Google to reportedly re-enter China with censored search engine

After leaving China’s market eight years ago due to censorship and hacking, Google is re-entering it but with a censored search engine.

Meeting the demands of Chinese government, tech giant Google is set to re-launch its search engine in the country with complete censored results, after being shut down in 2010, stating government attempts to ‘limit free speech on the web’.

A whistleblower provided internal documents to The Intercept stating that Google has been creating a censored version of its search engine under the codename ‘Dragonfly’, as per a company employee who wished to remain anonymous.

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The search engine, however, is being built as an Android mobile app and will eradicate content blacklisted by Chinese government along with filtering out websites blocked by China’s web sensors, which include Wikipedia and BBC News. Additionally, the censorship will further extend to Google’s image search, suggested search features and spell check.

Terms about human rights, religion, peaceful protests, and democracy would be blacklisted. The app will also automatically detect and filter websites blocked by China’s Great Firewall, which blocks content as seen fit by officials, wrote The Intercept.

The New York Times citied two anonymous people familiar with the matter saying that the service has reportedly also been shown to Chinese officials, however Google did not respond to a request for comment. Thus, there is no assurance that this might result in Google search returning to China.

A China researcher for non-governmental organization Amnesty International, Patrick Poon, said in a statement, “It will be a dark day for internet freedom if Google has acquiesced to China’s extreme censorship rules to gain market access.”

“For the world’s biggest search engine to adopt such extreme measures would be a gross attack on freedom of information and internet freedom. In putting profits before human rights, Google would be setting a chilling precedent and handing the Chinese government a victory,” Poon continued.