If I said something to offend you over the internet, and you said it made you feel like hitting me, I would think it was no big thing, especially if you went on to explicitly clarify that you would never actually hit me. I would not perceive it as a serious threat in any case.

Really? My instincts anticipate a significant negative response if I said I wanted to hit someone around here. On the order of a substantial faux pas not a personal security risk. But to be honest I haven't exactly calibrated that intuition all that much. Because I just don't go around saying I want to hit people.