For goodness sake, when are people going to understand that freedom of expression doesn't (and shouldn't) mean freedom from criticism. This is not a difficult concept people.
The internet has become too much of 4chan the last few years.
Whether or not those causes lead to escalation seems to depend on the subject matter and participants, just like anything else really.
The most recent example was someone suggesting putting a famous woman's face on the next UK pound note and getting such threats.
Borders to extortion or unfair competition, in my eyes.
Eich wasn't the CEO of 'JavaScript', so that's not really the same thing, is it?
It's also much easier being an homophobe engineer rather than a homophobe CEO, because of the nature of the role. His technical achievements can be as impressive as you want and have no relation to his homophobia; being CEO is a role built on public relationships inside and outside the company, relationships that would be severely influenced by his (perceived) homophobia.
The only thing I've seen that 'crossed the line' so to speak was the okcpuid thing urging users to stop using Firefox. I didn't see exactly what the message was. It sounded more like a marketing stunt to get some media attention. I think if it had been other people/companies targeted then people on HN would have been applauding their disruptive and entrepreneurial marketing department.
There once was a day when "witch hunt" actually referred to strapping live human beings to kindling and setting them ablaze.
Naturally.
What if people decided they're not cool with people who engage in witch hunts having jobs anymore? Doesn't matter because it won't happen? That's not morality though.
I'm not privy to what happened within Mozilla, but it does sound like it was internal disagreements (i.e. Mozilla employees begin unhappy with the appointment) that lead to him leaving the post, more than bloggers or HN commenters. That is just the nature of taking a leadership role. If you can't take the staff with you then your position isn't tenable.
Since his role had exactly zero to do with his personal views, you could say this about any future job as well.