cough cough did someone say censorship?

What?

RG cheated. RG was punished for cheating. If everyone cheats, the system breaks and that's bad for everyone.

That being said, Google has pretty clear guidelines about what it will accept and what will result in a penalty. RG knowingly broke google's rules. They got penalized. That simple.

If they've got the best content, shouldn't it rise to the top organically? Or is the argument that 'everyone else is doing it, so if we don't do it, our organic rank will be jeopardized'?

I'm not going to stop using Google because they caught someone red handed cheating the system. This is crazy.