Google may have paused their plans to support censorship in China – but it’s time they commit dropping the project for good. In August 2018, it was revealed that despite promising not to support censorship in China, Google was preparing to break their promise and launch a search engine that would comply with the Chinese government’s repressive internet regulations. The project was code-named “Dragonfly” and people around the world including journalists, human rights organizations and Google’s own employees protested the business move. In December 2018, it was leaked that Google would be hitting pause on the project. But Google has still not publicly committed to dropping the secretive project “Dragonfly” which means they could start it again at any moment – and we might not know until it is too late.
If the search engine launches, people using Google in China would be blocked from accessing banned websites like Wikipedia and Facebook; content from search terms like ‘human rights’ would be banned. The Chinese government – a government that routinely sends people to prison for merely sharing their political views online – would even be able to spy on Google’s users. Sign the petition and stop Google from launching a censored search engine․ We demand that Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai:
- Publicly commit to drop the Dragonfly programme and not to re-launch a search engine in China, or other countries, at the expense of human rights.
- Guarantee protections for whistle-blowers and other employees speaking out
We are close to making sure Google don’t launch a censored search engine, take action now.
Leave a Reply