I understand the comparison but you can't exactly mute people with minimal effort in real life. Additionally, the threat of rape in person is significantly different than anonymously online from a legal perspective because the person making the threat knows who and where the target is at the moment the threat is made.

At a high level I don't disagree with most of what you're saying. The point I'm making is that there's a pretty large gap between "something should be done about online harassment" and "this is our plan for stopping online harassment". Most calls for action appeal to the first without much concern for the second, and the solution is the difficult part, not identifying the problem.