That certainly seems to be drawing a causal link between the picture being taken / Tweeted, and the firing. Is that not accurate or are there details that I haven't understood?
I would agree with you if it wasn't clear that the entire purpose of the Tweet (with picture) was public shaming. She knew the audience (her thousands of followers) and she knew their possible (even likely) reaction. That was the whole point. She took a semi-public, fundamentally local act and made it completely public and potentially global. That does not seem to be a proportionate reaction to the offense.
She should have known about the public fallout this could have on the employees and their employer. As a PR professional Adria Richards is / ought to be fully aware of what she puts out into the world and the potential consequences of putting it out there.
"PyCon met with the individuals at the time, who apologized for their vulgar remarks." But not before Adria Richards had already tweeted a picture of the offenders. Neither were given a chance to apologize before Adria Richards made the split-second decision to go completely public.
Isn't it really "As a result of my manager firing me, I was let go from my job today"?
Or even "As a result of my shameful actions at PyCon, I was let go from my job today"?
Do you blame the reporter in all circumstances? If you hear about Texas executing a murderer, do you think to yourself "it's the fault of the person who reported that crime that that man was executed"? Or do you think the state of Texas and possibly the person's own actions may have had something to do with it?
What witch hunt? The fired developer has literally never even been identified publicly. To this day.
Well, no. Because some manager somewhere decided to do something, something happened. Ms. Richards had nothing to do with it. It is really fascinating how you've avoided putting the slightest blame on the employer here. What ability does Ms. Richards have to control the employer's employment actions?
Your statement is also utterly false. PyCon met with the individuals at the time, who apologized for their vulgar remarks. Of course, the one then later posted to HN, apologizing again but blaming his woes on Richards instead of his dumb employer, which started the whole witch-hunt, so perhaps his apology was not entirely sincere.
In case you aren't used to thinking in these terms, the legal profession provides some guides. One of them is proximate cause. Was the action of calling an action "not cool" sufficiently close to the action of a person Ms. Richards never met or spoke to in firing the developer as to be the cause of that firing? And further, was the result reasonably foreseeable by an average person at the time? Does it often happen that calling something "not cool" results in the object of the remark being fired?