[widdershins]

> almost anything now can be interpreted as 'offensive' or 'hate speech'

I only know about the UK, but this is not really true there.

Your speech has to be obviously threatening or abusive, and obviously motivated by prejudice towards one of a few categories (disability, race, religion, gender identity or sexual orientation are the main ones).

If you don't make threatening or abusive remarks towards these groups, you aren't breaking the law.

[jmnicolas]

"Abusive" and "threatening" is "in the eye of the beholder".

[kolektiv]

Well, no, more accurately, when it comes to it, it's in the eyes of a judge (or a jury in some cases). You can have all kinds of arguments about validity of arrests, of prosecutions, etc., but it's still fundamentally a system where you'll be charged with an offence and then either convicted or not.

I don't know of a single case (and don't believe anyone can point to one) where people have been arrested for simply criticising politicians. Has the number of incidents risen over recent years? Yes, and while this might be partly explained by stricter legal approaches, I suspect it's much more to do with a drastic rise in far-right activity and a consequent feeling among many that they can now say/do whatever they like with impunity (including making threatening and inflammatory remarks about minorities, and so on).