I have continued to question why any FR posts that open a thread should be accepted when the main-post link if for any web site for which you cannot determine who owns it, who runs it, who’s in charge. There are a number of sites that threads are constantly started with on FR where the site being posted identifies nothing - zero - about themselves.
Why should FR permit that, or permit links to such sites in any posts in a thread.
I think the practice is asking for trouble.
There are programmatic ways of verifying if a URL for a link is legit or not.
Basically the code checks all links embedded in a POST against a service that verifies if the link is safe, any links fail the check the POST should be rejected.
I’m confident that the tin-hat conspiracies of some FReepers on bloggers sites or as described by you - a wholly unrealistic scenario - had anything to do with what happened.
We’ll know for sure if/when Jim/Rob shares the details.