Keep in mind that someone doing it maliciously has every reason to cover it up and pretend it’s legitimate.

We're probably not going to see eye to eye on this. Honestly it sounds like you've been on the receiving end of this, and I can imagine that being a very frustrating experience so I do sympathise if that is the case. But really the world you're painting is one where you have to walk on eggshells in every conversation because a mob is waiting to pounce if you used the word "retard" as a verb or called someone "Miss" instead of "Ms" or something like that. Perhaps that might happen in the most overly-earnest, try-hard, super-woke group where everyone uses custom, ever-changing neopronouns and you're expected to remember and use every one of them. But I think those sort of people are busy enough with their own internal squabbles to be going out bothering HNers.

Have you ever posted anything on Twitter? It's exactly what you describe.

Which is fair enough, and I'd agree with that. But why do we then assume that everyone who says anything that could be construed as offensive is definitely malicious and needs to be cancelled?

I think it's a little unfair to assume that I would do that