Google Struggles to Contain Employee Uproar Over China Censorship Plans

Community Tech Policy & News
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Looks like folks inside and out of google are upset over the leaked proposal over a compromise to provide censored search for China.

Thoughts?

"Some analysts have drawn comparisons between the censorship project and Project Maven, a Google initiative to develop artificial intelligence for U.S. military drones. Project Maven sparked an internal revolt within the company, which led to Google canceling the contract. One of Google’s informal corporate principles is “don’t be evil” — a standard some of the company’s employees felt Project Maven violated.

Charlie Smith, co-founder of GreatFire.org, an organization that monitors Chinese government internet censorship, said he hoped Google employees would refuse to help develop the censored search app.

“Thank goodness somebody in Google leaked this information — that person is a true hero!” Smith told The Intercept. “Hopefully the outrage from Google employees will be enough to convince Google execs that they should not return to China, at least not like this.”

If Google engineers “really speak out about this,” Smith added, “it would be hard for the company to move forward with the plan. … They are really the key here. They must stand up for what is right. Can they really tell themselves that they do no evil?” "

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I don’t see how, they are separate things.

It;'s not really clear what the project actually is.

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The only similarity is supposed unrest in the employees

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Arguably they’re both ways of automating population/crowd control. One for people’s access to info, the other about physical control to identify and eliminate “undesirables”. For example, google or a gov’t could make their new censorship engine the dominant instance of google and convieniently hide any reports that expose projects like these. Or spy on journalists who make reports like that with technology started on a projected maven contract.

That and like the other user said, it’s politicizing a group of google employees and other tech employees who are slowly building an opposition to projects like this. While not the majority yet, the fact that it’s happening at all is new for tech which is why I think it’s noteworthy personally.

Tl;dr: their connection is political, dealing with power and control. Even if Google might not directly use it for that themselves.

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Idk that sounds like an amazing tool for chinese schools. Direct line on google? Cool.

And I say this knowing from talking to kids FROM china that, while the vpns aren’t hunted down, the schools are starting to get watched a bit closer. Thats why this exists, really. And thats one area that this would be used.

Baidu isn’t amazing for businesses as, while it can do searches for information, I’d rate it the same as lomething like bing where you get more generalized information that you have to dig through to find what you’re looking for. And not even something that would be blacklisted either. Stuff like information on how to attack a cold, or general china news sites. Which I imagine is really fucking annoying.

Though the baidu fox is cute.

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Sounds pretty clear to me. Google search for china that fits under chinese laws and regulations.

Baidu isn’t that great, so for this to be there is REALLY good. I don’t see a bad thing here so far.

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That’s operating on the assumption that Google is a technology company focused on providing access to information, which in turn leads to the empowerment of the individual. In my estimation, that’s a pretty fundamental mistake, because it seems like they are a technology company focused on the acquisition of information which they will then monetize in whatever way is possible, which is usually a way that dis-empowers the individual. I don’t see this as a political strategy at all, it’s merely a business practice that virtually all for-profit organizations practice. If anything, the story to me in this instance is that a group of Google employees are becoming increasingly resistant to the intrinsic purpose of their corporation. I’m as sure as I can be that Google has operated this way at least since they were made public. Also, these people have sat silently as Google has done arguably ethically worse things with complete disregard, such as the data mining and social engineering that their advertisement platform enables.

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Think about this differently, perhaps it’s the important question that we aren’t asking:

What does Google get out of this? What compels Google execs to go back to China?

The project – code-named Dragonfly – has been underway since spring of last year, and accelerated following a December 2017 meeting between Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai and a top Chinese government official, according to internal Google documents and people familiar with the plans.

What deals and agreements have been made?

Teams of programmers and engineers at Google have created a custom Android app, different versions of which have been named “Maotai” and “Longfei.” The app has already been demonstrated to the Chinese government; the finalized version could be launched in the next six to nine months, pending approval from Chinese officials.

Why does China now suddenly want Google Search back?

This is clearly not just about Google deciding to enter the Chinese market, if even at all. This is clearly very tightly coupled between both parties.

Documents seen by The Intercept, marked “Google confidential,” say that Google’s Chinese search app will automatically identify and filter websites blocked by the Great Firewall.

The search app will also “blacklist sensitive queries” so that “no results will be shown” at all when people enter certain words or phrases, the documents state. The censorship will apply across the platform: Google’s image search, automatic spell check and suggested search features will incorporate the blacklists, meaning that they will not recommend people information or photographs the government has banned.

^^ Implies integration with GFW.

IF google is restricting speak of this internally to a limited set of employees it means that google execs where aware that the majority of their workforce may not be favourably aligned

Within Google, knowledge about Dragonfly has been restricted to just a few hundred members of the internet giant’s 88,000-strong workforce, said a source with knowledge of the project. The source spoke to The Intercept on condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to contact the media. The source said that they had moral and ethical concerns about Google’s role in the censorship, which is being planned by a handful of top executives and managers at the company with no public scrutiny.

