When Google employees first learned of the company's project known as Dragonfly, there was an internal uprising.
It is easy to see why. The project, a search engine for China, would not only help a totalitarian regime censor the web, it could also track internet users. Thousands of Googlers, as Google's employees are known, eventually went public with their opposition, signing an open letter in protest of the project. Is it any surprise that a company that canceled a contract with the Pentagon to sort through drone video images would be queasy about helping the Chinese Communist Party consolidate control over its people?
But there is another view within Google: that Dragonfly is not diametrical but crucial to the company's mission. These employees — some 500 of them so far — have also signed a letter making their case on an internal company message board. Interestingly, the campaign was organized by Chinese nationals inside Google.
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