Several Google Employees Resign In Protest Over Company's Reported China Plans

Reports have circulated for months that search giant Google is planning to relaunch its flagship product in China, several years after leaving the country due to its internet censorship laws. As a result, there is internal strife at the company over the development, with more than half a dozen employees leaving the Google over the project, Buzzfeed News reported.

Seven people in total have reportedly left Google after The Intercept unveiled “Project Dragonfly” in August. The idea, according to documents acquired by The Intercept, is to bring Google’s namesake search engine back to China in a way that complies with the Xi Jinping’s government regulations regarding internet censorship.

Dragonfly has apparently taken the form of an Android app that would give Chinese users access to Google once again after the company shut down operations in the populous country in 2010. However, anything the government finds objectionable would be automatically filtered out of search results.

Google employees have reportedly taken umbrage with the concept, and the lack of company transparency surrounding it. They learned about it through The Intercept’s report and want to have more say in the projects Google decides to pursue, according to Buzzfeed News.

Senior research scientist Jack Poulson was named as one of the employees who resigned over Project Dragonfly. He told The Intercept it was his “ethical responsibility” to quit his job, citing Google’s “forfeiture of [its] human rights commitments.”

Google CEO Sundar Pichai addressed the Dragonfly rumors at an employee meeting in August. At the time, he emphasized that Google would not bring back its search engine in China anytime soon. However, he did say there could be benefits to working in China again in the future.

“I genuinely do believe we have a positive impact when we engage around the world and I don’t see any reason why that would be different in China,” Pichai said.

More than 1,700 Google employees have signed a letter asking for more transparency from upper management about projects like Dragonfly, per Buzzfeed. Google executives have not directly addressed the demands in the document, but in his resignation statement, Poulson reportedly asked that they do.

The company has also gotten pressure from the United States government to speak more openly on its China plans. On Thursday, 16 lawmakers asked Google how it would work with China’s government upon returning to the country, according to Reuters.