Google’s internal project to bring censored search back to China, Dragonfly, was kept secret until revealed by The Intercept. Internal dissent, objections from senators and the vice president, and worldwide protests followed. Ryan Gallagher reports.
The campaign will include demonstrations outside Google offices in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, and Spain.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai refused to answer a list of questions from a bipartisan group of six senators.
Publicly, Google executive Ben Gomes has called the censored search engine “an exploration.” Privately, he wanted it completed “as soon as possible.”
Google staff “actively subverted” an internal review of a search engine for China that would blacklist terms like “human rights,” ex-Google employee said.
The company forced employees to delete the document, which stated that a Chinese partner would have “unilateral access” to user data.
Google’s plan for a censored search engine in China also blacklists terms like “Nobel Prize” and “human rights.”
The specialist said that the plan to resume the censored search engine project in China could endanger dissidents and encourage online repression elsewhere.
A blistering letter from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch calls a forthcoming search engine with blacklists “an alarming capitulation by Google on human rights.”
Co-founder Sergey Brin said he didn’t know about the China plans, which CEO Sundar Pichai said are “in an exploration stage” — despite previous reports.
Google is facing mounting pressure inside and outside the company over its plans for a censored search engine in China.
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