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Notes -
I mean, that would be good news from my point of view! After all, I hope it's clear that what's being aimed for here is not an actual "true threat" but something that is just as effective as one in terms of psychological impact on the recipient. After all, someone who actually intends to issue a true threat to someone would simply choose the most direct language ("I will do X unless you do/stop doing Y") available. There's no reason for such a person to care about "plausible deniability".
So if the people who interpret the rules can "see what I'm doing", they should rationally decline to "crack down on me" (at all, much less "more"), because they can see no "true threat" is intended, only a very hateful message.
(Think of it this way. When someone becomes notorious for some controversial political position we often hear their claims to receive "death threats" in the mail or via phone. We all know that the vast majority of people sending such messages do not actually intend to make good on their threats, yet by wording their messages in the outward form of a "true threat" they make themselves vulnerable to criminal prosecution. They merely want to say something very hateful, very violent towards the recipient.)
I think in this instance the "cracking down" is social sanctions (moderators and other people), not legal sanctions. Your OP writes "legal and/or social risks" as if they are similar.
Your trick works well to evade the law and the poster replying to you was saying that this might lead to even more social sanctions. The less your messaging looks like a legal threat, the more it looks like hate speech, which you correctly note is clear to everyone involved.
I think something you might be missing -- or maybe I am -- is that moderation on most platforms doesn't protect hate speech. And committing hate speech is a big social risk everywhere, even if it isn't a legal risk.
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