The author doesn't indicate what the supposed violation was. Does Google not even say which part of the content was alleged to be the problem?
Someone protesting? Charge them for brwaking the law fuve years ago that noone understands.
Employee speaking out? Fire them for breaking company policy on something random, company policy that no-one follows.
Transparent law enforcement has never succeeded anywhere. (The US makes the laws notionally "transparent" but written so broadly that they apply to everyone, and the opaque part is under prosecutorial discretion, but in practice it's very much the same mechanism as what the likes of e.g. China do)
This complete hyperbole. While transparency can make some rules easier to dodge, it doesn't necessarily make those rules completely ineffective. There are also different types of rules that are more or less sensitive to transparency.
It is thus definitely possible to design abuse prevention systems that, while not perfect, do function in a transparent environment.
For example, a level of non transparency is important for criminal investigations, many criminal trials can be completely transparent and expose previously secret details of the investigation. All criminal trials must have a certain level if transparency because fair trials are impossible if you are told the evidence that is used against you.
If this was Google's The Process, Joseph K. would have been told he cannot know the exact nature of his crime, because that would allow him to subvert "The Algorithm."