Americans have had to invent novel terms to avoid using the ‘s’ or ‘c’ word with politics. ‘Mutual aid’ is a term usually used to refer tk grassroots organizing of communities to cover basic needs like food and medicine.

Referring to a common internet scam as ‘mutual aid’ is doing more work to smear the term than anything.

Threat of a lawsuit is not a lawsuit.

What happens commonly is the threat of legal liability is used as a tool to gain some kind of leverage or compliance.

In business this is very prominent practice of utilizing capital to suppress competition. Inserting trouble + waste of time and money into your competition is very American.