I get where you're coming from, but you have to consider these comments in context. The article we're commenting on has an entire section (3 paragraphs!) on thi

I get where you're coming from, but you have to consider these comments in context. The article we're commenting on has an entire section (3 paragraphs!) on this specific Google issue, and it was a very widely discussed news story here at the time that it happened. When smcl took issue with mcv claiming that Google was "taking steps backwards", they were implicitly ignoring or disagreeing with the section of the article that outlined how Google was in fact taking steps backwards on the issue. Indeed, if you look at the follow-up response here, smcl very clearly read the section of the article about Google, and just disagrees with the idea that internal harassment and backlash against Dalit activism leading to a planned DEI talk getting canceled constitutes "taking steps backwards", basically on what seems to be trivial semantic grounds (see the follow-up posts by smcl, which basically boil down to either "how can they take steps backwards if they're already bad" or "they're not doing any ACTUAL discrimination, they just had the CEO cancel a planned talk based on complaints from higher caste people"). The argument was already started well before pessimizer did anything, it was just framed implicitly instead of explicitly. Probably they could have responded more charitably here, sure, but frankly I don't think it's correct to categorize "please Google this and actually read the facts about the case before arguing with someone on the internet about it" as "hyper-reactivity". Sometimes people on the internet (occasionally myself included!) really do just look before they leap.