Thanks for the explanation, links and references. I found a few free ones (one is https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3590188/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih

Thanks for the explanation, links and references. I found a few free ones (one is https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3590188/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3590188/) since I don't have a subscription for Nature. I'm still not sure where to draw the line between Google, its managers, larger society, and general ethics, in this case, or how to distinguish 'collective altruistic punishment' from 'selfish punishment to forcefully protect interests against challenges'. One thing I'll note is that the case at hand would be the same if it weren't collective, but was only one (probably relatively powerful) person trying to protect themselves from a challenge. A second thing: that the article was a different object when it was widely circulated (not just the same object treated by a large group versus an earlier smaller group).