Read Google employees’ open letter protesting Project Dragonfly

Anindito Mukheriee | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Google Inc., speaks during a news conference in New Delhi, India, on Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2017. 

Google employees are calling on the company to cancel Project Dragonfly, an effort to create a censored search engine in China.

“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,” an open letter signed by Google employees provided to CNBC says. The letter will be published on Medium Tuesday. “After a year of disappointments including Project Maven, Dragonfly and Google’s support for abusers, we no longer believe this is the case.”

Nine Google employees had signed the letter ahead of its posting. Two of those nine employees were among a group of main organizers behind an international walk-out of Google employees earlier this month. The employees said additional named will be added to the letter as more employees sign an internal petition.

Project Dragonfly has drawn criticism from human rights groups and U.S. politicians since details of the effort leaked this summer. In August, thousands of Google employees signed a letter saying that it raised “urgent moral and ethical issues.” Alphabet Chairman John Hennessy said last week doing business in China requires compromising “core values.”

“Google leadership has failed to respond to employees who have raised questions 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,” the letter says. “So far, there have been no satisfactory answers from leadership.”

Google withdrew its search service from China in 2010 due to increased concerns about cyberattacks and censorship. Since then, the Chinese government has increasingly curtailed what its citizens can or and can’t do online by blacklisting websites and access to information about certain historical events — like the 1989 protests at Tiananmen Square — and requiring people who use online forums to register with their real names.

Google’s Chinese search app would have reportedly complied with demands to remove content that the government ruled sensitive and linked users’ searches to their personal phone numbers. Critics say that by cooperating with the Chinese government, Google would have violated principles of free expression as well as users’ privacy rights.

“We refuse to build technologies that aid the powerful in oppressing the vulnerable, wherever they may be,” the letter says. “Dragonfly in China would establish a dangerous precedent, one that would make it harder for Google to deny other countries similar concessions.”

A Google spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

Here’s the full letter:

We are Google employees and we join with 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.

Google leadership has failed to respond to employees who have raised questions 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, there have been no satisfactory answers from leadership.

Our company’s decision comes at a time when the Chinese government is openly expanding its surveillance powers and mechanisms for 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. Giving the Chinese government 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.

We refuse to build 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, one that would make it harder for Google to deny other countries similar concessions.

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 Dragonfly be canceled. We also demand that leadership commit to transparency, clear communication, and real accountability. We deserve to know what we’re building and we deserve a say in these significant decisions.

Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.