What The Heck, Google? (Part 1)

Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

So Google has a version of its search engine in the works for China. However, this version is/will be openly censored to comply with Chinese censorship. The project is known as “Project Dragonfly” and was intended to be confidential.

Employees working on the project were told “to avoid referencing it around our team members, and if they ask [what we’re working on], to deflect questions”.

While I’ve had my issues with Google for awhile, none of them have been as serious as this one: Google, one of the largest companies in the world, is bending to accommodate the largest authoritarian regime in the world.

Google’s Mission Statement

Source: https://www.google.com/about/our-company/

If Google’s goal is really to make the world’s information universally accessible, isn’t this move a step in the wrong direction?

This isn’t the first time that Google employees have been upset with the company. Recently the company received backlash for a military drone project it was working on with the Pentagon. Unfortunately, I can’t see how either of these projects align with Google’s mission statement.

Google management reportedly scrambles to contain employee uproar over reports of Project…_Leaders at Alphabet Inc.'s Google are reportedly at odds with employees again - this time over reports of a plan to…_www.bizjournals.com

Perhaps Google has made the decision that allowing any information to flow into China is better than simply ignoring the country’s massive population altogether. China’s internet user base is about 775 million people, double the US population.

While Google hasn’t publicly stated their intentions with China, it looks like the company is far more focused on the profits from China than the free flow of information for everyone.

Alternatives To Google

If Google’s latest decisions worry you, as they have for me, there are plenty of alternative products out there. Perhaps some of these will align with your own values better than Google.

Try These Alternatives ⤵️

The Best Private Search Engines — Alternatives to Google_Private search engines have seen huge growth over the past few years. Until recently, it was unthinkable that anyone…_hackernoon.com

Continue Reading: What The Heck, Google? — Part 2