In my opinion the truth bears no relevance in regard to this thing. True or not, this is a witchhunt. There are pitchforkes raised and it makes no difference whether any of this is true or not for this whole thing to be a quite drastic cut into the private life of someone. The world is full of scumbag people. Let's say all of this was true, making an example out of anyone never really helped anything, changed anyone or stopped stuff like this from repeating.
Even if I assumed all of this to be true, I still can't see the merit of people dedicating dozens of hours of their lives to this. There have been voiced concerns about false journalism, corruption, pulling favours and all those really concerning things, but guess what, those things are a part of human society. We don't like them and they usually happen in secret, but never have they stopped happening and never will they. Not even in the most dystopian Orwellian future where literally everything is policed stuff like this happening could ever be stopped.
So instead of raising pitchforks, the only proper thing to do is to sharpen one's own sences so that we don't suffer similar fates in our own personal lives. And just as many people will see this story as a hands-on-guide on how to **** over people most successfully. Manipulation is an art form and there's more than enough willing and interested practicioners on this planet.
This whole balloon on the internet about this is just another stern example why I stopped concerning myself with public media altogether. The way media works right now is either reporting someothing which serves someones purpose or not reporting the very same thing out of the very same reason. Nothing of this is about actual information anymore. It's basically just monkeys throwing with excrements, really. Personally I don't want any part in this and although the read was partially interesting, I feel like I wasted three hours of my life.