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Google Plans To Launch Censored Search Engine In China, Leaked Documents Reveal (theintercept.com)

Posted by msmash on from the don't-be-evil dept.

Google is planning to launch a censored version of its search engine in China that will blacklist websites and search terms about human rights, democracy, religion, and peaceful protest, The Intercept reported Wednesday, citing leaked documents and people familiar with the matter. From the report: 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. 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.

The planned move represents a dramatic shift in Google's policy on China and will mark the first time in almost a decade that the internet giant has operated its search engine in the country. Google's search service cannot currently be accessed by most internet users in China because it is blocked by the country's so-called Great Firewall. The app Google is building for China will comply with the country's strict censorship laws, restricting access to content that Xi Jinping's Communist Party regime deems unfavorable. [...] When a person carries out a search, banned websites will be removed from the first page of results, and a disclaimer will be displayed stating that "some results may have been removed due to statutory requirements." Examples cited in the documents of websites that will be subject to the censorship include those of British news broadcaster BBC and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

17 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Well by DaMattster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It just goes to show "Do No Evil" was complete and utter media theatre. Google will do anything for the almighty dollar!

    1. Re:Well by r_naked · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It just goes to show "Do No Evil" was complete and utter media theatre. Google will do anything for the almighty dollar!

      Absolute power corrupts absolutely. I am sure that when Larry and Sergey started Google, they had good intentions. I really believe that at the time that wanted to: "Do no evil". However, when the money starts flowing in, and the shareholders demand that the stock price keeps climbing, you start off with: "Well this isn't THAT evil". Eventually you end up with: "Fuck it, remove the slogan and let's conquer the world".

      --
      -- http://anonet.org -- The internet the way it was meant to be. Check it out, you may be surprised.
    2. Re:Well by Kenja · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The question here I guess is, which is more "evil"? No access, or censored access? I just got back from China, and having to use Bing felt wrong.

      --

      "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    3. Re:Well by DarkOx · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Censored hands down! The same can be said with the US-Sino trade relationship. The PRC is an abusive authoritarian regime. It functions and continues to exist because WE allowed it access to the modern world.

      China would be freer today if Nixon had never gone there. The existence of the modern world isn't a secret you can keep. Its not as if people in the USSR did know about the western world. Its not like they were not actively trying to smuggle in goods and information.

      What not allow China to access US networks, not allow China to sell into US markets, not allowing Chinese nationals to attend US universities would do is cripple them economically. Which by now would have turned them into a failed state or let the ROC (having access to purchase US build war machines) to come back in reclaim the mainland.

      Seriously what our society has done is act as a collaborator with regard to Chinese oppression. We got cheap plastic BS and place to dump garbage in exchange for selling out our own industry creating a every expanding wealth gap in our own society and enabling three more generations oppression of the Chinese people. It SUCKS and ITS EVIL

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    4. Re:Well by Zocalo · · Score: 2

      having to use Bing felt wrong.

      I'm pretty sure that actually *is* wrong. Only a complete sociopath would actually force someone to use Bing! :)

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    5. Re:Well by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

      I am sure that when Larry and Sergey started Google, they had good intentions. I really believe that at the time that wanted to: "Do no evil".

      Except they didn’t come up with that slogan - Marissa Mayer did.

      Larry and Sergei were probably just trying to make some bucks in the Dot Com boom, like hundreds of thousands of other college students were trying to do at the time.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    6. Re:Well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      China would be freer today if Nixon had never gone there. The existence of the modern world isn't a secret you can keep. Its not as if people in the USSR did know about the western world. Its not like they were not actively trying to smuggle in goods and information.

      You're assuming that humans will always move towards freedom and democracy, as long as they aren't prevented from doing so by a repressive regime. The post-Soviet history of Russia suggests otherwise, though. Russia did become a free country, with true democracy and free media... and yet, by now it's most of the way back to being a repressive dictatorship. If they were to formally abolish democracy and the freedom of the press at this point, it would be no more than a formality, making official what is in place in reality already. And this whole slide back towards autoritarianism has happened with overwhelming public approval.

    7. Re:Well by DrSpock11 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      So Google engineers are so outraged that their company works with the DoD that they stage protests, petitions and resignations. But working with the Chinese government, one of the world's foremost oppressors of human rights, is fine with them.

      The hypocrisy and hatred for their own country above all else by many on the American left is stunning.

    8. Re:Well by larryjoe · · Score: 2

      It just goes to show "Do No Evil" was complete and utter media theatre. Google will do anything for the almighty dollar!

      It also shows that supposedly intelligent people are easily caught up in meaningless propaganda. It has always been obvious that "Do no evil" had no useful purpose. Evil has no universally accepted definition, and therefore "Do no evil" has as much meaning as "Do no X". Furthermore, very few people outside of comic book villains actually intend to do evil. Murderers and criminals have rationalizations that turn what others might view as evil into non-evils and sometimes even virtues. In fact, this is exactly what is happening with Google support for Chinese censorship and monitoring.

  2. Name it Poohgle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    After the dear leader's favorite bear.

  3. Capitulation by nickmalthus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It is disgusting to see technology developed in Western liberal democracies twisted into tools of censorship and oppression. However this isn't unprecedented, US companies IBM and GMC clamored for Nazi market share in the buildup to WWII. As others have mentioned once this new censorship "feature" is enabled other authoritarian governments will insist it be used in their countries as well. On more step on the road to turn-key tyranny Edward Snowden warned us about. However one positive aspect of this is that it damages the notion of unfettered free market principles of government championed by the right. This is a unambiguous example of a corporation putting profit over civil liberties and human rights.

    --
    If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
    1. Re:Capitulation by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

      It is simply called Corporatism.

  4. Re:Boycott, anyone? by DarkOx · · Score: 2

    and none of that really matters because half the pages you visit will use google services of some kind, and they will still collect all the information on you they want ( well enough anyway that they can still deliver ad impressions based on which is their actual business).

    --
    Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
  5. Don't be evil by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Unless, y'know, a dictatorship requires us to be evil before it'll let us make money.

  6. Re:So what ? by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Informative

    the rest is potentially a way to get sued if you demonstrably dropped profit and/or shareholder suffered through it

    Stop repeating stuff you've heard stupid grown-ups say.

    https://www.nytimes.com/roomfo...

    https://medium.com/bull-market...

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  7. Report users who search by AHuxley · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Tiananmen Square 1989
    Taiwan.
    Tibet.
    Student movement.
    89 people's movement.
    All the people topple communism.
    Operation Yellowbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  8. It is also Censored elsewhere by Gabest · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe. Learn more