The Intercept published details about Google and China's exploratory project, code-named Dragonfly. According to the Intercept, Google bosses demanded that employees not discuss the project with anyone. Google bosses allegedly instructed employees to delete the internal memo about the project. However, hundreds of Google employees have defied the orders and have written to the company in protest.
Google admits they have been working with China for several years to develop Android and other mobile apps such as Google Translate and Files Go. Their latest project finds the company working with China’s leaders to develop a search engine that complies with China’s authoritarian censorship laws. In a letter to U.S. lawmakers, Jack Poulson describes the project as “disturbing.” The Senate Commerce Committee received the letter during a hearing called “examining safeguards for consumer data privacy.” Mr. Poulson wrote, "Dragonfly is part of a broad pattern of unaccountable decision making across the tech industry.”
Google’s head of search, Ben Gomes, spoke with the BBC about it. "Right now all we've done is some exploration, but since we don't have any plans to launch something there's nothing much I can say about it."
Google's chief privacy officer, Keith Enright, confirmed that the company is working with China on a project named Dragonfly, but the company has assured the world, "We are not close to launching a search product in China.”
In order for a search product to be released in China, it would have to comply with extensive blockages and content restrictions. In order to expand their power, Google would have to restrict freedom of expression and information to comply with China’s great firewall, which blacklists any news and information that questions communism and other topics not approved by Chinese leaders.
Mr. Poulson gave more details about Google’s plans. This includes a detailed blacklist that complies with the Chinese government’s demands. Terms mentioned in the blacklist include “human rights,” “student protest," “religion,” and “Nobel prize.” Several phrases involving “Xi Jinping” and other government officials are also not allowed in the search. Google’s plan also violates Chinese citizen’s privacy, allowing joint venture companies “unilateral access” to user search queries based on the user’s phone number.
Google has allegedly written code that directs a Chinese user’s search to only display government-approved data. This manipulation of data applies to user searches on regional air quality data. Due to these efforts alone, Google has violated their own internal policies on privacy and have showed their true intentions: suppressing human freedom.
U.S. leaders must stop taking money from Google and stop being swayed by their evil agendas. Under the Obama Administration, Google enjoyed a revolving door with the government, sitting in on the former President's weekly meetings, while funding the former administration's campaigns and enjoying lax regulations from the FTC. Google should be kicked out of government policy and favor. Instead, the rule of law should apply; Google should be shuttered until they show proof that they are not engineering censorship in their products based on political gain, government favor. America should be a place where digital privacy is of utmost priority, where people are secure in their houses, papers, and effects. America should be a place where people are not tracked, a place where freedom of speech, information, and expression is guaranteed online. Because of their track record of suppressing conservative content, Google should be subpoenaed weekly to court to give proof that their platform is treating all Americans equally.
U.S. companies that try to suppress freedom of expression, speech, and thought should be held to a high standard or be kicked out of the country and sent directly to China, where they can continue to cozy up to totalitarian, thought-control regimes. If Google wants to join China in their efforts to censor and control its citizens, then they should move their headquarters there so they can better feel the oppression that they wish upon everyone else.
For more on Google's evil agendas, visit Censorship.News.
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