Gedaliah ben Achikam was killed because he refused to listen to ladshon hara that someone was trying to kill him. The passuk in Melachim 2 takes him to task by blaming all the deaths that resulted from his murder on him. So the general rule about leto’eles is what I call the Gedaliah ben achikam litmus test- if Gedaliah followed the claimed rule and would still be dead, then it’s clearly not the right understanding of to’eles.
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