Perhaps it's inevitable that there is crossover between those passionate about ethics and those who are activists, but there is clearly then a danger that there will - ironically - be a bias in recruitment in ethics teams towards activists.
If they themselves are then recruiting others "that fit in" there is an even greater risk that activists of a particular stripe will be overrepresented on teams like this, which imbalance (especially with regard to corporate culture) will inevitably lead to these sorts of clashes and overreaches.
After this has blown over, Google will do well to look deeply at the potential biases within recruitment in this particular area to ensure diversity of opinion is reflected; and further, that these teams are not siloed (as teams often are) to counter the echo chamber effect that appears possibly to have jumped straight from social media into the working environment here.