Dragonfly: An open letter to Google, signed by nearly 300 of its employees, asks the search company to abandon its efforts to create the Dragonfly censorship engine that China requires for Google to appear in the country.
"Giving the Chinese government easy access to user data, as required by Chinese law, would make Google an accomplice in oppression and human rights abuses," the letter, created by the group Google Employees Against Dragonfly, states.
Our opposition to Dragonfly is not about China: We protest technologies that help the powerful oppress the vulnerable, wherever they are.
The group said many of them work at Google because the company was “willing to put its values above its profits,” and that they appreciate Google’s 2010 decision not to censor search results in China. However, they believe that this is no longer the case.
Referring to the company's change in values, they recalled the Pentagon's AI project called Maven. This particular project did not move forward due to the backlash of thousands of company employees.
"We ask leadership to commit to transparency, clear communication, and real accountability. Google is too powerful not to be accountable," the letter states.
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