Ugh. Dunno what you mean by “innocent” in this case. When #gamergate swatters turn out to be adolescent boys out for the lulz, does that make them “innocent”?
It seems to me that literacy itself is evolving. We learned to use the printing press and ever since words on a page have an authority that rumors on the street somehow dont. And then suddenly not so much. With your example, the syntax involved uniforms. In The Diamond Age, theres a bit where chinese calligraphy carries the essential aurhority.
Fot the world to funcrion at all, there muat be trustworthy signals. But when its simply that they’ve never been questioned that makes them trustworthy, I think its time for a fire drill.
