This is a total straw man. The comment you are responding to does not mention "free speech" once.
The point is: you are part of a significant, vocal group that is enjoying using its clout to blackball public figures from the tech industry over certain political views that are only held by a minority in tech. Should any of your views ever put you distinctly in the minority, you will understand why the precedent you are setting is a dangerous one.
A misrepresentation.
Dropbox is being held accountable for associating with a person who has committed certain political actions that had immediate and far-reaching negative consequences on local and global scale.
"In a free society, people can unite in their business ventures even though they might be far apart in how they view the world generally."
This is in contrast with what the author sees as the harrowing implications of user outrage about Rice: ie., an un-free society in which people cannot unite. He describes "rules" as if the mob is somehow enforcing a tyrannical reign over businesses like dropbox.
I'd say it differently: I'm part of a significant, vocal group that has strong opinions about the ethics of its members. This isn't "us against them," it's us holding ourselves to higher standards. The problem isn't that we disagree with Rice. The problem is that when given power she repeatedly took actions that harmed both the united states and the world that many other people knew at the time she shouldn't have taken.
Edit: if what you are saying were true, there wouldn't be any free speech issues in any country besides the United States.
Clearly that is not the case.
What I said was free speech and the First Amendment aren't the same thing.
Are you claiming that they are? If you are, we can have a debate. If not, there's no issue here to debate.
I've found that conversations with people who do that kind of thing are almost never a productive use of my time.
Sorry.
There's a lot at stake here, which is why people are reacting so forcefully. What kind of values does the SV community have? What kind of values do Y Combinator and HN have? People are coming here because HN and Y Combinator very much helped make Dropbox what it is, and if that creation is now paying and giving prestige to a person who has gravely harmed the world, for bad reasons, a lot of people will object and are objecting to that.
A free society has the right to determine what it values. I hope our community decides to value ethics and humanitarianism. One way we can express those values is to speak out against companies that help criminals launder their reputations.