I don't think the "character assassination" is meant to be any statement on whether the claims are true. Regardless of that question, there seems to be an attempt to impersonate and misrepresent Appelbaum, an attempt to mislead about that attempt, and a collection of threats and other statements made under false claims of support from the primary complainants.

There are two different events here: the claims, which if unproved are certainly credible; and an effort to impersonate and mislead which is troubling no matter how the first issue stands.

Well, he didn't back up the plagiarism claims he repeats either, mentioned emails "from Jake and important CCC people" without quoting those emails, mentioned notes he didn't even take photos of for some reason, and says nothing about any sexual conduct, or what exactly he said to whom and in what way he was claimed to be the troublemaker. It's not very verbose in many parts I would like it to be more verbose about.

For me, that people (I don't know at all) trust Nick Farr (whom I don't know at all) about Appelbaum (whom I don't know at all) being a sociopath is certainly something I wouldn't easily dismiss, but it's also not something I can go by, you know? One thing I notice about the story is how short it is, and that Nick didn't answer my questions to it. That's literally the only interaction I have and it's negative, so there. What I consider a much stronger "signal" is that nobody who knows Jake personally came out saying what a great and prude guy he is, to exaggerate. That I did notice.

And even if the claims are true, it's still orchestrated character assassination in a way (even that is putting it mildly, that is, not the full picture, considering the "TimeToDieJake" account and the image with a guillotine) since "rapist, plagiarist, sociopath" is now supposed to be his tagline. Trying to push that in an orchestrated fashion is character assassination, not in the sense of totally fabricating things out of thin air, but certainly in the sense of taking some truth, mixing in a lot of hyperbole and uncertainty and making a huge hammer and a virtual death sentence out of it.