- Aug 17, 2017
- 1,498
Google is planning on launching a censored version of its search engine in China in the next six to nine months, recently leaked documents reveal. This marks an about face on the company’s policy regarding Chinese censorship, which caused Google to shut down its search service in the country in 2010. According to confidential internal documents obtained by The Intercept, Google’s Chinese search engine—code-named Dragonfly—has been in development since last spring. The documents revealed that work on Dragonfly began to speed up last December following a meeting between Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai and an unnamed “top Chinese official.”
The documents also show that Google engineers and programmers have already created two different versions of a custom Chinese Android app called Maotai and Longfei. According to the leaked internal documents, Google’s Chinese search engine will automatically filter websites that don’t comply with China’s censorship standards and a disclaimer at the top of the page will inform users that “some results may have been removed due to statutory requirements.” Among the websites that will be censored or blocked entirely are the British Broadcasting Channel (BBC), Wikipedia, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, according to the Intercept.
Full Story Leaked Documents Show Google is Making a Censored Search Engine for China
The documents also show that Google engineers and programmers have already created two different versions of a custom Chinese Android app called Maotai and Longfei. According to the leaked internal documents, Google’s Chinese search engine will automatically filter websites that don’t comply with China’s censorship standards and a disclaimer at the top of the page will inform users that “some results may have been removed due to statutory requirements.” Among the websites that will be censored or blocked entirely are the British Broadcasting Channel (BBC), Wikipedia, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, according to the Intercept.
Full Story Leaked Documents Show Google is Making a Censored Search Engine for China
