San Francisco is no stranger to raucous anti-tech demonstrations, but a protest outside of Google Ventures partner Kevin Rose’s home yesterday took a turn for the personal.
Protesters held up banners and dispersed fliers outside Rose’s San Francisco home reading “KEVIN ROSE: PARASITE,†and blaming the Google Ventures partner and Digg founder for having a hand in San Francisco’s escalating affordability crisis.
Rose posted a photo of the flier to Instagram (reader warning: vulgar language.)
The protest appears to have been staged by a group called The Counterforce, which took credit for the protest on the activist website IndyBay and on the blog kevinroseisaterribleperson.wordpress.com, where they requested Google pay a ransom for its effect on the city’s soaring rents.
“We demand that Google give three billion dollars to an anarchist organization of our choosing. This money will then be used to create autonomous, anti-capitalist, and anti-racist communities throughout the Bay Area and Northern California. In these communities, whether in San Francisco or in the woods, no one will ever have to pay rent and housing will be free.â€
A Google spokesperson told The Huffington Post that neither Rose nor the company would be releasing an official statement but shared some of the company’s efforts to give back to the San Francisco community, including $6.8 million pledged to fund free city bus passes for low-income youth and the the Bay Area Impact Challenge to kickstart nonprofits.
The city’s affordability crisis is apparently not lost on Rose, who tweeted out his frustrations and sympathies following the protest.
My house was protested today by anti-tech folks, they had a large banner saying “Kevin Rose Parasite”,… http://t.co/OL2Bd3c6Cc
— Kevin Rose (@kevinrose) April 6, 2014
they recoded video on an android phone and said they were going to post it to youtube, which i thought odd.
— Kevin Rose (@kevinrose) April 6, 2014
that said, I did agree w/ them that we need to solve rising rents, keep the SF culture, and crack down on landlords booting folks out.
— Kevin Rose (@kevinrose) April 6, 2014
SF is such a great place, definitely need to figure out a way to keep the diversity
— Kevin Rose (@kevinrose) April 6, 2014
This is not the first time The Counterforce has staged a protest aimed at an individual Google employee. In January, the group used similar tactics at the Berkeley home of Google X developer Anthony Levandowski of the company’s self-driving car project.
Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/07/kevin-rose-google-protest_n_5106890.html