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Notes -
That’s the malice.
There’s no confirmation - there’s a false question of safety.
I have limited experience with Machiavellian manipulation, but my understanding is that the normal pattern is for the cackling villain to tell everyone that X is abusing Y except Y. This is because Y is the one person who has the knowledge and the credibility to publically debunk the false accusation, and it's in the villain's interest for that to be delayed as long as possible.
I suppose it's entirely possible there was such a villain upstream of the people calling.
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