“Seemingly Harmless”
Some people know how to “play dumb,” to make it appear as though their motives are pure and innocent, when in fact they are fully aware that they’re doing something wrong, or even dangerous.
When it comes to lashon ha’ra, this expresses itself in the phenomenon of “I didn’t realize.”
People will say things like, “I didn’t realize that this is forbidden”; “I didn’t realize this is considered lashon ha’ra”; “I didn’t realize you knew whom I was talking about”; “I didn’t realize saying this would make him look bad.” All these “I didn’t realize” excuses are, essentially, an exercise in playing dumb. This is an underhanded way to pretend not to know that the words spoken constituted lashon ha’ra and thus violated the Torah. If one is sharing degrading information about another person, it is lashon ha’ra and is forbidden. Period.
What some people might not realize, however, is that speaking negatively about another person is forbidden even if no harm is caused. Even if the speaker knows his audience very well, or if he knows with certainty that the people listening to him do not believe what he is saying, it is forbidden to speak derogatorily about another person. Such speech violates the Torah and requires atonement irrespective of whether or not the listeners will believe what they are told.
An example is where the listener says, “It’s ok, you can tell me about him – I already decided that I’m not hiring him anyway for other reasons,” or if a girl says, “I decided not to date him, so you can tell me; it won’t affect my decision, because I already made up my mind.” Another example is if the listener assures the speaker, “I like the guy no matter what, so you can tell me anything you want.” Even in such cases, where the speaker is led to believe with absolute certainty that no harm will result from his sharing negative information about his fellow, it is forbidden.
Probing a bit deeper, the reason for this halacha is the reality that there really is no such things as “harmless” lashon ha’ra. Perhaps at this moment, relaying the information will not have any direct effect upon the person spoken about, because the listener will not believe it, or because the information has no practical relevance to him. However, the unflattering information has, at very least, planted a seed of negativity in the listener’s mind. He has in his mind a negative association with the person spoken about. This seed will, with time, produce fruit in the form of disdain, and cause real damage. And thus lashon ha’ra is never “harmless.” It always has some effect – and so it is forbidden even if one deems his words “harmless.”