Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google, didn\u2019t rule out launching a censorship and surveillance tool in China, but…<\/b>
\nSundar Pichai, chief executive of Google, didn\u2019t rule out launching a censorship and surveillance tool in China, but indicated the company will be transparent and \u201cthoughtful\u201d about any such plans.
Pichai had indicated that Google is still working on a search app for the Chinese market, a secretive project that some company employees claim will include censorship and surveillance features. However, he said the launch of such a product isn\u2019t imminent.
\u201cWe have undertaken an internal effort, but right now, there are no plans to launch a search service in China,\u201d Pichai said, while testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Dec. 11.
Google has faced enduring criticism after information leaked that it was secretly developing the censored app as part of a project dubbed \u201cDragonfly.\u201d Lawmakers, human-rights advocates, and even some employees protested against the project.
The communist regime in China requires companies, even those that are foreign, to censor topics it deems to be \u201csensitive,\u201d such as democracy, human rights, and the ongoing persecution in China of Falun Gong practitioners, underground Christians, human-rights activists, and others. Companies are also forced to share with the regime any of their data stored in China.
According to insider information leaked to the Intercept, the controversial Google app was designed to link users\u2019 search history with their phone numbers, making it easier for the regime to target dissidents.
Pichai appeared to deny the company is in discussions with Chinese officials regarding Dragonfly, when asked by Rep. David Cicilline (D-R. I.). However, his response suggests the project is ongoing.
\u201cThis effort, currently, is an internal effort,\u201d he said.
Pichai wouldn\u2019t confirm who is leading the Dragonfly project.
\u201cOur efforts around building search, you know, it\u2019s undertaken by our search teams, but these are distributed efforts,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a limited effort internally, currently.\u201d
Finally, when asked whether he\u2019d rule out \u201claunching a tool for surveillance and censorship in China\u201d while CEO of Google, Pichai responded:
\u201cCongressman, I commit to engaging. One of the things which is important to us as a company, we have a stated mission of providing users with information and so we always\u2026 We think it\u2019s in our duty to explore possibilities to give users access to information and, you know, I have that commitment but, you know, as I said earlier on this, we\u2019ll be very thoughtful and we will engage widely as we make progress.\u201d
Google ran a censored version of its search engine in China from 2006 to 2010, but exited after the company said a cyber attack originating from China had targeted Google email accounts of dozens of Chinese human-rights activists.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who was born in Soviet Russia, said in 2010, he saw \u201csome earmarks of totalitarianism\u201d in China, which was \u201cpersonally quite troubling\u201d to him, The Wall Street Journal reported. \u201cPeople familiar with the discussions\u201d said then-Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and others advocated for staying in China.
China is one of the worst abusers of human rights, according to watchdogs. In recent decades, the regime has killed hundreds of thousands of prisoners of conscience to sell their organs for transplants, based on extensive research conducted since allegations of the crime first surfaced in 2006.
Aside from its stated reason, Google also had an economic incentive to exit China. The company struggled to expand its claim on the Chinese market, where the regime favors domestic companies with top cadre connections.
In an Aug. 31 letter to several U. S. senators, Pichai outlined the company\u2019s wish to expand its China business, while finding a \u201cbalance\u201d between satisfying the demands of the communist regime and the company\u2019s stated dedication to freedom of expression.
While Pichai has denied any political bias in Google products, several Republican lawmakers appeared unsatisfied with his answers.
\u201cYou\u2019ve got almost 90,000 employees. Somebody out there is doing something that just isn\u2019t working, if you\u2019re looking for unbiased results,\u201d said Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio).
On Dec. 10, Breitbart published what appears to be leaked internal emails that show Google employees discussing efforts to kick the conservative outlet off the Google advertising platform. Based on the emails, the employees organized to comb through Breitbart content around February 2017 to find anything that could be classified as \u201chate speech,\u201d including in user comments posted on Breitbart\u2019s website.
A Google spokeswoman told Breitbart that the company \u201cregularly and routinely\u201d reviews sites in its ad network \u201cto ensure compliance with our policies.\u201d
\u201cThese emails from early 2017 simply show the AdSense team explaining that such a periodic review was underway,\u201d she said.
Yet, the emails suggest it was more than just \u201ca periodic review,\u201d since the effort appears to have been organized through an internal discussion group called \u201cResist\u201d\u2014a common label used by opponents of the agenda of President Donald Trump.
\u201cI\u2019m not aware of any such group,\u201d Pichai said, when asked about the matter by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).
Breitbart would understandably be hard-pressed to survive without Google ads as about two-fifths of its U. S. online advertising revenues flow through the tech giant.
In August, President Donald Trump accused Google of shutting out \u201cRepublican\/Conservative\u201d and \u201cFair Media\u201d from Google News searches, referring to a PJ Media report that among the top 100 search results for \u201cTrump\u201d on Google News, 96 percent of them were from left-leaning media.
The Epoch Times conducted a similar experiment on at least three dates, reaching similar results. In the last test on Nov. 28, some 97 percent of the 154 articles featured on the first 10 pages of search results for \u201cTrump\u201d came from traditionally left-leaning media.
Pichai disputed bias in the news search.
\u201cWe have looked at results on our Top News category. We find we have a wide variety of sources, including sources from the left and sources from the right,\u201d he said.
Google didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n