(from Multiplying matrices and vectors - Math Insight)
Lets say that x is the input and A is the weights. If you want to remove the effect of any input from the total, setting it to zero results in the multiplication to be zero and therefore to not change the result of the sum.
It does indeed have the same effect, so it should work, and it doesn’t really matter if you zero your inputs or the appropriate weight row. But zeroing the inputs makes more sense.