What do Chinese internet users think of Google’s ‘Dragonfly’ project? · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Image: Badiucao.
After deflecting questions from reporters for months, CEO Sundar Pichai acknowledged in October 2018 Google’s plan to build “Dragonfly,” a censored search engine app that would serve Chinese users.
But on December 5, in a hearing before the US House Judiciary Committee, Pichai described the development of Dragonfly as an “internal effort” and said that the company currently had no plans to launch a search service in China.
When asked if he was committed to launching “a tool for surveillance and censorship in China”, Pichai declined to answer. He instead told legislators that he is committed to “providing users with information, and so we always — we think it’s ideal to explore possibilities. […] We’ll be very thoughtful, and we will engage widely as we make progress.”
His answer echoed a pro-Dragonfly letter, circulated anonymously among Google staff before the House hearing, and subsequently published on Tech Crunch:
Dragonfly is well aligned with Google’s mission. China has the largest number of Internet users of all countries in the world, and yet, most of Google’s services are unavailable in China. This situation heavily contradicts our mission, “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. While there are some prior success [sic], Google should keep the effort in finding out how to bring more of our products and services, including Search, to the Chinese users…In any case, only with continuing efforts on Dragonfly can we learn how different approaches may work out in China, and find out if there is a way that is good for both the Chinese users and Google. Even if we fail, the findings can still be useful for bringing other services to China.
Around mid-October, when Pichai confirmed the development of the censored search engine, several technology and business news outlets — including Startup Media and Computer Post — reported the news on Sina Weibo, highlighting the positive aspects of Google’s Chinese plan:
【谷歌CEO谈重回中国市场：保护隐私，遵守法律】谷歌CEO皮查伊表示，谷歌公司的目标是把信息传递给每一个人，中国拥有庞大的用户数量，中国市场十分重要。谷歌正在研发一个新项目，遵守所法律法规的同时可以为中国用户解决99%的问题。比方说接受癌症治疗，有人找到的是假的癌症治疗的方法，我们希望能帮助他们找到有用的信息。
[Google CEO on return to Chinese market: Protect privacy, follow rule of law] Google CEO Pichai said Google’s mission is to bring information to everyone. China has a huge number of users and the Chinese market is very important. Google is developing a new project so that it can follow the rule of law and regulations on the one hand, while helping Chinese users to solve 99% of their queries. For example, cancer treatment. People get fake cancer treatment information; we wish to help them find reliable information.
Despite these positive overtones, opinions in China remain divided. About half of the ensuing comments welcomed Pichai’s take, likely due in part to public resentment of Baidu, the country’s most popular search engine, which is incorporated in China:
快来吧，在百度搜啥都是广告，第一页绝对是广告，我们要抵制百度！
Come back quick. Searches on Baidu are ads, the first page is definitely ads. We have to boycott Baidu!
快上吧，对百度假信息已够了！
Come quick, so fed up with misinformation on Baidu.
But there were many skeptical voices on Weibo too:
保护隐私？那你怕是进不来了
Protect privacy? Definitely you can’t return.
回来也是简化版的百度，该不让看的还是不让看
Even if [Google] managed to return, it would be another version of Baidu; what can’t be seen will not be seen.
我宁愿翻墙
I prefer circumventing the GFW [Great Firewall of China].
回来跟百度狗抢饭碗，谷歌自己的6000员工都联合起来抵制这个项目的，真新喜欢谷歌的人打心底不希望它们变成一个和谐版进入大陆市场
Return to compete with Baidu…Google’s own employees have boycotted the project. For those who really like Google, they don’t want to see it having a censored version for the China market.
Just before Australia-based Chinese  political cartoonist Badiucao cancelled his exhibition in Hong Kong and discontinued posting on Twitter, due to threats from Beijing, he opened a Twitter poll about Google’s return to China and invited other Twitter users to comment:
谷歌配合审查，重回中国是好是坏？大家都请在回复中写原因。
— 巴丢草 Badiucao (@badiucao) October 17, 2018
Is it good or bad for Google to cooperate with censors and return to China? Please write down your reason by replying to this thread.
