Google Built a Prototype of a Censored Search Engine For China That Links Users' Searches To Their Personal Phone Numbers: The Intercept (theintercept.com)

Google built a prototype of a censored search engine for China that links users' searches to their personal phone numbers, thus making it easier for the Chinese government to monitor people's queries, The Intercept, which first published information about Google's efforts to build a censored search engine in China last month, reported Friday. From the report: The search engine, codenamed Dragonfly, was designed for Android devices, and would remove content deemed sensitive by China's ruling Communist Party regime, such as information about political dissidents, free speech, democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest. Previously undisclosed details about the plan, obtained by The Intercept on Friday, show that Google compiled a censorship blacklist that included terms such as "human rights," "student protest," and "Nobel Prize" in Mandarin. Leading human rights groups have criticized Dragonfly, saying that it could result in the company "directly contributing to, or [becoming] complicit in, human rights violations." A central concern expressed by the groups is that, beyond the censorship, user data stored by Google on the Chinese mainland could be accessible to Chinese authorities, who routinely target political activists and journalists. Sources familiar with the project said that prototypes of the search engine linked the search app on a user's Android smartphone with their phone number. This means individual people's searches could be easily tracked -- and any user seeking out information banned by the government could potentially be at risk of interrogation or detention if security agencies were to obtain the search records from Google.

Comments

Re:Barking up the wrong tree..

[mujadaddy]

fantasy

Technology assists in the realization of ideas, for good or ill. I'm pretty fucking pissed that they leveraged their analytics tracking experience to assist in depriving freedom to people, but I can't say I'm surprised.

Re:What? Nobody cares?

[slyborg]

>one of our competitors would make the cyanide for the gas chambers if we don't, so we might as well make a few bucks by doing it ourselves

You would be perfect for a management opportunity at I.G. Farben.

Re:Some Fascist regimes are easier to #Resist

[mi]

If the video is so widely available, why link to Breitbart for it?

Because they broke this particular piece of news — all other sites carrying it call it "video obtained by Breitbart".

Look elsewhere for news.

Few other news-sources would go for this kind of guerilla reporting risking Google's displeasure.