[D66] Google Censorship Plan

[A.O.]

https://theintercept.com/2018/08/10/google-censorship-plan-is-not-right-and-stupid-says-former-google-head-of-free-expression/

Photo: Kevin Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Google Censorship Plan Is “Not Right” and “Stupid,” Says Former Google
Head of Free Expression
Ryan Gallagher

August 10 2018, 9:06 p.m.

Google’s former head of free expression issues in Asia has slammed the
internet giant’s plan to launch a censored search engine in China,
calling it a “stupid move” that would violate widely held human rights
principles.

As The Intercept first reported last week, Google has been quietly
developing a search platform for China that would remove content that
China’s authoritarian government views as sensitive, such as information
about political opponents, free speech, democracy, human rights, and
peaceful protest. It would “blacklist sensitive queries” so that “no
results will be shown” at all when people enter certain words or
phrases, according to internal Google documents.

Lokman Tsui, Google’s head of free expression for Asia and the Pacific
between 2011 and 2014, read the leaked censorship plans and said he was
disturbed by the details. “This is just a really bad idea, a stupid,
stupid move,” he told The Intercept in an interview. “I feel compelled
to speak out and say that this is not right.”

Google previously launched a censored search engine in China in 2006,
but pulled the service out of the country in 2010, citing Chinese
government efforts to limit free speech, block websites, and hack
Google’s computer systems. Tsui said the situation since 2010 has
worsened, with new national security and cybersecurity laws resulting in
more government censorship and surveillance of China’s internet.

“In these past few years things have been deteriorating so badly in
China – you cannot be there without compromising yourself,” Tsui said.
Google launching a censored search engine in the country “would be a
moral victory for Beijing,” he added. “Beijing has nothing to lose. So
if Google wants to go back, it would be under the terms and conditions
that Beijing would lay out for them. I can’t see how Google would be
able to negotiate any kind of a deal that would be positive. I can’t see
a way to operate Google search in China without violating widely held
international human rights standards.”

    “I can’t see a way to operate Google search in China without
violating widely held international human rights standards.”

Tsui is now an assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong
Kong, where he teaches students at the School of Journalism and
Communication. He still follows human rights issues in China closely and
has watched as Google has upped its presence in the country in recent
years. Under the leadership of its current CEO Sundar Pichai, Google has
launched translate and file management apps in China. The company has
also opened an artificial intelligence research center in Beijing, and
invested $550 million in the online Chinese retailer JD.com.

These were baby steps, however, in comparison to the planned return of
the search engine, which would be a massive strategic move for Google,
with broad political implications. When Google pulled its search engine
out of the country in 2010, it was a major rebuke to the Chinese
government and its policies. Returning to China and embracing the
censorship would send the opposite message, according to Tsui.

“Google made a grand statement in 2010. The message was that ‘We care
about human rights and we care about free expression, we are the
champions of this, we have responsibility, we don’t want to self-censor
any more,’” said Tsui. “So for Google to then go back with search — not
just any product, but with search — would be giving a green light to
every other company. Search has massive symbolic value. It is Google’s
crown jewel. It is what makes Google, Google. The core of the company’s
identity and its value is the search engine.”

Only a few hundred of Google’s 88,000 employees had been briefed about
the censorship project — which was code-named Dragonfly — prior to the
revelations last week. After the news broke, Google employees in the
company’s offices across the world were left angry and confused.
Meanwhile, the internet giant’s leadership has stayed silent, refusing
to address staff concerns. Publicly, Google has said simply that it will
not discuss “speculation about future plans.” (The company’s press
office did not respond to a request for comment on this story.)

Tsui will not be surprised if people quit Google over the China plans
because, he said, many employees at the company believe in its values.
The internet giant’s stated central mission is to “organize the world’s
information and make it universally accessible and useful.” The
company’s informal motto is “don’t be evil.” Google has since its early
years maintained a list of “10 things” that represent foundational
values for the company. One of these values is: “You can make money
without doing evil.” Another is: “Democracy on the web works.”

“What makes Google such a great company is that the people who work
there are not just working there for the money,” Tsui said. “You can be
cynical about that … [but] many of the people who work there genuinely
care about the mission of Google. So Google will lose the hearts and
minds of people working for it [because of the China censorship]. And it
is losing its own identity. If you are the leader [of Google], that
should really concern you.”

    “Google will lose the hearts and minds of people working for it. And
it is losing its own identity.”

A bipartisan group of six U.S. senators has raised concerns about
Google’s plans, as have human rights organizations including Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights in China, Reporters
Without Borders, and Access Now. Several of these groups have commented
that Google’s plan raises more issues than just censorship. In order to
launch its search platform in the country, Google would be legally
forced to locate data centers and servers on the Chinese mainland.
Chinese authorities have in the past used their powers to monitor the
communications of activists and journalists – arresting them if they
have said anything critical about the government.

“The current legal environment in China makes it difficult, if not
impossible, to operate in a way that would allow Google to protect its
users,” said Tsui. “The government would have the legal authority to
just seize the data. If it wanted to play hardball, it could raid data
centers and grab hard drives. That is the risk.”

Google’s plan for the search platform is to launch it through an app
accessible to users of Android smartphones and tablets. Researchers
estimate that more than 95 percent of people accessing the internet in
China use mobile devices to go online, and Android is by far the most
popular mobile operating system in the country, with an 80 percent
market share.

Tsui said the app itself could pose more risks from a privacy standpoint
than would a desktop version of Google search, because the app may be
able to collect other data on people’s devices, such as location data or
call records. “It wouldn’t be that difficult for the app to keep track
of who is searching for what, where, at what time,” he said.

When Tsui joined Google, the political environment was very different.
He recalls the period during and immediately following the Arab Spring
uprisings that spread across the Middle East and North Africa. There was
a lot of enthusiasm then for the transformative potential of the
internet as a force for good — a force that could crush dictatorships
and create democracies.

But the atmosphere changed, and the enthusiasm faded. Tsui said his work
at Google required him to be like a “politician,” and he decided he
wanted instead to focus on teaching and writing. He left the company in
2014 and he said Google no longer employs anyone with the title he once
had, as head of free expression for Asia and the Pacific.

“Freedom of speech is just not a winning issue anymore,” said Tsui.
“Now, all we are concerned about is fake news, election interference,
hate speech. These are also free expression issues. But free expression
is seen as a losing issue at this point – all we care about is the
negative part. The internet platforms are no longer seen as the good
guys; they are increasingly seen as the bad guys. And free expression is
disappearing from the companies as a result.”

Top photo: A member of Google Inc.’s China staff walks past the Google
logo at their office in Shanghai on Aug. 15, 2007.