Google Employees Strongly Support Building Censored Search Engine for China, According to Anonymous Blind Survey

Some Google employees are outraged over "Project Dragonfly", a secret plan by company executives to create a censored search tool for the Chinese market. However, a new survey just conducted on Blind, an anonymous online community for tech workers, suggests a strong majority of employees support the project.

"The survey ran from 8/7-8/15 and was answered by a total of 7,369 users of Blind. 35.73% answered Yes and 64.27% answered No," Blind's Kyle McCarthy tells me. "A total of 472 Google employees responded, with 65.25% answering Yes and 34.75% answering with No." (See data above.)

In other words, 2 in 3 employees across the many tech companies on Blind oppose a censored Google for China -- but 2 in 3 Google employees support one. To be sure, Google has 85,000+ employees, so 472 is a relatively small data sample, but the strong support is still pretty striking.

And for me, fairly surprising and disappointing. There was once a case to be made that it would be better overall for the Chinese populace to have improved access to most information, even if that meant accepting censorship over some information. But given the country's growing authoritarianism (good briefer below), that argument gets harder and harder to make -- especially coming from employees of a company with an unofficial motto of "Don't be evil." Oh wait never mind.   

Data and infographic courtesy TeamBlind.

Comments

[Tawny Lamplight]

Oh yeah, so how do you feel about the different media platforms, Google/Youtube included, essentially deplatforming Alex Jones in one fell swoop, all coordinated? Alex Jones, whatever you think of him, is not the issue.Silencing people because you don't like the things they say , or are afraid of the things they say, is! This coordinated effort is no different than what they do to people in China.

If you support Jone's voice being silenced, then you without question support the stuff the Chinese government does to it's own citizens. It is no different!

Google is positioning itself as arbiter of what is acceptable and what is not, same with Facebook. They alone think they should dictate popular opinion based on their political/social leanings. This is why I am sure they have no problem creating a censored platform for them, its still money in their eyes.

Do no evil? Spare me, they passed that mile marker years ago and unless we stand up and say no it's going to burgeon into things we never imagined. This is the law of unintended consequences and we all pay a price no matter our affiliations or beliefs. This is the bigger picture.

[Hamlet Au]

"This coordinated effort is no different than what they do to people in China."

Google and Facebook put Alex Jones under house arrest after brutally beating him and his wife and holding him in solitary confinement in a small cell under 24/7 watch by a guard?

[Tawny Lamplight]

Obviously my comment was in the context of the free flow of information. But you knew that.

My ultimate point is that it's very easy for them to operate there under China's censorship requirement when they are doing it themselves in the US. It's no different. They silence someone like Alex Jones but yet they allow very authoritarian groups like Antifa to openly express their views- and they are a violent bunch. But that's ok by their standards. Again they are becoming arbiters of what is and what is not acceptable.

And that you only addressed that part of my comment is very telling, indeed.

It's not a big deal because it's not happening to you, right?....Yet.

[Stephan]

Exactly what did the survey ask? The details of how you phrase survey questions can have a surprising impact on how they are answered.

[EarthPulse Review]

Well China seems like it got it's internet policies right, and it's great to see communities respecting the policy decisions that favor the wellness of the people's life over corporate greed.

[Hamlet Au]

"Obviously my comment was in the context of the free flow of information."

Alex Jones' website is still online, is searchable through Google, and currently gets 18M+ monthly pageviews (up 2 million from May):

https://www.similarweb.com/website/infowars.com#overview

Websites that the Chinese government doesn't like are not even available in the countries' search engines --a search engine like the kind Google is apparently building.

[David Cartier]

We're lucky that Google wasn't around, way back in the 1770's. They would have been delighted to assist George III, our insane German despot of a monarch, by blocking Thomas Jefferson and George Washington; taking down their YouTube channels and justifying it by their threats to loyalists and owning slaves.