Google is developing a censored news app for China

Google’s recently leaked plans to re-enter the Chinese market doesn’t end with a mobile search engine app. The company is also getting into the (censored) news business.

The Information reports that a news-aggregation app for China, which would be government censor-friendly, is under development at Google. Three sources told The Information that development of this news app began late last year and meetings with Chinese regulators to discuss the app have already been underway.

The Google news app for China would be powered by artificial intelligence, not human editors, and would provide content customized to each user. The Google app is said to closely resemble popular Chinese news reader app Toutiao, which currently has 120 million daily users. There are over 700 million mobile internet users in China.

Yesterday, The Intercept reported on internal Google information provided to them by a whistleblower, on the company’s plans to get back into the China, the largest internet market in the world, with a new censorship-friendly Android search engine app. The news-aggregation app is part of this broader project, known internally as codename “Dragonfly.” Plans call for the news app to be released before the search engine, pending approval by Chinese regulators.

The search giant had previously pulled its search engine out of China in 2010 due to the country’s censorship and surveillance laws, according to Google. Since then, Chinese president Xi Jinping came to power and his ruling party has only made the anti-human rights and free speech policies in the country worse. 

In addition to China’s leadership changes, in 2015, Sundar Pichai became Google’s new CEO. Since then, he’s made his intent to get the company back in China as a major player clear, having met with Chinese officials late last year. 

Since then, the company has been slowly reemerging in the country, with its most recent launch being a sketching game mini app released within Chinese texting app WeChat. A censored Google news app in China would be a significantly more consequential move for the company than a drawing game.