Freedom of speech actually has limit and that limit usually ends when it starts causing harm to other people. How that limit is set is often controversial and trolls tend to test that boundary, cite the First Amendment or "you don't have a sense of humour" when confronted, and end up banned anyway by moderators/admins who ran out of patience.What you call hate appears to just be rebelliousness, and without control it is useless at worst and comical at best. You just don't have a sense of humor, and it is causing you to side with control against people who don't have any.
Wrong priorities. Speech first. That's how we figure out who deserves control. We don't look to the master to learn who should speak.
This has been how the internet work since its inception. Especially for private companies, I rarely see trolls being allowed to roam freely in their platforms without restraint. Similar antics would've easily seen bans by Paradox and Ubisoft staff members who are usually strict about user conduct and have rules against open protests to their ruling. What seem to give trolls a false sense of security here is that they think their activities are now justified because they can use the totalitarianism of CCP to justify their basal behaviour and it seems that's not really working after all. Trolls with a banner are still trolls
With this said, I do think Winnie the Pooh pictures should be allowed and the whole threatening Chinese unity is not a morally valid reason to ban. However, all those trolls who threw racist comments around with their abusive languages deserve their perma-ban. I think a lot of MMO's do give out permabans for misbehaving users. No need to single out TW.