Stephanie Joseph was working at a television station when someone started a false rumor claiming she and a married colleague were romantically involved.

Joseph, then 20, barely knew the man in question and didn’t hear the gossip until a producer told her it was circulating.

“I’m thinking to myself, this is crazy,” she recalled. “This particular male co-worker, although he was young, he was married with a family. So, that made it even more insulting because I thought, ‘I’m friendly with these people. Don’t they know my character?’”

Details about the private lives or behavior of other people have a way of buzzing through workplaces. Gossip can damage the reputations of both its subjects and the people spreading it, who may come to be seen as untrustworthy.…