Reportedly nearly 1400 employees have signed a letter demanding clarity on Google’s plans to launch a censored search engine for China. Eight years after the company publicly withdrew from China in protest of censorship and government hacking, employees doubt if the company is secretly working on returning to the country abiding by their rules. “We urgently need more transparency, a seat at the table, and a commitment to clear and open processes: Google employees need to know what we’re building,” the petition read. Moreover, the letter said that the situation raises urgent ethical and moral issues. Amongst all these happenings, the world’s largest search engine org is developing an android app called Dragonfly for Chinese users which would be live on the govt’s approval.
- Internal protest as this one is not something new to the company. Back in April, the workforce wanted the Internet firm to withdraw from the most controversial Pentagon Program that builds Artificial Intelligence for American weaponry. Following this, Google affirmed that it wouldn’t renew the contract with Pentagon and subsequently withdrew from the project in June. While Google is facing some serious employee activism in the recent times, CEO Sundar Pichai has confirmed that there is no current plan on kickstarting new search engines in China. In fact, the country has restricted other social media sites including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter as well.
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