Google want investors to allow them to implement censorship

Google want investors to allow them to implement censorship

Search engine giant Google seems to be under intense pressure from governments around the world to bow down to their demands.

The company’s board of directors is now recommending their shareholders to vote down a proposal that would require them to legally resist government censorship efforts.

Google would also be then required to notify users when they decide to censor results on their services as per the local government’s demands.

The proposal was originally submitted by Google’s stakeholder New York City’s Office of the Comptroller. They hold around 486,617 shares of Google stock which are worth about $228.2 million.

Google has been facing intense criticism for their decision to censor results on their Chinese search engine due to pressure from the Chinese government. Experts claim that this goes against their corporate mantra ‘don’t be evil’.

Schmidt at that time had said: “We concluded that although we weren’t wild about the restrictions, it was even worse to not try to serve those users at all. We actually did an evil scale and decided not to serve at all was worse evil.”

The proposal from their investors had said: “Technology companies in the United States such as Google, that operate in countries controlled by authoritarian governments have an obligation to comply with the principles of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.” They also named countries including Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam where the government censors the internet.