The debate which you outline is not a new one. And while the two sides may seem to have comparable efficacy, it also seems that those who hold their principles strongly abhor even the thought of working on terrible products like this one. And it seems glaringly obvious that those on the "work within the system" side are rationalizing away their immoral behavior in favor of their perks, status, salary, etc, on the off chance that they "work within the system to change it".

If you're making a huge salary at Google, and you value that, and working there for x more years will net you an even huger salary, what are the chances that you start to work against it from the inside at that point, if you're not already doing it now? It ain't gonna get easier. You're not gonna become more of an outsider/breath of fresh air.

People who honestly hold strong principles are usually focused on doing whatever they can to achieve their goals. Many times the best way to do that is by working within the system.

Think of things like the Civil Rights Act... it was passed by people with conviction that worked within the system (or at least some of them worked within the system)

Were the congresspeople who pushed the law through hypocrites because they worked within a system that was horribly oppressive towards minorities?

No, but that system's intent was never to be horribly oppressive to minorities and so working within it was not contradictory to the system's values. Oppression was a byproduct of other factors (the racism and classism of individuals). Google's very existence relies on making profits, and its profits come from ads served in search (and adwords, mainly). Working to stop Google from expanding into as juicy a market as the chinese one is diametrically opposed to the goals of the system. That's why I don't find these things to be comparable.

Edit: though I do see how the "individuals" argument can be used in both directions - I'm essentially arguing that google and its ilk are fundamentally tainted by their business models, in a way that the US government never was.

I think it is a bit of a stretch to say that selling ads inherently makes you 'tainted'... it seems that your argument would apply to every business? Are you arguing that every business is inherently bad and we should work for no business?

Every business exists to make money, and China is a huge market for all of them, so wouldn't they all have the same problem?

I know some people make that argument, but it is a pretty extreme view.

Most of them don't operate at the scale that google does, or have the amount of stakeholders that google does (and therefore don't need to expand into the chinese market aggressively). And yes, an organization whos goal is to make boatloads of money _is_ fundamentally morally tainted when that goal directly conflicts with taking what we'd call ethical action.

"working within the system to change it" when its barreling in the opposite direction from the one you desire seems a highly dubious choice at best.