Britain's Speech Gulag Exposed: 10,000 Arrested Last Year For Social Media Posts

Britain's Speech Gulag Exposed: 10,000 Arrested Last Year For Social Media Posts

Steve Watson

A damning study complete with an interactive map has revealed that UK police arrested nearly 10,000 people in 2024 for “grossly offensive” social media posts—equivalent to 30 arrests every single day—while knife crime, burglary, and sexual offences go unsolved.

This Orwellian crackdown, driven by vague “communications” laws, has turned Britain into an international embarrassment, with forces devoting more manpower to policing opinions than protecting citizens.

Compiled from Freedom of Information requests to 39 police forces, the data shows 9,700 arrests in 2024 alone under the Communications Act 2003 and Malicious Communications Act 1988.

Cumbria police topped the list with 42.5 arrests per 100,000 population—20 times higher than Staffordshire’s 2.1. Six forces refused to release figures, meaning the true total is likely far higher.

As we reported earlier this year, Britain now averages 30 speech arrests daily—Toby Young of the Free Speech Union described it as “a national scandal” and warned the UK is becoming “the North Korea of the North Sea.”

The map spotlights absurd prosecutions, like comedy writer Graham Linehan’s 2025 Heathrow arrest by five armed officers for three gender-critical tweets; a 71-year-old ex-cop detained eight hours for mocking a pro-Palestine activist, with officers mocking his “very Brexity” books; and parents raided at dawn over “sarcastic” school emails, held for 11 hours in front of their crying daughter, with eventually no charges filed.

These join a long list of horrors: women grilled at home over Facebook posts, men cuffed for WhatsApp gripes, and even a Telegraph journalist visited for a year-old tweet, as well as an endless list of other cases.

Maya Thomas of Big Brother Watch warns that “The UK is unfortunately gaining an international reputation as a country where online speech is policed with more enthusiasm than the types of crime causing people the most anxiety.”

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