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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.
It kinda does.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I don't care, because anything else that Google could have done would have made no difference, or would have made things worse.
Corporations are required to obey the laws of the countries in which they do business. So Google's only alternative would have been to cutback services, and leave the market to competitors that would have been even more compliant.
American corporations are not going to "fix" China, and it is silly to expect them to try. That is not their purpose, and they wouldn't make a difference even if they tried.
The video is pretty widely available; just because Breitbart has it doesn't mean it's not real.
If the video is so widely available, why link to Breitbart for it?
Oh wait, it's to surface Breitbart's -- uh -- unique view on it.
There's a reason Breitbart has a fringe following. It may present the truth from time to time, but it twists the truth to its own purpose. Look elsewhere for news.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.