Employees warn Google against China search engine plan
17 Aug 2018
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After successfully deterring Google from renewing a project to help the US military develop artificial intelligence technology for drones, employees of the technology giant have now demanded more transparency in the operation of a new search engine for China that conforms Beijing’s demands.
Google's plan to launch a censored search engine in China requires more "transparency, oversight and accountability," hundreds of employees at the Alphabet Inc unit said in an internal petition seen by Reuters on Thursday.
In a bid to gain approval from the Chinese government to provide a mobile search service, the company is reported to have offered to block some websites and search terms. But the secretive effort has disturbed Google employees and human rights advocacy organisations. They say that by agreeing to censorship demands, Google would validate China's prohibitions on free expression and violate the "don't be evil" clause in the company's code of conduct.
Several hundred employees of Google have signed a protest letter over the company's reported work on a censor-friendly search engine to get back into China, The New York Times said Thursday. The employees are demanding more transparency so they can understand the moral implications of their work, it said, which obtained a copy of the letter.
It has been signed by 1,400 employees and is circulating on the company's internal communications system, the newspaper said, quoting three people who are familiar with the document. The letter argues that the search engine project and Google's apparent willingness to accept China's censorship requirements "raise urgent moral and ethical issues."
"Currently we do not have the information required to make ethically-informed decisions about our work, our projects, and our employment," they say in the letter, according to the Times.
After employees petitioned this year, Google announced it would not renew a project to help the US military develop artificial intelligence technology for drones.
The latest petition says employees are concerned the China project, code-named Dragonfly, "makes clear" that ethics principles Google issued during the drone debate "are not enough."
"We urgently need more transparency, a seat at the table and a commitment to clear and open processes: Google employees need to know what we're building," Reuters cited the document as saying.
Google executives have not commented publicly on Dragonfly. They are expected to face questions about the project during a weekly employee town hall discussion on Thursday, a person familiar with the matter said. It would be the first such meeting since details about Dragonfly were leaked.
