No, hate speech is real. Here is an example. I’ve redacted the key words, but you get the gist.
Not all hate speech leads to genocide, thankfully, but all genocides in history have been preceded by dehumanizing speech such as this.
To be clear, the person behind this Parler account is calling for killing people exactly like me and my wife, which would make an orphan of my infant daughter. Those are the stakes for me, personally.
Is he “just trolling”? Maybe, maybe not. The nature of online communication makes it impossible to tell.
Don’t care that he could be serious? Be honest.
But flip it around, and I would absolutely say that calling for killing conservatives on a massive scale equals hate speech which ought to be modded. If you see this happening anywhere on Imgflip, flag it. Help the mods do their jobs and don’t let the Nazis win.