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Chinese regional authorities recently presented the type of speech crackdown that Google is likely to facilitate to the country's persecuted Muslim ethnic minority in order to launch its new product in China.
Authorities in Xinjiang, a region of western China, on Tuesday adopted new local laws demonstrating that officials should eliminate the banned speech aimed at fighting so-called religious extremists.
About 11 million Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority, live in Xinjiang and are subjected to some of the most intrusive surveillance measures in the world, including the surveillance of 40,000 face-recognition cameras in the region, as well as their samples. DNA and their analyzes. blood types recorded.
Tuesday's laws made it clear that the authorities wanted high-tech companies to play their role in monitoring, maintaining order and silencing Uyghurs. Beijing justifies its repression in Xinjiang – also known by the Uyghurs – as East Turkistan – as an anti-terrorism measure, even though it prevents UN inspectors from gaining access to the region.
Google could be complicit in this persecution if its secret project to launch a censored search engine – dubbed "Project Dragonfly" – becomes a reality.
Article 28 of the new law orders telecommunications operators to "put in place technological control systems and preventive measures for sound recordings, messages and communication records" which may contain "extreme information" .
The forms of extremification, as they are defined in the laws, are vague. They include "interfering" with people's ability to interact with people of other ethnicities or beliefs, and "rejecting or denying public goods and services".
Their meaning is not entirely clear, but authorities have arrested Uyghurs in the past for bizarre reasons such as setting their watch two hours after the Beijing time and growing beards.
According to the law, when the telecommunications companies deem the content unsatisfactory for the Chinese state, they will also be required to "suspend the transmission, delete the relevant information, keep the evidence and report the case quickly" to the Chinese authorities.
Companies will also have to "help the public security organs to take legal action", which probably means that the users' personal information, such as their addresses, must be made public so that the Chinese authorities can find them.
Google accomplice when he enters China
Google plans to launch a censored version of its search engine in China, which would block websites and unsavory search terms for the ruling Communist Party, such as human rights, democracy, and religion The Intercept reported in August, citing leaked documents.
A first prototype of the search engine also showed that Google would link searches of Android users to their personal phone numbers. This means that individual users could easily monitor their online activity and risk being stopped if Google transmits the data to the Chinese government.
China's tech giants have already transmitted information about users and the content of private conversations to the Chinese police. Earlier this year, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security announced that law enforcement officers could obtain and use private conversations on WeChat, the popular messaging application, during court proceedings.
Shortly after the publication of Google's plans in China, 14 human rights organizations sent a public letter to Google's CEO: "Google could be complicit in the crackdown on freedom of speech and other human rights by the Chinese government ".
US Vice President Mike Pence criticized Google's plans for China, saying: "Google should immediately stop the development of the" Dragonfly "application, which will strengthen the Communist Party's censorship and compromise customer confidentiality Chinese."
Technology companies already play an important role in the Chinese police state
Earlier this year, Yuan Yang, technical correspondent of the Financial Times in Beijing, reported that State officials had accessed his private messages on WeChat without his knowledge and without his permission. A policewoman randomly quoted messages she had posted during a private conversation, she said.
Similarly, Chinese police visited the mother of law student Shawn Zhang in China after Zhang criticized Chinese President Xi Jinping on social media.
"I did not expect the police to react so quickly, it suggests that my social media account is probably under their close surveillance, they will read everything I say," Zhang told Business Insider. earlier this year.
Chinese authorities have also forced many Uighurs to download an application that can scan photos, videos, audio files, e-books and other documents.
The app, dubbed Jingwang ("Web Cleansing" in Mandarin Chinese), extracts information, including the phone number and model, and searches its files, reported the Open Technology Fund, funded by the US government.
The screenshots below show what the application looks like. The catch on the left shows Jingwang, inviting users to remove the "dangerous content" on their phone, while the one on the right indicates the application's access.
The type of scheme on which Google is lying
Human rights groups have accused China of imprisoning up to one million Uighurs in detention or re-education camps, where people have been chained to the presidency, beaten and forced to sing patriotic songs for food.
Xinjiang's new laws formalized the use of these camps despite Beijing's earlier claims that they did not exist.
China also appears to be creating a global registry of the Uyghur diaspora, even if they are citizens of other countries. A number of Uighurs living abroad reported threats directed at themselves or their family members in China without giving away personal data such as plaque numbers. 39, registration and bank details.
If Google establishes a base in China, it will not only be a part of Uighur abuse. China has a history of public disappearance of detractors, house arrest to innocent members of its family and bursting into private homes to interrupt their phone calls.
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