How to Overwrite validate_plugin function

My solution: generate a backtrace in the function and bail early if called from validate_active_plugins().

function action_option_active_plugins( $value, $option ) {

    // Look at the call backtrace and bail early if called from validation function.
    $backtrace = debug_backtrace( 2 ); // Exclude ['object'] and ['args']
    foreach( $backtrace as $frame ) {
        if( $frame['function'] === 'validate_active_plugins' ) {
            return $value;
        }
    }

    //Do other stuff with $value...

    return $value;
 }
 add_filter( 'option_active_plugins', 'wpcom_vip_option_active_plugins', 10, 2 );