Hilchos Lashon Hara, Opening – negative commands (11)

All we have written is when the speaker is one and the listener is one. But if a person connects himself with a group of evil people who habitually speak lashon hara in order to speak and hear from them, he also transgresses the negative command, “Do not go after the many for evil things,” which is a prohibition against agreeing with or joining with evildoers even if they are many. See later paragraph 6 in the positive mitzvos, where we see that he also transgresses a positive mitzvah through this evil connection.