So? Then they are wrong as well then, at least in that particular, their eminence notwithstanding. Appealing to authority makes your position no more tenable.
Principles that are abandoned when under duress are no principles at all.
I'm seeing variants of this thrown around a lot here, but I don't see people engaging with tptacek's point, at least to my reading of it.
Let me turn this around. When corporations choose to get actively political, like Chick-Fil-A's support of anti-gay groups and Ben & Jerry's support of Black Lives Matter, should we not take that into account when we decide whether to do business with them? I don't think you'd make that argument, because really, it's not a very sound one. It's not a very sound one to say that we are compromising our principles if we share our stance on those corporations with others and try to get them to come around to our point of view, either, is it?
So why does it suddenly become sound in this case?
"try to get them to come around to our point of view" sounds genteel but rather understates the ferocity of the persuasion, don't you think?
In any case, the Wikipedia article on shunning sums it up nicely:
Some aspects of shunning may also be seen as being at odds with civil rights or human rights, especially those behaviours that coerce and attack. When a group seeks to have an effect through such practices outside its own membership, for instance when a group seeks to cause financial harm through isolation and disassociation, they can come at odds with their surrounding civil society, if such a society enshrines rights such as freedom of association, conscience, or belief.
Principles that are abandoned when under duress are no principles at all.