Internet News

We are Google employees. Google must drop Dragonfly.

We are Google employees and we join Amnesty International in calling on Google to cancel project Dragonfly, Google's effort to create a censored search engine for the Chinese market that enables state surveillance.

We are among thousands of employees who have raised our voices for months. International human rights organizations and investigative reporters have also sounded the alarm, emphasizing serious human rights concerns and repeatedly calling on Google to cancel the project. So far, our leadership's response has been unsatisfactory.

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 Chinese government certainly isn't alone in its readiness to stifle freedom of expression, and to use surveillance to repress dissent. Dragonfly in China would establish a dangerous precedent at a volatile political moment, one that would make it harder for Google to deny other countries similar concessions.

Our company's decision comes as the Chinese government is openly expanding its surveillance powers and tools of population control. Many of these rely on advanced technologies, and combine online activity, personal records, and mass monitoring to track and profile citizens. Reports are already showing who bears the cost, including Uyghurs, women's rights advocates, and students. Providing the Chinese government with ready access to user data, as required by Chinese law, would make Google complicit in oppression and human rights abuses.

Dragonfly would also enable censorship and government-directed disinformation, and destabilize the ground truth on which popular deliberation and dissent rely. Given the Chinese government's reported suppression of dissident voices, such controls would likely be used to silence marginalized people, and favor information that promotes government interests.

Many of us accepted employment at Google with the company's values in mind, including its previous position on Chinese censorship and surveillance, and an understanding that Google was a company willing to place its values above its profits. After a year of disappointments including Project Maven, Dragonfly, and Google's support for abusers, we no longer believe this is the case. This is why we're taking a stand.

We join with Amnesty International in demanding that Google cancel Dragonfly. We also demand that leadership commit to transparency, clear communication, and real accountability. Google is too powerful not to be held accountable. We deserve to know what we're building and we deserve a say in these significant decisions.

Signed by 478 Google employees

The Australian Parliament has passed controversial amendments to copyright law. There will now be a tightened site-blocking regime that will tackle mirrors and proxies more effectively, restrict the appearance of blocked sites in Google search, and introduce the possibility of blocking dual-use cyberlocker type sites.

Section 115a of Australia's Copyright Act allows copyright holders to apply for injunctions to force ISPs to prevent subscribers from accessing pirate sites. While rightsholders say that it's been effective to a point, they have lobbied hard for improvements.

The resulting Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2018 contained proposals to close the loopholes. After receiving endorsement from the Senate earlier this week, the legislation was today approved by Parliament.

Once the legislation comes into force, proxy and mirror sites that appear after an injunction against a pirate site has been granted can be blocked by ISPs without the parties having to return to court. Assurances have been given, however, that the court will retain some oversight.

Search engines, such as Google and Bing, will also be affected. Accused of providing backdoor access to sites that have already been blocked, search providers will now have to remove or demote links to overseas-based infringing sites, along with their proxies and mirrors.

The Australian Government will review the effectiveness of the new amendments in two years' time.

Russia's state censors have formally accused Google of breaking the law by not removing links to websites that are banned in the country.

Roskomnadzor, the state communications censor, said in a statement that the company had not connected to a database of banned sources in the country, leaving it out of compliance.

The potential penalty that Google could face is currently 700,000 roubles, or about $10,000. But Reuters reports that the Russian government has been considering more drastic actions, including fining companies up to 1 percent of annual revenue for failing to comply with similar laws.

Deadnaming and misgendering could now get you a suspension from Twitter as it looks to sure up its safeguarding policy for people in the protected transgender category.

Twitter's recently updated censorship policy now reads:

Repeated and/or non-consensual slurs, epithets, racist and sexist tropes, or other content that degrades someone

We prohibit targeting individuals with repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanize, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category. This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.

According to the Ofxord English dictionary misgendering means:

Refer to (someone, especially a transgender person) using a word, especially a pronoun or form of address, that does not correctly reflect the gender with which they identify.

According to thegayuk.com:

Deadnaming is when a person refers to someone by a previous name, it could be done with malice or by accident. It mostly affects transgender people who have changed their name during their transition.

The IWF writes:

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) calls on the European Commission to reconsider proposed legislation on E-Privacy. This is important because if the proposal is enshrined in law, it will potentially have a direct impact on the tech companies' ability to scan their networks for illegal online child sexual abuse images and videos.

Under Article 5 of the proposed E-Privacy legislation, people would have more control over their personal data. As currently drafted, Article 5 proposes that tech companies would require the consent of the end user (for example, the person receiving an email or message), to scan their networks for known child sexual abuse content. Put simply, this would mean that unless an offender agreed for their communications to be scanned, technology companies would no longer be able to do that.

Susie Hargreaves of the IWF says:

At a time when IWF are taking down more images and videos of child sexual abuse, we are deeply concerned by this move. Essentially, this proposed new law could put the privacy rights of offenders, ahead of the rights of children - children who have been unfortunate enough to be the victim of child sexual abuse and who have had the imagery of their suffering shared online.

We believe that tech companies' ability to scan their networks, using PhotoDNA and other forms of technology, for known child sexual abuse content, is vital to the battle to rid the internet of this disturbing material.

It is remarkable that the EU is pursuing this particular detail in new legislation, which would effectively enhance the rights of possible 'offenders', at a time when the UK Home Secretary is calling on tech companies to do more to protect children from these crimes. The only way to stop this ill-considered action, is for national governments to call for amendments to the legislation, before it's too late. This is what is in the best interests of the child victims of this abhorrent crime.