You may recall that, when someone blew the whistle on Google Dragonfly, a censored search engine intended for use in China, the public outrage was enough to bring the project to a halt. The same might well have happened to Akamai.
Regardless: this whole attitude strikes me as an overly utilitarian outlook. Yes, if someone else handled the development, the consequences might well have been worse. But it is still wrong to participate in an injustice when you have the opportunity not to do so. "I was just following orders" is a pretty weak excuse.
Again, if the commenter had no other options because they couldn't risk the loss of income, that would be a good reason, but it isn't clear that that was the case.
I think it's pretty naive to assume that this project wouldn't have been used against the Uighur population, given how China has used extensive surveillance against them.
Regardless: this whole attitude strikes me as an overly utilitarian outlook. Yes, if someone else handled the development, the consequences might well have been worse. But it is still wrong to participate in an injustice when you have the opportunity not to do so. "I was just following orders" is a pretty weak excuse.
Again, if the commenter had no other options because they couldn't risk the loss of income, that would be a good reason, but it isn't clear that that was the case.
I think it's pretty naive to assume that this project wouldn't have been used against the Uighur population, given how China has used extensive surveillance against them.