Google might be working on a censored news app for China besides ‘Search’

Recently it was reported that Google is working towards developing a censored version of the Google Search for the Chinese consumers. It was also being said that the tech giant has been working on the conditions given by the Chinese government and is also following the censorship guidelines in the country. Now, some new reports suggest that besides developing a censored version of the Google search, the company is also likely to develop a dedicated app for reading news which will also be a censored version of the app.

The reports come from The Information and it suggests that the news discovery app will follow the Chinese censorship regulations. It is being reported that Google has been working on this plan since 2017 while trying to bring the Chinese regulators on board. The new censored version of the news app will be similar to the ByteDance's Toutiao. The Toutiao is one of the most used news app in China.

It is also being reported that the app will be developed in China itself so that it can comply with the country's censorship regulations. The news app will also utilize AI along with some special algorithms which will suggest the stories to the consumers. This could be a challenging task for the tech giant as it will have to work rigorously to select the content that complies with the Chinese censorship policies. Google will need to monitor the content regularly so that it doesn't get its app banned in China.

It is also expected that the news app will go live before the search app. However, some trade conflicts between the US and China is resulting in the delay of the app's availability. The tech giant is said to have "struggled to further engage" the Chinese regulators for the censorship due to these trade tensions between both the countries. Hence, it is not clear as to when this app will be made available for the users in China. It would be worth the wait to see how Google comes with a solution for this and release its apps that comply with the Chinese censorship guidelines and how well it holds up in the Chinese market.