Google Lied About "Dragonfly" China Censorship Project According To Leaked Transcript



That answer, according to one Google source, was "bullshit"

Tue, 10/09/2018 - 16:53
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According to a leaked transcript, Google lied to the media regarding their secretive Chinese search engine, according to The Intercept.



The project, code-named Dragonfly, would blacklist phrases like "human rights," "student protest," and "Nobel Prize," and has resulted in at least seven Google employees quitting for ethical reasons. Other employees have circulated a letter recognizing a "code yellow" emergency, suggesting that the Dragonfly initiative violates Google's ethical code, which states that the company will not build or deploy technologies "whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights," according to The Intercept.
The project has also drawn criticism from human rights groups, congressional legislators and Vice President Mike Pence - who called on the search engine giant to "immediately end development of the Dragonfly app that will strengthen the Communist Party’s censorship and compromise the privacy of Chinese customers."

Google, meanwhile, lied in their attempts to downplay the project.
In late September, longtime Google exec and search engine chief Ben Gomes told BBC News: "Right now, all we’ve done is some exploration," adding "but since we don’t have any plans to launch something, there’s nothing much I can say about it."
That answer, according to one Google source, was "bullshit" according to The Intercept, which published a leaked transcript from a July 18 meeting that tells a completely different story.
“You have taken on something extremely important to the company,” Gomes declared, according to a transcript of his comments obtained by The Intercept. “I have to admit it has been a difficult journey. But I do think a very important and worthwhile one. And I wish ourselves the best of luck in actually reaching our destination as soon as possible.” -The Intercept
Gomes said he hoped the censored Chinese search engine could be launched between six and nine months, but it could be sooner. "This is a world none of us have ever lived in before," he said. "So I feel like we shouldn’t put too much definite into the timeline."
In September, Google executive Keith Enright told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee that project Dragonfly exists, however he said "we are not close to launching a product in China," though he refused to elaborate, claiming that he was "not clear on the contours of what is in scope or out of scope for that project."
Gomes’s remarks to staff, which can be read in full below, highlight the stark contrast between Google’s public and private statements about Dragonfly. The secretive project has been underway since spring 2017 — and has involved about 300 employees, the majority of whom have worked full-time on the plan. It was far beyond an “exploration,” and the plan to launch it was well-developed, as some of Google’s own employees have themselves highlighted in recent weeks, despite the company’s efforts to suppress such information. -The Intercept
Gomes's comments also explain why Google is interested in returning to China after making a big deal about leaving the communist country in 2010 because they "could no longer continue censoring our results" over free speech and security concerns.
In explaining to staff why the work on Dragonfly was “extremely important,” Gomes referenced the sheer size of the Chinese market, saying “we are talking about the next billion users” for Google. He also called China “the most interesting market in the world today.” “By virtue of working on this,” Gomes added, “you will act as a window onto this world of innovation that we are otherwise blind to.” -The Intercept
In other words, Google is compromising its ethical commitment for money.
Ben Gomes Addresses Google Staff Working on Dragonfly, July 18, 2018:
"I think this has been a long haul for many of you, I just want to acknowledge that first of all. Many of you have started working on this a while back. It’s not been easy working on a project with no obvious outcome. Thank you for that. In doing so you have taken on something extremely important to the company — our basic mission of serving all of the world’s users. Along the way, I think there are many benefits that come to us that are auxiliary, not just from the direct work, but from all of the auxiliary things of working in China.
There are two ways in which I think about Google. One of them is technology and the other one is product and serving users. So from the point of view of serving users, there is no question — we are talking about the next billion users. But actually I was looking at it, there’s like 5 billion adults in the world, so why are we thinking about the next billion users? Well, some of them are not enabled, internet-enabled, and so on. And of the people who are internet-enabled, a huge fraction of the ones we are missing out are in China.
And so the opportunity there is — all of you will know this, but — it’s clearly the biggest opportunity to serve more people that we have. And if you take our mission seriously, that’s where our key focus should be. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. Many of these things are not easy, and you all know this now from personal experience. Also given the political climate. The future is very unpredictable. Six to nine months [to launch]. But we couldn’t have predicted the last three days of politics, let alone the last year of politics, [or] the last two or three years of politics. So we just don’t know what the future holds in some ways. We have to be focused on what we want to enable, and then when the opening happens we are ready for it.

Video at the page link

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...ked-transcript