More than 60,000 people have been arrested in Britain for communications offences over the past five years, according to a report that has intensified concerns among free speech campaigners about the scope and application of laws governing online expression.
The report, due to be published by campaign group Big Brother Watch, found that at least 62,199 people were arrested for offences involving allegedly malicious or offensive communications between 2021 and 2026. Of those arrested, 18,150 were subsequently charged and 12,292 convicted.
Campaigners argue that the figures demonstrate the increasingly broad use of legislation originally intended to address threatening and abusive behaviour, warning that its application has extended to cases involving controversial social media posts, jokes and other forms of non-violent expression.
The findings have prompted accusations that Britain is developing an “Orwellian” approach to policing speech.
Big Brother Watch’s report also highlights substantial regional differences in the use of communications offences, with some police forces making arrests at rates many times higher than others.
Campaigners accept that police intervention can be justified in cases involving threats, harassment and domestic abuse. However, they argue that broadly drafted legislation has given forces significant discretion over what constitutes a criminal communication, leading to arrests in cases that do not ultimately result in prosecution.
Lord Young, director of the Free Speech Union, questioned whether police resources were being appropriately allocated.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, he said: “Why are the authorities spending so much time policing our tweets when they could be policing our streets?
Shoplifting, mobile phone theft and sexual offences are all on the rise, yet the police seem increasingly obsessed with catching thought criminals.
“The sheer number of people being arrested for online offences, even though only one in five end up being convicted, cannot help but have a chilling effect on free speech.”
The debate has been fuelled by several high-profile cases in which police action over online communications has subsequently been criticised.
Campaigners cited the case of West Midlands Police officers visiting the home of a teenage girl after she viewed a TikTok post containing an image of a teacher alongside negative comments.
The force subsequently concluded its investigation after determining that there was “insufficient evidence to prosecute anybody” in relation to the allegations.
West Midlands Police said the original complaint concerned claims that “a fake social media account had been created in their name and had been used to send indecent messages”.
Another case involved Rosalind Levine and Maxie Allen, a Hertfordshire couple who were arrested last year following complaints they made about their daughter’s primary school in a WhatsApp group.
The couple were held for 11 hours while being investigated for malicious communications and on suspicion of harassment. They subsequently received £20,000 in damages.
The report also comes against the backdrop of continuing debate over the prosecution of Lucy Connolly, who was sentenced to 31 months after being convicted of inciting racial hatred over a social media post made following the Southport murders in July 2024.
Last month, author Bernadette Spofforth told GB News that she had been held by police for 36 hours after making a social media post following the attack carried out by Axel Rudakabana.
Lord Young argued that such cases were contributing to growing public anxiety about expressing controversial opinions.
“People up and down the country daren’t say what they think about a whole range of issues for fear they’ll get a knock on their door at four in the morning by a couple of plainclothes officers wearing rainbow lanyards,” he added.
Big Brother Watch said the broad interpretation of vaguely defined speech offences had produced striking inconsistencies between different police forces.
Cumbria Police, for example, arrested 25.7 people per 10,000 residents over the five-year period examined by the report, approximately two-and-a-half times the national average. In neighbouring Northumbria, the figure was 1.9 arrests per 10,000 people.
The disparity has strengthened calls for a review of both legislation and police guidance.
Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, said public confidence in the policing of speech was increasingly under pressure.
There is mounting concern among the public that speech policing is out of control in Britain and it’s long overdue that the government takes action.
Andy Burnham must now launch a free speech reset and order an independent review of our laws and police training around speech, in order to fix this Orwellian mess.
“Thousands of people are being arrested for controversial speech, online jokes and non-violent protest. People have even been arrested for holding blank pieces of paper, and urged to take ‘online thinking skills’ courses by police. Enough is enough.”
The findings are likely to add to pressure on the government to clarify the boundaries between legitimate police intervention against threats and harassment and the protection of lawful, if offensive or controversial, expression.
At the centre of the dispute is the discretion afforded to police officers and prosecutors when applying legislation drafted before the emergence of social media as a central forum for political debate.
For free speech campaigners, the combination of high arrest numbers, relatively low charging rates and substantial differences between police forces suggests that the current system lacks consistency.
Police and victims’ groups, meanwhile, have argued that communications offences remain an important tool in tackling online harassment, stalking, domestic abuse and credible threats of violence.
The political challenge for ministers will be determining whether existing legislation can adequately distinguish between genuinely harmful communications and expression that is merely offensive, provocative or unpopular — without weakening protections for those facing genuine intimidation and abuse.
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