State surveillance. By Google.

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It's 30 years since the Tiananmen Square massacre. And right now, the government of China is detaining a million people in internment camps -- just because they’re Muslim.

Yet Google wants to launch a search engine for China that would censor searches about these human rights abuses -- and help identify people searching about them.

Tell Google to cancel the project once and for all.

Sign the petition

A,

30 years ago we watched as one man dressed in a white shirt and dark trousers, carrying two bags, stood blocking a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square.

It’s estimated that up to 10,000 students, workers and other demonstrators died after the Government of... China unleashed its military against its own people.

And that government continues to censor the history and memory of the massacre -- with help from corporations like Google. Every year, survivors and victims’ families are put under tight surveillance in the days running up to June 4th. Some are sent on mandatory ‘holidays’ accompanied by police and minders. Key words and images referencing the protests are swiftly censored on social media and the internet.

Tech giant Google seems only too happy to comply with this erasure of history and surveillance of survivors. Its proposed search app for use in China, code-named Dragonfly, would comply with the Government of China’s strict cybersecurity laws.

That means searches about Tiananmen -- and other human rights concerns -- will be censored, and Google will have to make sure each query can be easily and reliably traced back to the person making it.

Tell Google not to collude with repressive governments and to drop Dragonfly - the censored search app -- once and for all.

Right now, the government of China is detaining over a million Uyghurs -- ethnically and culturally a Turkic Muslim people -- in a network of internment camps.

And digital controls employed by the Government of China also make sure that Tibetans are restricted in their movements and ability to practice religion or learn their language.

Cyber-surveillance means that when people’s internet activity breaks the government's rules they are at risk of arrest, detention and torture.

But Google doesn’t seem too concerned about that, saying that Dragonfly’s censorship and surveillance would only affect 1% of queries. So, only 1 in a hundred searches will be censored and the authorities alerted. How is that ok?

Google: Stop fudging the importance of human rights and drop Dragonfly.

SumOfUs members like you have already made Google nervous by joining forces with the Google employees who have protested and resigned over Dragonfly, and people from the communities most affected by the government of China’s repressive policies.

Google execs know that Dragonfly is unpopular -- saying that they have no plans to launch Dragonfly right now, but refuse to rule it out in future. And that’s why we can’t stop now.

In just over two weeks we’ll be at Google’s big annual shareholder meeting to deliver our petition. Will your name be there?

Sign the petition to Google: Take human rights seriously and drop Dragonfly forever.

We know that Google can be forced to put ethics and morals first -- it’s a corporation full of people after all. Last year Google employees forced the company not to renew its US Department of Defense contract in which it was helping the US government analyse drone footage using artificial intelligence.

In the wake of that, Google’s leading executives promised that they would never use AI technology to harm others.

And SumOfUs members have a track record working in solidarity with the Tibetan people to make huge global brands act. Last summer, together we made Liverpool FC drop its sponsorship deal with Tibet Water -- a Chinese company that owes its profits to the repression, torture and denial of political freedoms in Tibet.

Let’s do that again and make Google support freedom of speech and human rights -- and not help the government of China in its repressive mission.

Sign the petition

Thanks for all that you do,
Sondhya and the team at SumOfUs


More information:

Tiananmen Square: China steps up curbs on activists for 30th anniversary, The Guardian, 9 May 2019
China Uighurs: All you need to know on Muslim 'crackdown', BBC, 8 November 2018
Shareholders call for Google’s parent company to be broken up, The Telegraph, 1 May 2019
Google's censored search would help China 'be more open,' said ex-ceo Eric Schmidt, The Intercept, 14 May 2019
Inside Google's Civil War, Fortune, 17 May 2019


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