There are at least two assholes involved in this story. If there were only one there would be no story.
I think exposing what people say in the open (not private but also not quite public) isn't exactly something someone who works at google should be complaining about. If "stuff you do online can come back to haunt you" shocks you then you probably shouldn't be working at google (except perhaps as a contractor with no benefits, right?)
Really? Ok, lets think about it, one of them tells his opinion about certain topic on a chat system which has very small community. Once he notices something fishy going on there, he mutes the other person.
The other one has different thoughts about the same topic and tries to get contradicting opinion. Than writes a blog about it in a manner that shows how bad and unfair that opinion is, even though that is really arguable topic.
And yet we end up with having to assholes. Quite a careless use of words I would say.
I don't like any of the three participants in the story from this telling of it. Googler expressed fairly unpleasant views, blogger was petty personal and nasty in how he wrote up the story and DO overstepped the mark for an infrastructure service in taking it down. I don't see any winners or heroes here but I don't feel the need to call any of them arseholes either.
I think exposing what people say in the open (not private but also not quite public) isn't exactly something someone who works at google should be complaining about. If "stuff you do online can come back to haunt you" shocks you then you probably shouldn't be working at google (except perhaps as a contractor with no benefits, right?)