As many as 857 people voted, with 18 per cent expressing support for the return and 65 per cent opposing it. The majority of Dragonfly project supporters believe the censored search engine could serve the needs of Chinese Internet users.
Twitter user @zhizhi_ma’s reply was typical of this argument:
三四线，乃至二线城市，大部分群众甚至能轻信传销的鬼话，对这样的大多数人而言，对路上扫地的大妈，对经营着小小面馆的老板，有一个能正确指导生活的搜索引擎，身体不适就能正确就医，而不被假药之流所苦，较之所谓美好的自由，孰轻孰重？
这样的群众才是大陆，你的忧国忧民可曾忧到过他们？
People in third and fourth tier cities or even second tier cities [cities in China are categorised into three levels], they believe all sorts of lies presented by pyramid schemes. A search engine can generate reliable information about daily necessities for these majority groups — the elderly women who clean up the street, the small noodle shop owner — so that they can find the right doctor rather than taking fake medicine. Isn’t this more important than the alluring freedom? These groups of people represent mainland China. Your concern about China and Chinese people barely addresses their needs.
But this rationale may be overstating the social impact of Google search.
As Twitter user @chutsetien pointed out, apart from Baidu, there are other reliable search engines in China, such as Microsoft’s Bing.com:
谷歌搜索在中国大陆的市占比当年就不高，而且「墙」内目前已有 Bing 等非百度搜索可用，那个拿「三四线城市居民健康与安全」做为支持理由的，实在是荒唐地站不住脚。我真的无法不怀疑你是政府的水军。而且：Google 也不排斥在搜索引擎上投放广告，并且卖假药一事 Google 也干过。
Google’s market share in China was not big [before it left China]. Moreover, inside the GFW we had many alternative search engines such as Bing. Citing the health and security concerns of people from third and fourth tier cities is absurd and cannot be justified. Such arguments are similar to the [Chinese] government’s Internet water army [online promoters of government positions]. Moreover, Google sells ads on its search engine. Google was also caught in the controversy over the proliferation of fake medicine sites on its search engine.
And there is reason to believe that if Google's search engine were to have a positive impact on China, Chinese authorities would step in and nip it the bud. As Twitter user @TechyanWP argued:
在审查机构的操作中，他们更在乎的是影响力而非法律也非“老外在中国老不老实”。Line曾经在中国很火，且在屏蔽前夕跟微信分庭抗礼。结果就墙了。Discord被墙前夕被郭文贵下面的人大肆用于宣传。而Skype和Whatsapp还活着。
For censorship authorities, the concern is not about legality nor about the submissive nature of the foreigners. LINE [a communications app] was once very popular in China; before it was blocked, it could challenge WeChat's monopoly. Then it was blocked. Discord [a voice and text chat application for gamers] was used by Guo Wengui [the exiled Chinese tycoon] and his supporters to disseminate information before it was blocked. Skype and WhatsApp [which were not popular in China] are still available.
Baidu's monopoly status in China is guaranteed by the Chinese government. Like the majority of the Chinese tech giants, Baidu follows censorship orders from the authorities, grants cybersecurity police access to user data, and has set up Chinese Communist Party branches within the corporation.
If Google’s censored search engine is not the only alternative, and authorities refuse to allow it to have a significant impact on Chinese society, the Dragonfly project may become more of a symbolic act — a global IT giant paying tribute to China's data dictatorship, in pursuit of greater profits. The concession of universal values will never come to an end, just as Twitter user ANTatAries predicted:
中共会将此举视为谷歌低头，那么下一步是什么？把中国用户的数据放到云上贵州？还是像微信一样全面监控。只能说，一步退步步退。另外也不要拿苹果微软来说事，因为那两家公司在中国的故事也远没有完结，未来会咋样还不知道呢
The Chinese Communist party sees the project as Google’s act of kowtow. What will be the next step? Moving Chinese user data to Guizhou’s cloud server [following Apple]? Or accepting comprehensive surveillance measures following WeChat’s example? You take one step back and you can only move backward. Moreover, don’t use Apple and MSN as your model. The story of these two corporations in China has not yet come to an end. No one can foretell their future.