The US model of free speech is what I believe to be the gold standard. All speech is permissible with a few narrowly defined exceptions, such as true threats, obscenity, defamation, fraud, incitement, and speech integral to criminal conduct. I think that other than obscenity, these exceptions make perfect sense and are both necessary and sufficient to protect the rights of other people.
I don't think that other proposed exceptions to free speech provide any additional necessary protection and I think such exceptions would be used to stifle a great deal of important speech. The First Amendment is a restriction on the government; it restricts the government from making laws that tell you what you can or cannot say. Exceptions to the First Amendment will be applied unilaterally by people on both sides. If we make an exception for hate speech, it will be used by those on the right to attack and silence speech they see as anti-Christian, anti-white, anti-male, etc. Blasphemy laws would necessarily end up stifling a great deal of satire that pokes fun at various religions. An exception that prohibits depictions of animal cruelty could be used by the meat industry against animal rights groups trying to portray bad farming conditions.
When you speak out against wrongdoing, when you say something that makes someone look bad, the people responsible often want nothing more than to silence you. This is what the First Amendment protects us from. Any time you propose a content-based exception to free speech, understand that it will be used by bad people against good people. That's why we need strong free speech protections. Yes, as a result, you get a lot of nasty and hurtful speech out there. The best response to that is positive, productive speech. Westboro Baptist Church gets away with saying and doing a lot of really nasty stuff, and as a result you have the groups like the Patriot Guard Riders who stepped up and did far more good in response. WBC's awfulness also constantly serves to make others aware that people like that do exist, that their brand of hate isn't dead, and that we always need people to speak out against that kind of hatred. Evil is much more sinister when it's hiding and nothing lets it hide better than permitting censorship.