Shkoyach wrote:
Wait, I have a shaila…. if… (ad the shaila niggun as I ask) we all are anonymous as in a site like YW and we insult ppl and talk abt ppl when we make fun of them, does it hold like Loshon Hara mamish cuz l’maiseh i think no actual harm is done (though there may be an issur of oinaas devarim….) but If I say I think “lkjhgf” (ploni) is a shikkur and has no clue what he’s talking about… we all know maybe who ploni is by screen name but we have no clue in real life so…. is it just not a good habbit or actual LH?
It is certainly not a good habit and is quite possibly loshon harah. Using “chofetzchaim” as an example, even though you don’t know him by face, he does have an identity with a name attached to it so if you make fun of “choftezchaim” you are making fun of an actual person. When he reads the comment, he may feel pain or embarrassment. Furthermore, you may degrade him in the eyes of the other posters and in the future when they see a post by him they might associate it with a different type of person than they used to which would therefore make it loshon hara (IMHO) even though you don’t know him “personally”. Furthermore, there may be people on here who know who he is and when they read a derogatory comment it is certainly loshon hara because he might now be embarrassed the next time he sees these people. Sorry for picking on you “chofetzchaim” and I hope this makes sense.
Maybe the “chofetzchaim” has something to say about this?