Embarrassing someone in private

The gemara in Bava Metzia 59a make the statement that one should not "whiten his friend's face" (embarrass him).

In both of these iterations the injunction against causing someone to blush, or go pale is specifically b'rabim, in public. The five times that the phrase appears all include this word. The appearances in Sotah and Sanhedrin, likewise, include "in public."* Would the same behavior and the same effect be acceptable in private? If the impact is tantamount to murder (as many seem to explain) is murder in private any more appropriate than in public?

Are there any commentaries which discuss the laws of such severe shaming in private as acceptable? Or why the law is given explicitly limited to the public sphere?

*not until the Abarbenel and some later commentators do I find המלבין פני חבירו without the public idea but there is no discussion I see that says that the case of private is different -- it just seems that this is how the text is quoted: partially.

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Embarrassing someone in private

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