Photo: Jeff Chiu (AP)
Googlers have, over the past few months, been fighting for a louder voice and greater self-determination within a company that’s increasingly gone astray of its bare-minimum unofficial motto, “don’t be evil”—and more often than not, they’re winning. But there’s still one big fly in the ointment.
Discomfort over revelations, first reported by Gizmodo, that the crown jewel of Silicon Valley was working hand in glove with the Pentagon on an AI-imaging program for drone footage, known as Project Maven, brought internal backlash and the cancellation of Google’s commitment to the project. Reporting by the New York Times regarding golden parachutes the company handed to high-ranking employees accused of sexual misconduct resulted in coordinated mass walkouts. Though not all demands were met, that display of solidarity brought an end to Google’s long-running practice of forced arbitration settlements for sexual misconduct cases.
The exception to this string of employee victories—all of which are largely unprecedented in the tech sector—is Project Dragonfly, the search product Google is developing for the Chinese market. It’s reported to come baked in with government-requested censorship and ties queries to users’ phone numbers, which Amnesty International warns could allow for greater surveillance. This summer, 1,400 Googlers signed a letter asking (politely, that time) for Dragonfly to be mothballed. Another employee, who quit in disgust over the project’s compliance with the Chinese government’s wishes, urged the Senate to scrutinize Dragonfly.
Still, Dragonfly remains active.
This morning, the fight to shut down Dragonfly escalated a step further. Rather than send a letter to company leadership, only to have it leak to press soon after, Googlers posted the letter publicly on Medium—and took the extraordinary risk of publicly signing their names to it, beginning with 10 workers, six of which are in senior or leadership roles. New names will be added as more Googlers sign the letter.
Continued development and deployment of Dragonfly would, in the eyes of these dissenters, “make Google complicit in oppression and human rights abuses” and would create precedent for the company to build similarly draconian tools for other foreign powers.
“Many of us accepted employment at Google with the company’s values in mind, including its previous position on Chinese censorship and surveillance, and an understanding that Google was a company willing to place its values above its profits,” the letter reads. “After a year of disappointments including Project Maven, Dragonfly, and Google’s support for abusers, we no longer believe this is the case. This is why we’re taking a stand.”
A Google spokesperson declined to comment specifically on this issue but added that “We’ve been investing for many years to help Chinese users, from developing Android, through mobile apps such as Google Translate and Files Go, and our developer tools. But our work on search has been exploratory, and we are not close to launching a search product in China.”
Read the full letter below:
We are Google employees. Google must drop Dragonfly.
We are Google employees and we join Amnesty International in calling on Google to cancel project Dragonfly, Google’s effort to create a censored search engine for the Chinese market that enables state surveillance.
We are among thousands of employees who have raised our voices for months. International human rights organizations and investigative reportershave also sounded the alarm, emphasizing serious human rights concerns and repeatedly calling on Google to cancel the project. So far, our leadership’s response has been unsatisfactory.
Our opposition to Dragonfly is not about China: we object to technologies that aid the powerful in oppressing the vulnerable, wherever they may be. The Chinese government certainly isn’t alone in its readiness to stifle freedom of expression, and to use surveillance to repress dissent. Dragonfly in China would establish a dangerous precedent at a volatile political moment, one that would make it harder for Google to deny other countries similar concessions.
Our company’s decision comes as the Chinese government is openly expanding its surveillance powers and tools of population control. Many of these rely on advanced technologies, and combine online activity, personal records, and mass monitoring to track and profile citizens. Reports are already showing who bears the cost, including Uyghurs, women’s rights advocates, and students. Providing the Chinese government with ready access to user data, as required by Chinese law, would make Google complicit in oppression and human rights abuses.
Dragonfly would also enable censorship and government-directed disinformation, and destabilize the ground truth on which popular deliberation and dissent rely. Given the Chinese government’s reported suppression of dissident voices, such controls would likely be used to silence marginalized people, and favor information that promotes government interests.
Many of us accepted employment at Google with the company’s values in mind, including its previous position on Chinese censorship and surveillance, and an understanding that Google was a company willing to place its values above its profits. After a year of disappointments including Project Maven, Dragonfly, and Google’s support for abusers, we no longer believe this is the case. This is why we’re taking a stand.
We join with Amnesty International in demanding that Google cancel Dragonfly. We also demand that leadership commit to transparency, clear communication, and real accountability. Google is too powerful not to be held accountable. We deserve to know what we’re building and we deserve a say in these significant decisions.
Signed,
David H. Alexander, Senior Software Engineer
Pierre Bourdon, Senior Software Engineer
Amr Gaber, Software Engineer
Colin McMillen, Staff Software Engineer
Steven Monacelli, Program Manager
Matthew Siegler, Senior Software Engineer
Joëlle Skaf, Staff Software Engineer
Zora Tung, Software Engineer
Meredith Whittaker, Google Open Research Lead
Jean Zheng, Senior Staff Technology Manager
Do you have information about Project Dragonfly? Send us a tip via email, Keybase, or anonymously via our Secure Drop server.
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