More than 200 engineers, designers and managers at Alphabet Inc.'s Google demanded in an open letter on Tuesday that the company end development of a censored search engine for Chinese users, escalating earlier protests against the secretive project.
Google has described the search app, known as Project Dragonfly, as an experiment not close to launching. But as details of it have leaked since August, current and former employees, human rights activists and U.S. lawmakers have criticized Google for not taking a harder line against the Chinese government's policy that politically sensitive results be blocked.
Human rights group Amnesty International also launched a public petition on Tuesday calling on Google to cancel Dragonfly.