From Louis XVI’s monitored coffeehouses to the whisper networks of #MeToo, gossip is often dismissed as trivial or malicious. But philosopher Karen Adkins argues that gossip functions as a vital moral tool that enables those with less power to protect one another when formal justice systems fail. Though imperfect and sometimes exclusionary, these informal communications persist not as ideal solutions, but as necessary responses to a world that still privileges certain voices over others.

#MeToo has returned to the news with the release of some of the US Department of Justice’s Jeffrey Epstein files, and the accompanying repercussions for some associates outside the US. One of the more disturbing patterns of the Epstein files tracks with the Harvey Weinstein episode from #MeToo’s last iteration. That is the open secret nature of this predatory behavior. Neither Epstein nor Weinstein were particularly discreet about their predatoriness, and they both engaged in predation for well more than a decade. But both of them had enough social and economic power that far too many people went along with it, used dishonest euphemisms to minimize damage (“problematic,” “flirty”), or—most revoltingly—made cutesy jokes to demonstrate their insider status and celebrate predation as thrillingly rebellious (see Peter Attia). Philosopher Kate Manne has written about why abuse persists as an open secret (it’s the patriarchy, stupid), but it’s also worth thinking about our reliance—still—on whisper networks as the best available resistance for bad actors. What do whisper networks tell us about ourselves and the limitations of how we decide who is believable?

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Via whispers to trusted friends, you can share information, warn people, plan things, while being less in danger of punishment because there isn’t a documented record.

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Whisper networks tend to get a bad rap because they are a form of gossip—talking about someone who is not present. Both gossip and whisper networks rely on intimacy and trust; when you are sharing secret information with someone, you have to count on them to keep confidences (or at least disguise their sources). Because these networks of trust are often anonymous, it means that people can speak with less fear of negative repercussions. Calling whisper networks “gossip” seems to trivialize them, because gossip is so often associated with the trivial, if not false or malicious (to such an extent that headlines about shows with gossip in their name are apologetic, reassuring readers that there’s truth mixed in with the juicy scuttlebutt). But whether we are calling it gossip or whisper networks, they are both forms of oral knowledge. Before the development of writing, all knowledge was transmitted, assessed and catalogued orally. Walter Ong wrote insightfully about how our standards for knowledge were different (more cautious and communal) because of this way of transmission. This may seem counterintuitive when we think about our contemporary experiences with digital gossip instantly impacting reputations, but there’s continuity here. Gossip can function both to buttress or reassure traditionalists whose ways of life are coming under critique, and serve as a safe outlet for those seeking to critique or challenge norms.