hate speech is subjective.
I know what you mean. This is what concerns me about safety and hero culture. For example, you may have come across the 100 year old veteran doing laps of his garden to raise money for the NHS here in the UK - it's a social media thing gone viral. Or the 19 year old nurse crying because people were flouting social distancing rules.
Now I feel we're in a situation where even mentioning something critical about the lockdown being OTT or the stats being manipulated is sort of degrading and being offensive towards these 'noble brave souls' doing their bit.
Not quite hate speech, but I could see how people could 'hate' someone for being critical, now that we've got our new (uncritical) social heroes because to be critical could be viewed as undermining their efforts.
I think what counts as 'hateful' could be hitting a new low bar.
Coming back from this is going to be a tough one.
Yeah, dare to talk about lies and the oppression, and people attack you for not being a good sheep.
I had someone message yesterday saying they've unsubscribed from my main blog over at revisesociology.com just because I posted an article criticising the mainstream media coverage and with useful sources for better understanding coronavirus.
Unreal times, unfortunately too real.