Employees urge Google to drop Project Dragonfly

Google employees have called on the company to abandon a new app, known as Project Dragonfly, that has been developed to provide Chinese internet users with a censored search engine.

More than 500 employees have now signed an open letter to the company, claiming that the search app being developed for the Chinese market will “enable state surveillance”.

“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 letter says.

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CNBC reports that the search app would have “complied with demands to remove content that the government ruled sensitive and linked users’ searches to their personal phone numbers”.

The BBC says that the call to cancel the project was “backed by Amnesty International which said it was at odds with the company’s values”.

“Google staff don't want to be part of the great firewall of China,” said Anna Bacciarelli, Amnesty International’s researcher on technology and human rights.