Pondering whether that was malicious on their part or not is in this case moot, and can distract from a broader and more immediately important question of: how to fix the broader system such that this never happens again, regardless of malice or incompetence? But in the end, in a lot of cases it might not matter much — bad outcomes are bad regardless of whether they are caused by malice, or by incompetence. A system’s outcomes might misalign with its stated purpose temporarily, and a fix might be on the way — question is, how long has the system been allowed to remain broken, and will it actually get fixed?