I can’t speak on behalf of Klal Yisroel, but I’m mochel whatever I can be mochel on.
Please take encouragement from the Hakdama to Sefer Chafetz Chaim where he says:
“In summary, one’s Yetzer Hara will push him in either one of two directions; either to rationalize the circumstance so that he comes to believe that what he is saying is not LH at all, or that the Torah did command us against speaking LH about this kind of person.”
Since you are not doing either of those, you can be confident that you have escaped from the Yetzer Hara.