Truth VS Hearsay

A grandfather was talking to his grandson about how he felt. He said: "I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is full of selfishness, anger and criticism. The other wolf is full of compassion, kindness and love." The grandson asked, "Which wolf will win this fight in your heart?" The grandfather answered, "The one that I feed." - Col J. Z. Goldstein

As we know, gossips is the oldest and most common means of sharing unproven facts and views on personal lives of others that I never really care much about...

But it is rather disheartening to see some of my closest friends being affected by the seemly favourite past time of others. People should be more responsible on what rumors they are spreading because it can badly affect the outcome of a situation.
There is a difference between an opinion and telling an untruth.

It can be difficult to know when idle gossip crosses the line and becomes far more serious, like defamation of character. The United States Codes have a definition: In short, defamation is false information which "injures" another person, and it considers three types:

You were aware that the information was untrue.

You had reason to believe that the information could be untrue,

yet you did not bother to thoroughly check.

The information was of such a broad, generalized nature that it simply could not be true.

To my dear friends who may fall victims, learn to take everything you hear with a massive grain of salt...