Why "I am just releasing my frustration/complaining to my close friends" may not be as saint as it sounds.

Ranting about someone on social media may cause the writer to be portrayed as someone who is impatient and intolerable compared to someone who rant to her good friends about her unhappiness with others but I beg to differ.

1. When you rant to your good friends, you reveal the names of the people you dont like. Thus, you slander people's reputation. We often bitch/gossip/talk bad about people we don't really know, thus you slander people's reputation even further. Don't try to make yourself look saint by saying "I'm just releasing frustration by telling my good friends" when the impact is far beyond that.
2. Whenever you see the person you don't like, you will act on your disdain for the person and go on and on about your bitching to your friends. This is worse than a one-off rant on social media. In fact, this becomes bullying. 
3. If you bitch/"release frustration to your good friends" whom are also very close to the person you don't like, you intentionally influence people's opinions and sow discord between relationships. This is malice. Compared to a rant on social media platform where the reader chose to be the audience, you select your target audience by making sure that your rants have influenced people's relationships. If you bitch about the people you dont like to people that dont know the person, you effectively cause disdain for these two parties who could have been friends. That is malice too.
4. Thus, the person may appear kind and saint on the outside and on social media, but is effectively conducting acts that shouldn't be condoned. This is scarier. Thus, we should not trust rumours and biased perceptions.

Everytime we hear someone speaking bad about another person, question the authenticity of the content, the context of the dispute, the whole matter from the start and question the intent of the person by telling you all these.