A fork for the time-zone database?

No, independently of whatever happened before or after there or elsewhere, that is not a "bad look" but the healthy and necessary response to a grave mistake (assuming the article comes anywhere close to describing the real situation). It is a good look that this concern exists, even if other concerns are perhaps lacking.

Pre-1970 data is still important (even if not to everyone, as otherwise it could just be removed completely), and you simply cannot take valid data for whole countries away or out of sight, and replace it with invalid data. You cannot even think of doing that as long as there is any other option at all.