Project Dragonfly: Google is reportedly building a censored search engine in China

Google is planning to launch a censorship-friendly version of its search engine via an app in China, following the company’s blacklisted exit from the country in 2010.

Codenamed Dragonfly, reports from the Intercept suggest the project has been in the works for a while but received a significant boost after Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai met with Chinese government officials.

The app will comply with China’s strict censorship laws, restricting access to content that the Chinese government believes to be unsuitable such as information about freedom of speech, anticommunism and George Orwell novels.

Examples cited in confidential Google documents of potential filters include articles by the BBC and Wikipedia, where the results will be removed from the page and a disclaimer will announce that “some results have been removed due to statutory requirements”.

The move makes sense for Google, whose Android operating system is used on roughly 51 per cent of all devices in China. The tech giant was fined £3.8bn earlier this month by the European Commission, after an investigation found Google had forced developers to pre-install products like its search engine on Android devices.

According to the Intercept, Google has roughly 200 people working on Dragonfly.

Though companies have often faced criticism for attempting to work around China’s censorship laws, US tech giants have been nothing but eager to make a statement in the country.

Facebook was reported to be setting up a subsidiary in China at the beginning of June, in a move which has since been squashed after Chinese regulators rejected the social media site’s application.

A spokesperson for Google has been contacted for comment.

Google’s other presences in China include an artificial intelligence lab in Beijing, and several investments into Chinese firms like JD.com.