After Employee Revolt, Google Says It's 'Not Close' To Launching Search In China (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Reports from earlier this month claimed Google was working on products for the Chinese market, detailing plans for a search engine and news app that complied with the Chinese government's censorship and surveillance demands. The news was a surprise to many Googlers, and yesterday an article from The New York Times detailed a Maven-style internal revolt at the company. Fourteen hundred employees signed a letter demanding more transparency from Google's leadership on ethical issues, saying, "Google employees need to know what we're building." The letter says many employees only learned about the project through news reports and that "currently we do not have the information required to make ethically informed decisions about our work, our projects, and our employment."

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Google addressed the issue of China at this week's all-hands meeting. The report says CEO Sundar Pichai told employees the company was "not close to launching a search product" in China but that Pichai thinks Google can do good by engaging with China. "I genuinely do believe we have a positive impact when we engage around the world," The Journal quotes Pichai as say, "and I don't see any reason why that would be different in China." The report says Brin "sounded optimistic about doing more business in China" but that Brin called progress in the country "slow-going and complicated."

Comments

Google's Being Pretty Evil

[Greyfox]

For a company whose first rule was "don't be evil," they sure have being pretty evil lately. I wonder if some of those Google employees are now asking themselves if they want to keep working at a place where they've had to revolt twice in less than a year (The first one being over AI in military contracts.)

Slashdot + Big tech = Totally Corrupt

[slashdot_is_fake]

Note the total lack of the biggest tech story in months, if not all year: the deplatforming of Alex Jones.
How totally outrageous it is for Slashdot not to run any story about it. It's been a major topic of discussion dead square in the center of Slashdot's subject matter.
You can't let that one slide without making some kind of judgement, unless you're truly brainless.

There is a conspiracy against free speech, especially conservative speech, perpetrated by all of big tech and the main stream media working in unison. You would have to be brain dead not to be suspicious and perhaps reconsider your stance in politics, because this conspiracy is as filthy as they come and is slapping you in the face.

The brazenness of this conspiracy is getting to be unbelievable. It's like the perpetrators are completely confident that thinking people are a total non-factor.
The economy relies on 'tech' workers more than any other. YOU have power, so long as you are willing to stand up. If educated people with the wits to see what's going on would leverage their value to the economy (i.e.: mass strikes) we could ensure a functional democratic process.
Will you choose to be a non-factor when the time comes?