Male Feminist Kills Himself After Being Falsely Accused of Sexual Misconduct

The story was originally published on Infobae, an Argentinian news outlet which Wikipedia does not indicate is a clickbait/fake news site.

I mention that because some of these foreign sites are entirely in the fake news business. This one doesn't seem to be.

My limited Spanish vocabulary, combined with cognates, tells me this Pluralist article fairly represents the information in the original Infobae article.

"My son died yesterday with his heart broken."

A teenage boy killed himself last week after his female friend accused him of sexual abuse, and then retracted the claim.

According to the Argentinian news site Infobae, it started in December, when Agustin Munoz, 18, marched with other young people through the center of his native Bariloche to protest violence against women. The demonstrators chanted: "Never again, never silent."

At one point in the march, names of alleged sexual abusers were read off in a public shaming. Munoz's name was announced to the crowd because his friend, a fellow feminist who was identified only as A., had reported him.

"In the middle of that march, they shouted his name, and he was stunned," Munoz's mother, Silvina Castaneda, told the Bariloche 2000 news site. "His first thought was to run home."

After her son explained what happened, Castaneda said, she contacted the female friend, who immediately admitted the allegation and apologized. Castaneda angrily posted online the woman's text and voice mess-sages asking for forgiveness.

The Infobae article posts the texts, and they do indicate that the accuser confessed she'd lied and begged forgiveness.

However, the mother doesn't disclose the name of the accuser, saying she wants to protect her from the shaming that she would be, in turn, exposed to.

This is why I'm defensive about posting that -- I would think a mother would not protect the identity of an admitted false accuser who shamed her son into suicide.

That said, I assume that the basics of the story have been verified -- the kid who killed himself is named. Given that Wikipedia seems to think this is a legit news operation, it could not have failed to verify that much.

posted by Ace of Spades at 12:32 PM

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