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Rights Groups Are Demanding That Google Doesn't Release A Censored Search Engine In China (buzzfeednews.com)
More than a dozen tech NGOs and human rights groups have issued an open letter calling on Google to stop work on a censored search engine project in China. From a report: Organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Access Now and others released the letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Tuesday, saying the tech giant's plans to release a censored version of its search engine app to users in China represent an "alarming capitulation by Google on human rights." The project, dubbed Dragonfly, was first reported by The Intercept earlier this month. According to audio of a staff meeting, obtained by the New York Times, Pichai said that "if we were to do our mission well, we are to think seriously about how to do more in China. However, he went on to say that Google was "not close to launching a search product in China."
American corporations are not going to "fix" China. That is up to the Chinese people, and at least for now they consider their rapidly rising standard of living to be a reasonable tradeoff for the CCP's censorship.
Google can play a positive role in China, and it is better for them to engage than to leave the market to companies like Baidu that will be even more compliant censors.
The petitioners are insisting on a worse outcome because it is more ideologically pure.
For the exact same reason that Apple is always pointed at when something negative happens. (eg: child labor in china, etc)
They're the perceived leader of the given industry, and that makes them the obvious target for finger pointing.