I will never understand the pearl clutching that goes on when things like this happen.
As a person you are judged constantly by others, as a public figure this increases exponentially. You are judged on everything: the clothing you wear, the way you speak, and yes, the company you keep. In the age of social media influencing, each of us has a platform built upon the platform we choose. Each of us via that platform can spread influence, be it marketing, ideas, or (dis)information.
If you utilize your platform upon a platform (or just your platform) to spread bad ideas, purported by bad people, it is a perfectly rational reaction by your audience to reclaim the social capital they have given you. This is not wrong. This is not censorship. This is how social networks have worked since long before any of us had a smart phone, or indeed, when the social network was a fire in a cave, we have operated this way.
And reading this summation, yeah that sounds about right. It sounds as if he is embroiled in a social space that is spreading bad ideas. He has denounced one person who was in that social space, but he is still in contact with two others spreading similar ideas. This calls into question the sincerity of his denouncement.
I.e. if you say you're done drinking, and resolve to quit, and refuse to spend time with your alcoholic friend, but still spend time around two others who drink regularly, people would be right to question your sincerity in that resolve.
> If you link to someone who supports X, then you're actually supporting every other person who has ever supported X? Link to a pro-vegan website, you must support every terrible ideology that has had at least one vegetarian supporter?
This impulse to boil this activity into a set of always absurd sounding "rules" is probably comforting to those who would call themselves Rationalist, the sorts who fetishize facts and logic, while usually having a dearth of both in the things they say. But ultimately this isn't hard to understand: If you associate with people known to believe and spread bad things, you will in turn be viewed as possibly endorsing those things.
And all of this comes up against the simple and obvious truth that all someone in this position has to do is speak what so many would like to hear; that they didn't understand what this person was doing, that it isn't what they believe, and to create distance. But they won't. I wonder why?