"If there's smoke, there's fire" is an antiquated mindset that has absolutely no basis in reality now social media is a thing - it has never been easier to plant dirt on someone who has done absolutely nothing wrong, and use that to create a successful defamation campaign. Performative social justice is in fashion, and if you even vaguely imply that someone might be a flawed human while presenting yourself or a person with diversity points as the victim then people who know nothing about the situation will "signal boost" your attempts at destroying their career uncritically, because that's what they've been conditioned to do. Hell I'd bet most people who retweet those "My Experience With x" twitlongers don't even fucking read them, they just enjoy the shot of dopamine they get from being a Good Person.
This kind of shit means it is absolutely possible, and in most cases very likely, that the smoke you see has no fire attached, which is especially fucked up because even if someone who's followed by vague rumours is in a rare position where they can prove their own innocence beyond reasonable doubt, it can still fuck with their career and cost them opportunities. Other people see the drama that was created through no fault of their own as baggage, and don't want to deal with a hundred 16-year-olds a day pestering them about working with le heckin' toxic problematic bully/abuser/rapist/paedophile etc..