By Conor McNevin
Publication Date: 2026-11-09 10:40:00
Protesters from the protest group Geef Tegengas (English translation: Push Back), broke into a construction site for a new Microsoft data center in Amsterdam on November 6. Protesters were seen climbing a crane, setting off flares and clashing with police which resulted in 150 to 200 demonstrators being arrested.
The protest was part of a wider campaign against large scale data center developments across Europe. Dozens of civil society and grassroots groups planned demonstrations under the banner “Stop Dirty Data Centres” on November 6 and 7 in European countries that included Ireland, Poland, Denmark, Finland, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, France and the UK.
500 demonstrators had occupied the site to stop construction, Nathan Timmer, a member of the protest group Geef Tegengas (Push Back), told local broadcaster AT5, “We don’t want it to be built. Nobody needs it, the only thing this will be used for is AI slop. AI warfare, data surveillance, and committing…
