Lucy Wark
Google has never wanted to be an ordinary company. From its original motto, “Don’t be evil,” to last year’s updated mantra “Do the right thing,” it’s always styled itself as an organization with goals that are both more ambitious and more altruistic than the usual profit-focused corporate motivations. Among the strongest indicators of this mindset is its tech incubator, Jigsaw—launched earlier this year, in conjunction with the company’s reorganization into Alphabet, with the goal of tackling “geopolitical challenges.”
So the world’s second-most valuable corporation is openly trying to influence international affairs. That’s interesting. As a follower of Jigsaw (and one of the approximately five people who finished Julian Assange’s 224-page manifesto on the incubator), I’ve read plenty of conspiracy theories about empire-building—not to mention endless Google press releases regurgitated into puff pieces. But Jigsaw is still not very well understood, and neither are its politics.
And so I went to visit the company’s New York office in Chelsea this summer, featuring, among other things, the largest collection of sparkling waters in human history. I was there to learn more about what Jigsaw is really about. Even more than its specific products, I wanted to get a handle on how the Alphabet incubator sees its own role at a time of great technological and social change—and understand the political philosophy behind its choices.
Jigsaw’s origin story
About six years ago, Google was encountering thorny ethical issues across many of its businesses—for example, how to handle YouTube videos from extremist preachers, and whether to continue cooperating with government censorship efforts in countries like China. And so Jigsaw’s predecessor, the “think/do tank” Google Ideas, was created with the goal of thinking proactively about the relationship between geopolitics and technology. Jared Cohen, a former State Department staffer, was tapped by Google chairman Eric Schmidt to lead the project.
According to a Jigsaw representative, this year’s relaunch recognized an evolution in the technical complexity of the incubator’s products. Google Ideas began with low-tech initiatives, like building an information-sharing network for former violent extremists turned activists. But its newer tools draw more heavily on Alphabet’s computing power and engineering talent.
One such product is Project Shield, which provides human rights activists, election monitors, and independent news organizations with protection against cyberattacks. (At present, the vast majority of Project Shield users are independent news outlets.) Other products include a real-time interactive global map of cyberattacks and a tool for forensic video analysis of violent incidents in war zones. There’s also the Investigative Dashboard, which helps journalists search business databases in order to more easily investigate corruption and money laundering. And the Redirect Method is a new tool that attempts to divert young people from being radicalized online by placing “debunking” videos and sponsored advertising alongside content and searches typically related to the Islamic State.
Using the term “incubator” to describe such efforts might sound odd, but Jigsaw really embraces the model. It retains a large research team similar to a think tank. But as it makes its products available, it entertains in-house, external partner, and for-profit business models—whatever promotes user growth. So far, their traction is hard for outsiders to gauge. Citing users’ security, Jigsaw doesn’t release their numbers or locations.
The Jigsaw philosophy
While these projects are diverse, Jigsaw claims they all spring from a few core values. Put simply, the incubator believes in universal access to the internet. It places great value on the ability of individuals to inform themselves and speak freely; its opposition to government censorship is passionate and canonical. And it sees distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks—often used by governments and opponents to silence journalists by disabling their websites—as a bug in the functioning of the internet.
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