@NiceGerbil
On the other hand we have had
Girls this age are bitchy and awful
They probably fancy him
They probably have taken against him
They should be told not to gossip (aka take to each other about his behaviour)
They are in the wrong for googling him and looking at his public social media
Etc etc
Don't get it.
Telling kids all this stuff and having society feel like that has not done well by an awful lot of children over the years.
Here is the thing - lots of us have either had an experience, being teenage girls ,of other girls in our group acting that way, or doing so ourselves.
It can be very thrilling to gossip, and how many of us had absolutely miserable teenage school experiences because of it? Or were drawn into some sort of horrible social bullying? And making up plausible stories was often part of that, and looking for evidence of them to convince yourself, as much as others, wanting to have something exciting to contribute. To be too credible and easily influenced by other girl's opinions.
I've had my teen girls come home with stories about other kids, about teachers, about other kids parents. And while I don't generally dismiss them unless they are obviously impossible, I also always encourage them to try and think about what they have heard, where it came from, or to define their own feelings and question their observations. Not to make them less able to discern problem people, but the opposite, to make them more able to do so. And that's based on my own experiences, which I have a heck of a lot more of than they do including the gift of hindsight.
Maybe you never experienced that kind of thing, but it's common enough that most women I have talked to about it have, and have been hurt by it, or seen someone else hurt.