Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

guest · Oct 16, 2018

Google’s CEO Says Tests of Censored Chinese Search Engine Turned Out Great
October 15, 2018
https://www.wired.com/story/wired-25-sundar-pichai-china-censored-search-engine/

“It turns out we'll be able to serve well over 99 percent of the queries,” that users request. What’s more, “There are many, many areas where we would provide information better than what's available,” such as searching for cancer treatments, Pichai said.

In fact, he doubled down on the search engine, codenamed Project Dragonfly, saying the potential to expose the world to more information is guiding Google’s push into China.

This is a reversal of a decision from about eight years, when Google pulled its search engine, which was also censored, from the Chinese market. Pichai said the time had come to reevaluate that choice.
“It's a wonderful, innovative market. We wanted to learn what it would look like if we were in China, so that's what we built internally,” Pichai said.
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Stefan Froberg · Oct 16, 2018

Pichai was careful to emphasize that this was a decision that weighs heavy on the company. “People don't understand fully, but you're always balancing a set of values,” in every new country, he said. Those values include providing access to information, freedom of expression, and user privacy. “But we also follow the rule of law in every country,” he said.
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Yeah, right... Not to mention the millions and billions that Google (and of course, Mr. Pichai personally) is getting as playing devil's advocate, goverment lapdog and gatekeeper of information.

Dragonfly, project Maven...what next Google?

guest · Oct 17, 2018

Chinese Professor Argues Google Should Launch A Censored Search Engine In China
October 17, 2018
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...uld-launch-censored-search-engine-china.shtml

Recently an opinion piece in the South China Morning Post from a Chinese professor started making the rounds, arguing that "even a censored Google search engine would be better" for people in China than its current main search engine, Baidu.

The argument from Bai Tongdong, a professor of philosophy at Fudan University, is pretty straightforward. More or less, it argues that Baidu is not a very good search engine. Google, even in a heavily censored fashion, is almost certainly going to be a lot better, and thus it will certainly aid in getting everyday people in China more access to information: [...]

It would certainly probably improve the search engine results and options for Chinese residents. [...] The question is at what cost does this come? [...] Appeasing authoritarian governments never leads to good outcomes.

Finally, he argues against the idea that Google staying out of China leads to China changing its policies, and thus, Google should re-enter the market:

...the simple fact is that, although it has been years since Google exited China, nothing much has changed or is expected to change for better in those areas. While the situation can’t worsen, there is a chance that Google might prompt an improvement. [...]
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guest · Nov 27, 2018

Google urged to drop Chinese 'Dragonfly' project
November 27, 2018
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-46357008

In a letter published online, 60 employees said the project would only help state surveillance.
Their call to cancel was backed by Amnesty International which said it was at odds with the company's values.
'Exploratory'
Once completed, Dragonfly would "enable censorship" and help the Chinese government's disinformation campaigns, claimed the letter.

"Dragonfly in China would establish a dangerous precedent at a volatile political moment, one that would make it harder for Google to deny other countries similar concessions," wrote the employees.
Amnesty organised protests outside Google offices to collect signatures for a petition calling on the firm to drop Dragonfly.
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ronjor · Dec 11, 2018

Google CEO: 'no plans' to launch Chinese search engine

David Shepardson, Paresh Dave December 11, 2018
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai told a U.S. congressional panel on Tuesday that the Alphabet Inc unit currently has “no plans” to launch a search engine in China but did not rule out a future launch.
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JRViejo · Dec 17, 2018

The internal rift over the system has had massive ramifications, effectively ending work on the censored search engine, known as Dragonfly, according to two sources familiar with the plans. The incident represents a major blow to top Google executives, including CEO Sundar Pichai, who have over the last two years made the China project one of their main priorities.
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Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation by Ryan Gallagher.

guest · Mar 4, 2019

Google Is Still Working on China Search Engine, Employees Claim
March 4, 2019
https://theintercept.com/2019/03/04/google-ongoing-project-dragonfly/

But Google executives, including CEO Sundar Pichai, refused both publicly and privately to completely rule out launching the censored search engine in the future.
This led a group of concerned employees [...] to closely monitor the company’s internal systems for information about the project [...]

