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Google is facing a new global protest campaign against his plan to launch a censored version of his search engine in China.
On Friday, a coalition of Chinese, Tibetans, Uyghurs and human rights organizations staged protests in front of Google offices in the United States, Canada, India, Mexico, Chile, in Argentina, Sweden, Switzerland and Denmark.
Google designed the Chinese search engine, Dragonfly, to catalog information on human rights, democracy, religion and peaceful protests, in accordance with China's strict censorship rules imposed by the government of the authoritarian communist party of the country.
In December, The Intercept revealed that an internal conflict had forced Google to shut down a data badysis system used to develop the search engine. This had "actually ended" the project, sources said, because the company's engineers no longer had the tools to build it.
But Google officials have not publicly announced that they would stop developing Dragonfly. And the company's CEO, Sundar Pichai, refused to rule out the potential launch of the search engine in the future, although he insisted that it was not planned to do so. The organizers of Friday's protests, which coincided with Internet Freedom Day, said they would continue to demonstrate "until Google executives confirm that the Dragonfly project has been canceled, once for all".
Google "should connect the world through information sharing, not facilitate human rights violations by a repressive government determined to crush all forms of peaceful online dissent," said Gloria Montgomery , director of Tibet Society UK. "Google administrators urgently need calls from employees and tens of thousands of citizens around the world calling for an immediate halt to the Dragonfly project. Otherwise, Google risks irreversible damage to its reputation. "
"Google risks irreversible damage to its reputation."
In August, 170 Tibetan groups sent a letter to Pichai stating that the human rights situation in China had deteriorated in recent years and that Dragonfly would "legitimize the Chinese government's repressive regime." and support the limitation of civil and political liberties and the promotion of [of] distorted information. "Pichai gave no answer, which, according to the groups, only exacerbated their concerns. (Tibet is ruled as an autonomous region of China, activists have said that the Chinese government systematically violates human rights in the country, practicing political and religious repression.)
Google has faced protests against Dragonfly from all over the place. Human rights groups, US senators from the two main political parties, Vice President Mike Pence, and the company's employees and shareholders formed an unlikely alliance to thwart the plan.
In recent weeks, the pressure on Google has continued to grow. January 3, the eminent Google engineer, Liz Fong-Jones ad she would resign from the internet giant after 11 years. Fong-Jones has sharply criticized Dragonfly and other controversial Google initiatives, such as Project Maven, the company's contract to develop artificial intelligence for US military drones. She stated that she had decided that she could no longer work for Google because she was unhappy with her leadership and her "lack of responsibility and oversight".
Meanwhile, Google was criticized Tuesday by a group of 49 investors representing badets of $ 700 billion. Citing Dragonfly and other recent scandals in Silicon Valley, investors have called on Google, Apple, Facebook and other technology giants to "respect users' right to privacy and freedom of expression."
Without the proper oversight and diligence in these areas, investors said, companies "could cause or contribute to a wide range of human rights violations affecting billions of people around the world." Investors have called on companies to comply with internationally recognized laws on human rights. and standards, and said technology giants should implement the principles set out by the Global Network Initiative, a digital rights organization.
Google employees who were working on Dragonfly had previously told The Intercept that company executives had dismissed human rights concerns when developing the search engine and corresponding smartphone apps. In December, the internet giant attempted to respond to some of these criticisms by making changes to its internal review processes. The company's chief of international affairs, Kent Walker, wrote in a blog that the company had introduced a new ethics training course for employees and that it would create a new group "user researchers, social scientists, ethicists, human rights specialists, policy advisers and privacy protection. and legal experts "to evaluate new projects, products and offers.
Three Google employees, however, told The Intercept that they were skeptical about the new process. According to Walker's blog, they both pointed out that "the most complex and difficult issues" would be left to a "senior management council", which means that the balance of power over controversial projects would remain in the hands of from some business leaders. , With core employees still largely marginalized.
"It's superficial," said The Intercept a current Google engineer. "We still need more accountability, transparency and a place at the table to make the big decisions – otherwise nothing will stop projects like Dragonfly from coming to fruition in the future."
Google has not responded to a request for comment.
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