If it's any consolation, I think the human PR was fine and the attacks are completely unwarranted, and I like to believe most people would agree.

Unfortunately a small fraction of the internet consists of toxic people who feel it's OK to harass those who are "wrong", but who also have a very low barrier to deciding who's "wrong", and don't stop to learn the full details and think over them before starting their harassment. Your post caused "confusion" among some people who are, let's just say, easy to confuse.

Even if you did post the bot, spamming your site with hate is still completely unwarranted. Releasing the bot was a bad (reckless) decision, but very low on the list of what I'd consider bad decisions; I'd say ideally, the perpetrator feels bad about it for a day, publicly apologizes, then moves on. But more importantly (moral satisfaction < practical implications), the extra private harassment accomplishes nothing except makes the internet (which is blending into society) more unwelcoming and toxic, because anyone who can feel guilt is already affected or deterred by the public reaction. Meanwhile there are people who actively seek out hate, and are encouraged by seeing others go through more and more effort to hurt them, because they recognize that as those others being offended. These trolls and the easily-offended crusaders described above feed on each other and drive everyone else away, hence they tend to dominate most internet communities, and you may recognize this pattern in politics. But I digress...

In fact, your site reminds me of the old internet, which has been eroded by this terrible new internet but fortunately (because of sites like yours) is far from dead. It sounds cliche but to be blunt: you're exactly the type of person who I wish were more common, who makes the internet happy and fun, and the people harassing you are why the internet is sad and boring.