Google Is Conducting a Secret 'Performance Review' Of Its Censored China Search Project (theintercept.com)
Google executives are conducting a secret internal assessment of work on a censored search engine for China. "A small group of top managers at the internet giant are conducting a 'performance review' of the controversial effort to build the search platform, known as Dragonfly, which was designed to blacklist information about human rights, democracy, religion, and peaceful protest," reports The Intercept. From the report: Performance reviews at Google are undertaken annually to evaluate employees' output and development. They are usually carried out in an open, peer review-style process: Workers grade each other's projects and the results are then assessed by management, who can reward employees with promotion if they are deemed ready to progress at the company. In the case of Dragonfly, however, the peer review aspect has been removed, subverting the normal procedure. In a move described as highly unusual by two Google sources, executives set up a separate group of closed "review committees," comprised of senior managers who had all previously been briefed about the China search engine.
The existence of the Dragonfly review committees has not been disclosed to rank-and-file Google employees, except for the few who have been evaluated by the committees because they worked on China search. Fewer than a dozen top managers at the company are said to be looped in on the review, which has involved studying documents and technical work related to Dragonfly. "Management has decided to commit to keeping this stuff secret," said a source with knowledge of the review. They are "holding any Dragonfly-specific documents out of [employees'] review tools, so that promotion is decided only by a committee that is read in on Dragonfly." Executives likely feared that following the normal, more open performance review process with Dragonfly would have allowed workers across the company to closely scrutinize it, according to two Google sources.
The existence of the Dragonfly review committees has not been disclosed to rank-and-file Google employees, except for the few who have been evaluated by the committees because they worked on China search. Fewer than a dozen top managers at the company are said to be looped in on the review, which has involved studying documents and technical work related to Dragonfly. "Management has decided to commit to keeping this stuff secret," said a source with knowledge of the review. They are "holding any Dragonfly-specific documents out of [employees'] review tools, so that promotion is decided only by a committee that is read in on Dragonfly." Executives likely feared that following the normal, more open performance review process with Dragonfly would have allowed workers across the company to closely scrutinize it, according to two Google sources.
Given how unpopular the program is, it's no wonder they're taking the peer-review part out of it. They obviously don't want their employees performance to be rated by who are against the idea of the project.
Harassment Sexual Contact?
Any Pedophilia or Child Pornography being watched by the employees?
News at 11.
was designed to blacklist information about human rights, democracy, religion, and peaceful protest,
Project Abster^H^H^H^H^H^HAbsurdia shall be the new name of the project. Oh wait, Project Unending Chaos is even better.
Even though G knows it's a very very bad idea, and is Evil, they are "analyzing" it, so they can pretend they understand the risks involved.
Which they don't.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
What's funny is that after the backlash from Google employees, Google basically said twice already "We are cancelling this project" but it turns out they aren't cancelling it at all. With such blatant lies I don't see how anyone could still work there.
every mention of:
Taiwan been the real China?
No Tibet.
The history of the Communist party?
The cartoon bear meme?
The 1984 book.
The Animal Farm book?
No talking of the personality cult.
The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests
At a US ad brand all that Communist censorship for China was a universal celebration.
No saying no to full communist censorship at the US ad brand.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
IMHO, tech companies should/must never allow their employees trying to cancel any company projects!!!
Because, if they do, those employees would try start making all company decisions, sooner or later!!!
(& real management teams of those companies would turn to a joke!!!)
& allowing that would cause massive loss for each tech company, sooner or later (because of lost business/money after spending a lot of time/effort each time)!!!
IMHO, those employees, who are trying to stop Google from any government projects, are clearly ANTI-GOVERNMENT (aka) ANARCHISTS (aka TRAITORS)!!!
IMHO, they clearly need to be fired ASAP, otherwise they would keep trying new tricks against Google management, non-stop!!!
"platform, known as Dragonfly, which was designed to blacklist information about human rights, democracy, religion, and peaceful protest"
Europe, you should remember this and that Chinese companies are state sponsored when deciding whether to support them and purchase and install their telecom equipment in your networks. If you aren't building your own gear it is a given that you are being spied on, to think otherwise is naive. But inviting someone with these kind of values out of spite because you are upset to have what your own intelligence agencies have certainly been aware of and ignoring for decades confirmed is a horrible mistake.
The US has been your strongest ally, we are at war, and you are smuggling resources to the enemy stronghold we've laid siege to instead of joining forces. And why are you stabbing us in the back? Because our President is a loudmouth with a bad tan?
See cret
Googlers would be rioting in their cubicles. However, itâ(TM)s âoeonlyâ a repressive dictatorship China, so theyâ(TM)re all in, all singing and dancing.
WindBourne lies all the time WindBourne. WindBourne lies WindBourne lies WindBourne lies WindBourne lies WindBourne lies WindBourne lies WindBourne lies WindBourne lies WindBourne lies WindBourne lies WindBourne lies WindBourne lies WindBourne lies WindBourne lies WindBourne lies WindBourne lies WindBourne lies WindBourne lies WindBourne lies Eventually the lies become background noise and nobody cares anymore. same as google lies.
All empires run on slaves, but eventually they run out of conquered people to enlist as slaves, so they need to internalize slavery into the proles, usually by inculcating religious beliefs in them, but they can grind them down with patriotism and political correctness and propaganda, which google can expedite.
Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?
/Ripley
Even if the project was cancelled, they still need to evaluate the people who worked on it...
"Of course, the real bonuses won't be tied to how it performs in testing, but rather how many dissidents are actually caught and jailed. And how much spying the US spy agencies can do on China using this, which is why they are probably secretly encouraging it."
The thing is, spying on the dictatorship is a good thing. But is it worth the trade off?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Which Amigo are you?
Where does it say the project wasn't cancelled?
No, it's not a lie. The performance reviews are for every project, even cancelled ones. Secret projects are not reviewed by open cross company groups, but instead smaller vetted groups, due to the risk of leaks.
Even when a project is cancelled, you still need to evaluate the staff...
...apart from westerners who use Google services and for them it is a right pita. Dragonfly might just result in Google stuff working for once.
Even so, I guess very few Chinese people will use Google since they have native equivalents.
The only effect that preventing dragonfly has is to give some feeling of moral superiority to some Google engineers and maintain the frustration for GMS users in China.
Max.
I just installed ipset on my Linux server and have censored all of China from my web server. The only hits I ever received from China were (suspected government) IPs that weren't even going after legitimate web pages, but were trying to hit .php and x09 etc pages. I believe China is continuously looking throughout the world for servers to break into.
and don't even realize they are lying?
But WindBourne has been shown his lies repeatedly, so unless he has a learning disability or some mental problems, he definitely knows he is lying.
Not really the same then after all.