Former Google exec says he was 'sidelined' as the company refused to implement human rights policies while pushing into China
former head of international relations, Ross LaJeunesse, says he was effectively pushed out last April after 11 years with the company after raising human rights concerns. that he left because he spent two years pressuring Google to implement a comprehensive human rights policy while the company was pushing into China.LaJeunesse said he wasn't fired from Google, but left voluntarily after a reorganization in February eliminated his role at the company.
Former Google head of international relations, Ross LaJeunesse, is now running for US Senate in Maine.LaJeunesse wasn't fired from Google. He said, and the company confirmed to Business Insider, that he left voluntarily after a reorganization in February eliminated his role at the company.
"Each time I recommended a Human Rights Program, senior executives came up with an excuse to say no,"LaJeunesse said he renewed his push for a definitive human rights policy within Google in 2017, as the company prepared to launch a new, censored version of its search engine in China — known internally as Project Dragonfly.
"As someone who had consistently advocated for a human rights-based approach, I was being sidelined from the on-going conversations on whether to launch Dragonfly. I then realized that the company had never intended to incorporate human rights principles into its business and product decisions," he wrote.
The project's intent was to finally launch a version of Google's ubiquitous Search in the country — a version of Google Search that would block certain search terms, including "human rights." Google notoriously pulled out of China in 2010 after discovering an attempted hack by the Chinese government into Google's servers.
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