I would argue that the word is exactly right. Everyone who has been paying attention for the last four years knows the playbook. It's been literally dozens of times:

A bunch of NGOs or "government officials" make a ruckus, a handful of previously unknown people (usually women) make an accusation. No evidence besides "anonymous sources" and the whole nine yards. Days later, turns out it's all made up. That happened with almost every single one of "these" stories.

Unfortunately HN is currently even more politically charged than normal, so political stories survive since everyone is ignoring the rules. So a lie makes it into the minds of thousands. The later revealed truth is censored again, closing the circle.

That happened with multiple covid stories here (like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22730165 ) as well as political ones. I think HN should either enforce the rules, or push the following updates to the same spot on the site as the original lies.