What has changed now?

Previously, between 2006 and 2010, Google had maintained a censored version of its search engine in China. At the time, the company faced severe criticism in the U.S. over its compliance with the Chinese government’s policies.

Has it become time to repeat the cycle and try again?

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I wouldn’t be 100% sure, Google would be losing out on over 1/7th of the world’s population, that’s an enormous amount of human data that may be useful for their AI and machine work perhaps?

(not saying it’s the only factor, but maybe it’s a large one)

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Just asking questions here to stir the minds :wink:

Sure of course it’s part of the list.
But China was essentially a dead no-go zone for google for years now.

With local Chinese search giants having taken over and supplying much of search demands and the resulting information piped to the government already what would make the Chinese government decide to let google in and have a slice of their pie?

What incentivizes them to take the risk of working with google, the riskier outside actor.

And bigger still what sort of offer did google make. What sort of tech did they throw on the table?

What can google do better for China that China can’t do on it’s own?

From the looks of this, this is a bi-directional agreement here between Google and China. China isn’t just letting google in for marginally better search with the risk of open access to uncontrolled information, not with how controlling they’ve become. They’re getting something in return.

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1/7th of the world’s population, but also likely a higher percentage of internet users and the tech market on a whole. I wouldn’t be surprised if China was something like 1/5th of all tech users.

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I’m not saying google empowers people per se or that it’s their mission, but that creating systems that restrict the ability to share certain types of information is disempowering, with farther reaching consequences for Google’s service as a whole than just china.

There are more struggles collectively taking place that are raising questions broadly about society at large that offer a vision of how we can change the future that didn’t exist before. People were probably against stuff like this before but there weren’t organizations being built in response to that. Now we have things like the Tech Workers Coalition.

For example, one of the inspirations cited by Google employees organizing against project maven was the success of west Virginia teachers earlier in april with their statewide strike (which also inspired other teachers in other States to do the same). Things like that are changing the public’s conception of power and the ability to challenge the status quo.

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@ScientificSocialist, @Eden

Further developments to revive this topic.

It turns out that my information may be correct. China is getting something out of this after all.

People’s search histories, location information, and other private data would be sent out of China to a database in Taiwan, the memo states. But the data would also be provided to employees of a Chinese company who would be granted “unilateral access” to the system. To launch the censored search engine, Google set up a “joint venture” partnership with an unnamed Chinese company.

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Got to play by the countries rules if you want to work there.

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The bad thing is that Chinese laws are absurd. Google complying with them and enabling the Chinese governments deception and repression of its people is evil just as enabling the same in the US is.

Capitalism does not require ethics but functions better and more efficiently with it. Trust reduces transaction cost as every detail does not have to be scrutinized down to the last bolt. It is in the best interest of players in a capitalist system long term to not be evil - to be ethical.

Depriving an entire nation of access to the truth and helping to convince them that they are not being abused by proiving an illusion of freedom whether here or in China is vile and evil. Complying with laws that are evil is not an excuse any more that “just following orders”.

If google does these things you should assume them evil/dishonest and derate their products accordingly. They are free to choose their business model we should be free to seek more trustworthy options with lower transaction cost (and you should see above).

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^this

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I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone getting away with ignoring a law because they think its evil.

If you want to operate in a country you need to follow the law. It doesn’t matter if you like it or not, you just need to realise the world doesn’t work like that.

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Recognizing right from wrong means understanding that “the law” and “right” are not the same thing. It’s hard, sometimes even cruel, but that’s life and we should all seek to punish and remove people who abuse power to make it hard and cruel from positions of power.

Fortunately, in the US we have a system that, though not being used to its fullest to be sure, allows us to speak out and address these issues without getting shot at in Tienanmen Square for doing so. The same is not true in China.

As I said… Google is free to choose to try to do business in China by complying with these broken laws. It tells me they are not an ethical company and I should avoid their products for the reasons previously stated (lack of ethics and transparency increases transaction cost/risk).

The status quo exists because we accept abuse as inevitable for a time until we no longer do. It is not. It can be reduced or removed, but we have to be better about pricing the costs of these things.

The cost of allowing companies and governments to silence you through fear or search results approaches the entirety of your life and the lives of your children. That’s pretty high. Act accordingly. You do have a choice, but some choices have more transparent and immediate costs where others have hidden and longer term costs. Make sure you do the math,

The “just following orders” problem is difficult. That’s what makes it worth solving. I’m sorry, but the laws of this nation or any other come second to being a good person/company. Choose wisely.

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You haven’t heard of any because of the circle you live in. There are plenty of people on earth who have done this & currently do this.
( and yes suffered ). I know you didn’t say it was right, but my point is there are and always will be people who fight outside of the law in order to help create a ‘moral & just’ society.

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According to your assertion, Google’s compliance with Chinese surveillance will inevitably yield negative capital results because it is evil and on a long enough timeline, capitalism invariably disfavors evil.

On what timeline would you expect that to happen?