Dragonfly: Google employees criticize search engine for China

In a letter, more than 1,000 employees from Google are questioning the plans for project Dragonfly. The censored search engine is throwing urgent moral questions.

Dragonfly: Google employees criticize search engine for China

The plans of Internet company Google to offer a censored search engine in China are also criticized internally. In a letter that quotes US portal The Intercept, more than 1,000 Google employees express ir concerns about offer with project name Dragonfly.

The search engine accuses "urgent moral and ethical questions", it says in letter that employees send to group management. It also calls for transparency and more information about company's plans for Chinese market. Only a few employees are privy to it – of about 88,000 Google employees, according to information from Intercept, only a few hundred know about group's plans for China.

It is also unclear wher Dragonfly project violates ethics rules of company, according to report. Internal policies have prescribed that Google does not offer services that lead to violations of human rights.

The censored search engine, which is to be offered for mobile operating system Android, is to automatically sort out websites and search queries that are blocked in China – including search requests for human rights, democracy, religion or peaceful protests. This would allow Dragonfly to comply with strict censorship rules of communist leadership in Beijing. The human rights organisation Amnesty International had spoken of a "serious attack on freedom of information" after discovery of plans. Google did not confirm plans so far.

2010, company had withdrawn from California from China in order not to continue to bow to censorship. With around 730 million users, China is world's largest internet market.

Date Of Update: 18 August 2018, 12:00