A kind intention does not replace permission to share another person’s news.

Good motives are not the same as authorization. You pass along the diagnosis, the pregnancy, the breakup because you want the person supported, and in doing so you take away the one decision they still had: who knows, and when. The information travels instantly and cannot be recalled. Meaning well changes how you feel about it, not what it does.

When you hold someone else’s news, assume it is theirs until they say otherwise. If you think telling a particular person would help, ask first and accept a no. Silence costs you little and returns control to the person it belongs to.