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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.
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"
"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?
Working for Communist China on censorship resulted in universal celebration at the ad company.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
"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.
...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.