I see this attempt to avoid scrutiny in a lot of modern communication. The common thread is the intentional blurring of the line between being unserious/irrever

I see this attempt to avoid scrutiny in a lot of modern communication. The common thread is the intentional blurring of the line between being unserious/irreverent and full-fledged joking. You can say something in an unserious/irreverent way and still mean it, while joking implies that you don't mean it, and people frequently try to hide in the space between when saying things that are objectionable, for various definitions of objectionable. One common example of this is when person X back-handedly defends person Y by saying that they're "trolling". That implies that Y doesn't really mean what they're saying, but with a lot of wiggle room. Y might mean it, and X might know it.