dutch farming community of Zeewolde approved an

enormous data center for Meta, the Silicon Valley

parent of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The

data center, to be built on farmland spanning the length of

245 U.S. football fields, was to be powered completely by

clean energy, part of the Netherlands’ pitch as a nation that

it can help support Europe’s computing needs while also

protecting the environment.

But the project’s persistent opponents have managed to

oust the sitting local government, spur some national

lawmakers to push for curbing data centers and prompt

the tech giant to postpone its plans — for now.

The faceoff over what would be the largest data center in

the Netherlands — known as a “hyperscale” because it

spans at least 10,000 square feet and boasts more than

5,000 servers — highlights the emerging fight over how to

sustain cloud computing and data streaming while pro-

tecting the environment, even if these centers use renew-

able energy. And as Dutch officials seek to reconcile

eliminating carbon from their energy sector by mid-

-century while building 20 to 25 new or expanded data

centers, Zeewolde has emerged as a test of what’s possible.

Michiel de Vries, professor of public administration at

Radboud University in the Netherlands, said that estab-

lishing massive data centers to power new technology “has

huge environmental side effects. The question is how

governments could, should and do respond to plans of

high-tech companies to make such investments in their

territory.”

Surrounded by a small lake and a deciduous forest, the

SEE DATA CENTER ON G2

In Dutch town, a Meta fight

Residents face off over plan

to build a huge data center

powered by green energy

ILVY NJIOKIKTJIEN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

BY NITASHA TIKU

The rising Hindu nationalist

movement that has spread from

India through the diaspora has

arrived inside Google, according

to employees.

In April, Thenmozhi Soundara-

rajan, the founder and executive

director of Equality Labs — a non-

profit that advocates for Dalits, or

members of the lowest-ranked

caste — was scheduled to give a

talk to Google News employees for

Dalit History Month. But Google

employees began spreading disin-

formation, calling her “Hindu-

phobic” and “anti-Hindu” in

emails to the company’s leaders,

documents posted on Google’s in-

tranet and mailing lists with thou-

sands of employees, according to

copies of the documents as well as

interviews with Soundararajan

and current Google employees

who spoke on the condition of

anonymity because of concerns

about retaliation.

Soundararajan appealed di-

rectly to Google chief executive

Sundar Pichai, who comes from an

upper-caste family in India, to al-

low her presentation to go for-

ward. But the talk was canceled,

leading some employees to con-

clude that Google was willfully

ignoring caste bias. Tanuja Gupta,

a senior manager at Google News

who invited Soundararajan to

speak, resigned over the incident,

according to a copy of her goodbye

email posted internally J une 1 and

viewed by The Washington Post.

Soundararajan — who has giv-

en talks on caste at Microsoft,

Salesforce, Airbnb, Netflix and

Adobe — said Equality Labs began

receiving speaking invitations

from tech companies in the wake

of the George Floyd protests.

“Most institutions wouldn’t do

what Google did. It’s absurd. The

bigoted don’t get to set the pace of

conversations about civil rights,”

she said.

Longtime observers of Google’s

struggles to promote diversity, eq-

uity and inclusion say the fallout

fits a familiar pattern. Women of

color are asked to advocate for

change. Then they’re punished for

disrupting the status quo.

In Gupta’s goodbye email, she

questioned whether Google want-

ed its diversity efforts to succeed.

“Retaliation is a normalized

Google practice to handle internal

SEE GOOGLE ON G3

At Google, a planned talk

on caste bias is canceled

Equality Labs founder Soundararajan is uninvited

after employees say discrimination doesn’t exist

KRISTEN MURAKOSHI FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Thenmozhi Soundararajan, founder of Equality Labs, has given talks

on caste at several companies in the wake of George Floyd protests.

BY ABHA BHATTARAI

For nearly 30 years, Virginia
Rubio has lived in a trailer park
in Forks, Wash., where monthly
rent teeters around $350. Now
it’s shooting up to $1,000.
Rubio, a retired home-care
aide who lives on food stamps
and $860 in Social Security each
month, says there’s no way to
make the math work. She owns
the mobile home she shares
with her partner and adult
daughter but will soon have to
give that up if she can’t afford to
rent the plot of land underneath
it.
“With an increase like this, I
don’t know what we can do,”
said Rubio, who is 75. “We’re all
afraid of losing our homes.”
Surging home prices and

rents are cascading down to the

country’s mobile home parks,

where heightened demand, low

supply and an increase in corpo-

rate owners is driving up

monthly costs for low-income

residents with few alternatives.

At the same time, private-equity

firms and developers are often

circling nearby, looking to buy

up such properties and turn

them into more lucrative ven-

tures, including timeshare re-

sorts, wedding venues and con-

dominiums.

Mobile homes have long been

one of the country’s most afford-

able housing options, particu-

larly for families who do not

receive government aid. About

20 million Americans live in

manufactured homes, which

SEE MOBILE HOMES ON G3

Rent hikes put mobile

home owners in a vise

Residents face affordability crisis as rates for

lots their dwellings sit on go through the roof

A view last month through a farm stable

window near where Facebook parent

company Meta wanted to build a data

center in Zeewolde, the Netherlands.