Free speech absolutists can still have opinions, criticize others, and choose who to associate with. They're not advocating for censorship or legal penalties for speech.

Yep. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." and similar such sentiments.

One can publicly declare a speaker to be a wrongheaded pig that all decent people should ignore, but that's a wholly different thing from ensuring that said pig is unable to utter its wrongheaded ideas in public.