Charlie And The Gossip Factory

what pleases me here is that the majority view seems to be in favour of the internet as gossip machine and rumour-mill, or at least consider the idea of online censorship/prohibition akin to libel laws in print to be an infringement of civil liberties and a suppression by The Man of the right to free 'speech' - tho it seems less clear how much people object to those rumours proving to be false once circulated online.

how useful/dangerous do you feel the unorthodox channels with which information such as 'which Newcastle Utd players were accused of rape' and 'what our future King gets up to with his loyal servants (answer: about 6 and a half inches deep)' is ascertained are?