Joe Perticone/Business Insider
- Google CEO Sundar Pichai was confronted by Alex Jones outside his House Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday.
- Jones accused Pichai and Google of making "global censorship systems" for China's Communist Party, who "killed five times more people than Hitler did."
- In the video shared on Twitter, Jones is heard chanting "Google is evil" as Pichai walks to his hearing.
- Read a full report of the hearing, which focussed on reports that Google will re-enter the Chinese market with the heavily censored Dragonfly search engine.
- Leaked documents quoted by The Intercept say Pichai met with a Chinese state official in December 2017 to discuss the project - on Tuesday he denied he had.
- Dragonfly will reportedly "blacklist websites and search terms about human rights, democracy, religion, and peaceful protest."
Alex Jones followed Sundar Pichai around Congress on Tuesday chanting "Google is evil," and said he built a censored search engine in China for a party which "killed five times more people than Hitler did."
Google CEO Pichai testified in font of the House Judiciary Committee in Congress on Tuesday to answer questions about Google's plans to make a censored search engine for China called Dragonfly, and discuss allegations of anti-conservative bias.
Twitter/Rob Drew
Jones, filmed by associate Rob Dew, followed Pichai down a corridor outside the hearing.
He attacked Pichai for "helping to build censorship systems in China, for a global social score they've tested there to totally control every aspect of our lives."
"They're working with the Communist Chinese," he said, "who killed five-times more than Hitler did."
Jones added: "Google is helping arrest Chinese dissidents, Christians, and Buddhists."
When cautioned by security he said: "They will talk about me in this committee."
Twitter/Rob Drew
Pichai did not respond to any of Jones' comments, but grimaced as he passed Jones in the corridor.
In the hearing Pichai was asked by Congressman David Cicilline whether Google were talking to the Chinese government about launching a search engine, after The Intercept published an article saying Pichai met with a Chinese government official in December 2017.
Pichai said Google wasn't talking to the Chinese government about the project, but had taken steps towards such a product.
But, Pichai did say Google had "taken on an internal effort" and is happy to be transparent about that process.
Cicilline then asked: "Will you, Mr. Pichai, rule out launching a tool for surveillance and censorship in China while you are CEO of Google?"
Pichai replied: "It's in our duty to explore possibilities to give users access to information."
"We'll be very thoughtful and we'll engage wide as we make progress," he said.
In the hearing he said more than 100 Google staff worked on the Dragonfly project, which will reportedly take the form of an Android App, at one point.
Fox News/YouTube
The project, Dragonfly, was exposed by investigations website The Intercept in August, and stated Pichai and a top Chinese government official had in fact met in December 2017 to discuss Google's re-entry into China.
This report contradicts Pichai's statement - that Google and the Chinese state have not made contact - given to the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
The Intercept also said the search engine would "blacklist websites and search terms about human rights, democracy, religion, and peaceful protest," news which generated an out poring of criticism from human rights groups and politicians.
The progress of the search engine had been top top secret, and Google were reportedly furious when a memo detailing plans for Dragonfly was circulated between employees, the report says they were told to delete the memo immediately.
Two months after The Intercept broke the news, Google employees submitted a petition to scrap the search engine.
It said: "We are Google employees, and we join Amnesty International in calling on Google to cancel project Dragonfly, Google's effort to create a censored search engine for the Chinese market that enables state surveillance."
Business Insider asked Google for comment, but has received no response.
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