Not the same things AT ALL.

Stories 1 and 3 are about one fantasist who managed to trick a bunch of regular news outlets.

Story 2 is about a single flawed report from the BBC.

You can sit back and complain that not enough checking is being done by reporters and editors at mainstream media sites, and you would be right; the pressure is always on reporters and editors to get the story out and move on to the next one; the news cycle has got shorter and at the same time budgets have got tighter.

But an occasional failing to meet high standards like that is a million miles away from deliberately setting up a ring of supposedly independent web sites with the intent of pushing lies 24x7 and carefully calculating how to get as many people as possible to believe in those lies.