Google wants to go back China and with a censored version of the search engine, but the employees are not there. Against the project – baptized Dragonfly, a captivating name behind which a substantial surrender to the Beijing regime is hidden – about 1.400 workers of Big G have signed a letter of protest, which was published exclusively by the New York Times.
The issue raises "urgent moral and ethical questions", write the employees, complaining that they do not have "the information necessary to make decisions" about their work. The letter calls upon managers to review the ethical and transparency criteria of corporate policies.
THE “GREAT FIREWALL” OF CHINESE
In March 2010, Google chose not to bow to censorship by redirecting traffic from China to its Hong Kong site. The decision came after two months of tug of war with Beijing following a hacker attack against the American company, in all probability orchestrated by the regime itself, which aimed to track down some human rights activists.
On the other hand, the Dragon's censorship doesn't just affect Google. China's "Great Firewall" stops all politically unwelcome content, so access to content is also blocked in the People's Republic Twitter, Facebook e YouTube, as well as many information sites (including that of New York Times). In this zero-competition market, local giants like the search engine have thrived Baidu and the video hosting service Youkou, which have grown undisturbed in recent years.
BEIJING'S REQUESTS AND GOOGLE'S SILENCE
Today the Chinese authorities welcome the return of Big G, but do not intend to discount the censorship. Two weeks ago the People's Daily, organ of the Communist Party of China, wrote that “Google is welcome, but must comply with the law”. That is, it must obscure the contents unwelcome in Beijing.
The same article in the regime newspaper points out that, during the absence of Google, the number of online Chinese users has more than doubled, from 300 to 700 million. This is the market with the highest growth rate in the world and it is not surprising that the Californian giant wants to return to it. The point is that the chosen strategy is not the most transparent.
According to a The Intercept, the online magazine that revealed Google's plan, most of the group's employees does not have access to documents related to the project Dragonfly: "There is total radio silence which makes people disgruntled and scared," says an employee.
THE PRECEDENT OF THE “MAVEN PROJECT”
It's not the first time Google has faced internal grievances. A few months ago, in relation to a contract signed with the Pentagon (il project Maven), thousands of workers of the group signed a petition asking to "stay out of the war business". After this protest, last June the computer giant chose not to renew the agreement, guaranteeing that its products in the artificial intelligence sector will never be used to build weapons. But building consensus for the Chinese regime, it seems, is another story.
