When gossip reaches you, it can stop with you. That’s a leadership decision disguised as a small one.

Whoever the group watches sets the rules about what gets said, and that happens through what you let pass rather than through anything you declare. Choosing not to carry something is invisible to almost everyone and completely visible to the person who brought it to you. They adjust immediately. So does everyone who hears how you responded.

Next time it lands on you in front of others, decline without moralising. Say you like them and change the subject. Doing that twice in public does more for the tone of a group than a direct conversation about gossip ever will.