The employees identified about 500 changes to the code in December, and more than 400 changes to the code between January and February of this year, which they believe indicates continued development of aspects of Dragonfly.
“Right now it feels unlaunchable, but I don’t think they are canceling outright,” McMillen said. “I think they are putting it on the back burner and are going to try it again in a year or two with a different code name or approach.”
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guest · Mar 4, 2019

mood said: ↑

Google Is Still Working on China Search Engine, Employees Claim
March 4, 2019
https://theintercept.com/2019/03/04/google-ongoing-project-dragonfly/
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Google denies that it's continued work on a censored search engine for China
March 4, 2019
https://www.techspot.com/news/79030-google-denies-continued-work-censored-search-engine-china.html

Per a report by The Intercept, a group of Google employees have discovered that about 900 changes to the Dragonfly codebase were made between December and February despite the apparent shutdown of the project.

Google vehemently denied that it was still working on Dragonfly in a statement to The Verge:

"This speculation is wholly inaccurate. Quite simply: there’s no work happening on Dragonfly. As we’ve said for many months, we have no plans to launch Search in China and there is no work being undertaken on such a project. Team members have moved to new projects."
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guest · Mar 28, 2019

Google normally assesses performance through open peer review. But it is evaluating its censored search team behind closed doors
March 27, 2019
https://theintercept.com/2019/03/27/google-dragonfly-china-review/

Google executives are carrying out a secret internal assessment of work on a censored search engine for China, The Intercept has learned.

A small group of top managers at the internet giant are conducting a “performance review” of the controversial effort to build the search platform, known as Dragonfly, which was designed to blacklist information about human rights, democracy, religion, and peaceful protest.
They are “holding any Dragonfly-specific documents out of [employees’] review tools, so that promotion is decided only by a committee that is read in on Dragonfly.”

The decision to carry out the review in secret, however, is itself likely to stoke anger inside the company. During the protests over Dragonfly last year, a key complaint from employees was that the China plan lacked transparency and went against the company’s traditionally open workplace culture.
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guest · May 14, 2019

Google’s Censored Search Would Help China “Be More Open,” Said Ex-CEO Eric Schmidt
Eric Schmidt Defended Google’s Censored Search for China
May 14, 2019
https://theintercept.com/2019/05/14/google-search-china-eric-schmidt-comments/

In an interview with the BBC on Monday, Schmidt said that he wasn’t involved in decisions to build the censored search platform, code-named Dragonfly. But he insisted that there were “many benefits” to working with China and said he was an advocate of operating in the country because he believed that it could “help change China to be more open.”

In his BBC interview, Schmidt was questioned on the level of secrecy around the plan and how it squared with Google’s commitments to transparency. The former CEO claimed in response that “certainly the people who were building all these products knew about it.”
Schmidt told the BBC that Google was no longer pursuing Dragonfly but couldn’t rule out that changing in the future. “I am no longer involved in the management of the company so I shouldn’t comment,” he said.
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guest · Jun 19, 2019

Google defeats shareholders on ‘Dragonfly’ censored search in China
June 19, 2019
https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/19/google-shareholder-dragonfly-china/

A shareholder resolution aimed at halting Google’s efforts to bring a censored version of its search engine to China has failed.
The resolution, which failed to pass during the meeting, would have instructed Google to conduct and publish a human rights impact assessment examining the impacts of a censored Google search engine in China.

Google opposes the resolution, saying in its proxy statement: “Google has been open about its desire to increase its ability to serve users in China and other countries. We have considered a variety of options for how to offer services in China in a way that is consistent with our mission and have gradually expanded our offerings to consumers in China, including Google Translate.”
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hawki · Jul 16, 2019

Google Exec Tells Senate That Project Dragonfly Has Been "Terminated"

"At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, Google’s vice president of public policy, Karan Bhatia, said that the tech giant’s much-criticized effort to launch a search engine in China had been abandoned..."

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/daveyalba/google-project-dragonfly-terminated-senate-hearing

guest · Jan 2, 2020

Google sacrificed its ‘don’t be evil’ mantra to grow bigger, former exec says
January 2, 2020
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/02/google-abandoned-its-dont-be-evil-mantra-former-exec-says.html

Google’s former top diplomat now blames the company’s “disengaged” founders and earnings-driven leadership for Google’s departure from its core value, “Don’t be evil.”

Ross LaJeunesse, who joined Google in 2008 and was head of international relations until last May, according to his LinkedIn profile, said in a Medium post Thursday that Google has changed into a company that values profits over human rights.
As head of public policy for Asia-Pacific in 2010, LaJeunesse said he steered the company’s removal of its search engine from China after the founders determined they could not provide an increasingly censored product while adhering to Google’s internal values.

But seven years later, LaJeunesse said he was “alarmed” to learn of Google’s renewed ambitions in China with project “Dragonfly.”

“I then realized that the company had never intended to incorporate human rights principles into its business and product decisions,” LaJeunesse wrote in the Medium post.
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