Certainly many people have recanted and that's great, but many others haven't; lots of influential people (including celebrities) are doubling down on their dem

Certainly many people have recanted and that's great, but many others haven't; lots of influential people (including celebrities) are doubling down on their demonization of these teenagers (in some cases, including calls for doxxing and physical violence) to the tune of tens of thousands of upvotes and likes per post/tweet/etc. Worse, virtually every mainstream publication that wrote about the story led with misinformation, and many failed to publish a retraction or an apology of any kind. And the retractions that actually do get published will never be circulated as widely as the original sensationalist publication ("lies travel faster than the truth" and all that jazz). The entire journalism industry failed at its principle responsibilities--to defer knee-jerk reactions in pursuit of the truth and to see past stereo-types and identity to the individual and the nuanced context. And the consequence was that dozens of students, family, and school faculty were harassed, slandered, and threatened. The only relief in all of this is that no one has acted on their threats. I don't know how any decent person can call this a passably-functioning system. This is the textbook example of a deeply broken system.