Former Google officer states he was ‘sidelined’ after promoting human rights program

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“Each time I recommended a human rights program, senior executives came up with an excuse to say no,” Ross LaJeunesse composed in a post on Medium.


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Google’s previous head of global relations stated Thursday the search huge pressed him out after he defended the execution of an official human rights program at the business. 

Ross LaJeunesse, who is now running for the Senate as a Democrat in Maine, was an essential gamer in performing Google’s choice to leave the search market in China in 2010. The business stated it would no longer censor search results page in the nation, and, at the time, Google co-founder Sergey Brin mentioned the “totalitarianism” of the Chinese federal government as a factor for taking out of the marketplace. 

LaJeunesse stated he once again discovered himself protecting human rights in China after he found out in 2017 of a task called Dragonfly, an effort to bring a censored search item back to China. In reaction, he recommended the adoption of a company-wide human rights program, which would openly dedicate Google to particular concepts, in addition to permit item and engineering groups to look for human rights evaluations of their jobs. 

“But each time I recommended a human rights program, senior executives came up with an excuse to say no,” LaJeunesse composed in a post on Medium. “I then realized that the company had never intended to incorporate human rights principles into its business and product decisions. Just when Google needed to double down on a commitment to human rights, it decided to instead chase bigger profits and an even higher stock price.”

LaJeunesse stated he was “sidelined” after his push for the program, and another person was appointed to lead the policy conversations for Dragonfly. LaJeunesse, who began at Google in 2008, left the business in April, according to The Washington Post. 

Google on Thursday rejected that the business reassigned LaJeunesse based upon his lobbying for a human rights program.

“We have an unwavering commitment to supporting human rights organizations and efforts,” a spokesperson stated. “That commitment is unrelated to and unaffected by the reorganization of our policy team, which was widely reported and which impacted many members of the team. As part of this reorganization, Ross was offered a new position at the exact same level and compensation, which he declined to accept.”

LaJeunesse’s remarks Thursday come as Google handles extreme chaos. The business is under antitrust examination from state and federal authorities. 

Tensions likewise continue to intensify in between Google management and rank-and-file staff members. Activists within the search giant have actually objected choices by management, consisting of the finalizing of an expert system agreement with the Pentagon and Google’s treatment of suppliers and specialists. Most especially, 20,000 staff members left of their workplaces in November 2018 to oppose management’s handling of sexual attack claims.