While "The Economist" squabble over these pedantic style rules, a modest survey of various social media utterances proves a number of native English speakers can't figure out simple grammar: It's/its; there/they're/their; then/than; etc.

Those six—now seven updated—rules are on a higher intellectual plane than that of the average netizen.

I'd use a metaphor to summarize my observation, but I don't want to break the rules.