From Croft: "You’d like to think these kinds of companies would be supportive of one another, especially in times like this."
There's an underlying assumption here of some sort of community - or even family - with commensurate obligations. In the eyes of some, Fried has somehow breached a sort of familial allowance, making him the bad guy in their eyes. In the way most people wouldn't generally go first to the police if their teenage cousin stole something from them (but instead work it out among the family), Fried shouldn't have publicly mentioned that GS wronged them, but should have kept it in the family and out of the sight of outsiders.
Except, of course, there's no family here. "Small, web-centric companies" isn't a community, it's just a commonality.
To continue the example above, here's no obligation upon you to cover for some stranger or even acquaintance's theft of your belongings. If you opt to announce where other people can hear you, "Alright, you stole this thing of mine; I want you to bring it back," instead of going to the cops, you've hardly the bully who's handling it wrong - you're being generous.
From Dimon: "I think the problem is still the perception that the GS team is made up of fundamentally bad people, and I assure you that’s not the case."
The fallacy here, that actions are innocent and harmless unless they're carried out by "fundamentally bad people", is very common and just as harmful. A company (or association, or government, or any organization) doesn't have to be staffed by escapees from Mordor to do harmful and abusive things - nor even outright unethical things.
People defending GS from criticism on the grounds that they're obviously not monsters (for heaven's sake!) miss the point that it doesn't take monsters to hurt other people, even in relatively elaborate ways. Human beings rationalize, human beings justify, and human beings miss the forest for the trees.
Put these two attitudes together, and we get the response that Fried should have kept things in the family; after all, those GS kids obviously didn't hurt anyone with their peccadilloes.