I also think Zatt's ban was mischaracterizing his words a bit. I get that the comparison alone is rubbing people the wrong way and that his overzealous Marvel fandom makes people not want to give his intentions any credibility, but regardless of his passion for his issue being filtered through Gunn being fired, I don't disagree with the general sentiment that Gunn was a high profile warning shot for the ensuing battle over Twitter at the moment that we've seen heat up a great deal in the weeks since, whether it's over Gunn, NYT writer Sarah Jeong, or various other people that have had old posts screencapped to try to get them fired. Even the though the timing of Alex Jones/Infowars getting pulled from other platforms is more coincidental in timing, Twitter's defense of him has only fed into the idea that while they may have done very little to curb enabling dangerous people like that on Twitter and instead look sympathetic to their cause.
Many other celebrities and more visible personalities on Twitter had similarly acknowledged how significant Disney caving for a manufactured outrage campaign was and how the political element of the firing couldn't be ignored because it is right at the heart of it all, regardless if they think this event was as significant or not. At the end of the day, Gunn being fired is just one director being removed from a movie and isn't as important in the grand scheme of things as many other things, but it has been a high visibility "win" for the alt-right in the culture war being waged through social media.
Zatt's MeToo comparison really has aged poorly though given that at the time and since then, no one else has been fired in the same zero tolerence way that Gunn had, so that instance wasn't a significant cultural moment that people will look to as a tipping point of the firing sparking our worst fears of Disney or other companies following that example, but I will argue that there is a good chance with how big this story was and how the aftermath has probably made it even bigger with many more details being brought to light that shines a light on how not to handle controversy with a knee-jerk firing, the attention it got (at least in the initial week or so) was a big deal.
It certainly made me re-examine what I thought about social media outrage, the responsibility of companies role in any controversial behavior, the ways in which people manipulate the narrative to attempt some really disgusting character assassination that can take almost anyone's words out of context and have someone believe them, even heads of multibillion dollar companies. But yeah, most have moved on from the Gunn situation, regardless of the impact it had or will still have, especially since news about the situation has cooled down while Disney and Marvel still refuse to acknowledge anything beyond the firing, but I get why people like Zatt, Bautista, and others won't let it go since beyond just being a bummer if Gunn doesn't return to finish Vol. 3, it is bitter win the right was able to get, and there is still a good chance that it won't be the last company to bite the right bait because it doesn't matter how many times they are unsuccessful at taking down people, all they need is a good combination of offensive tweets and a company who can get scared enough to act.
Zatt needs to chill out a bit on the Gunn posting when he gets back though because while I don't quite agree with all his bans recently on the subject, he's gotten banned 3 times over this same thread. That definitely says something.
