See, this is HOW I would quite likely be telling those people I trusted.

From my reading of Tony's comment (which could be wrong) I think he, and you, see some sort of a difference between posting to a restricted number of people on the internet, and moaning about it among people at the pub. To me they're largely the same with one major exception - the talking in person down the pub can be misreported easily with nobody able to actually prove that "No, what I ACTUALLY said is [whatever]" whilst you have more comeback if it's in writing to be reviewed.