Liz Fong-Jones (born 1987 (1987))[1][2] is a site reliability engineer and developer advocate known for labor activism with her contributions to the Never Again pledge and her role in leading Google worker organization efforts.

Fong-Jones started attending college at the California Institute of Technology in 2005, then dropped out in 2007 when she realized she was not going to have enough money to finish school without going into debt.

[2][8][9][10][11] She says she began organizing within the company in 2010, focusing on "equity engineering" by working on fixing issues with products that adversely affected marginalized communities, like ensuring accessibility for customers who utilize assistive technology.

She later expanded her advocacy to minority groups of employees within the company, like gender pay equity and transgender health care issues.

Following public outrage, part of the Nymwars, she successfully negotiated a new policy, which she subsequently communicated directly to concerned employees, making her an unofficial "union representative" for workers.

[13][8][14][15] The data and arguments of the essay were widely criticized as "debunked" and "shaky scientism", and many concluded that it was naiveté rooted in politics attempting to use scientific rhetoric to make sexist power dynamics permanent.

[11][19] Fong-Jones referred to it as an "excuse" to not answer questions like her own, like why they had let the Damore's memo stay on their servers for more than a month if it was grounds for termination, and that she felt it was "a triumph" for her harassers.

[11] In October 2017, Fong-Jones arranged for Coworker.org, a labor group that typically assists blue-collar workers in organizing, to give her colleagues a "know your rights" training.

[11][14] The post expressed "grave concerns" that Google might be assisting the United States Armed Forces carry out drone strikes.

Fong-Jones, who had been solicited for comment by a journalist at the outlet, feared that management would feel backed into a corner and offered to help leadership catch "the leaker".

[11] In June 2018, Google responded to employee and public pressure, promising not to utilize AI for weapons or surveillance and not to renew its Maven contract.

Fong-Jones told Fast Company she was seeking to start the fund for workers so that they "feel empowered to speak up about issues in the future",[26] and later to Protocol, "I'm trying to use some of my financial privilege to help those who can't afford to be suddenly laid off".

[26] Employee concerns were downplayed by Pichai, who said they only wanted to learn what Google would "look like" in China, referring to Dragonfly as a "very early" "exploration",[40] a statement that was later alleged to be false or misleading based on leaked internal communications.

Fong-Jones alleges that Google's Human Resources department tried to push her out prior to the end of her notice period, 1 February 2019, and filed a retaliation claim.

[42] In an essay she published on Medium in February 2019, she said, "I have grave concerns about how strategic decisions are made at Google today, and who is missing a seat at the bargaining table.

[48] In 2019, Fong-Jones invested $200,000 into Tall Poppy, a startup online harassment protection and reputation management company named for the Roman metaphor.

[57] In May 2023, Fong-Jones brought a defamation case against the Brisbane-based company Flow Chemical and its sole director, Vincent Zhen, who were associated with the IP range used by KiwiFarms.

An interlocutory judgment was made against Flow Chemical and Zhen in July 2023, and, in an October 2023 default judgement they were ordered to pay Fong-Jones $445,000 plus costs.

[5] When asked about whether or not they would cover any personal liability to Fong-Jones for the incident, Turo's insurance lawyer told The New York Times, "What happens in any sort of accident with insufficient coverage?

That’s the societal burden of torts that have liability where there is no insurance coverage," and the paper suggested a lawyer covering both Turo and Fong-Jones may be a conflict of interest.