​​Great Britain Averages 12,000 Arrests Per Year for Online Speech

Though it hasn’t always been covered by mainstream Western media, several major outlets have reported this year on the significant number of arrests made for online speech violations in the United Kingdom.

For Context: Custody data obtained by The Times of London (Center bias) earlier this year showed that British authorities made, on average, about 12,000 arrests per year between 2021 and 2023 for social media posts or private messages. Numbers have increased year over year, according to the data, up from 5,502 in 2017.

Prolific Arrests: Several public-facing personalities, like writers, activists, or influencers, have been among those arrested. On September 5, The Telegraph ran a feature that profiled 12 of the more notable arrests made in recent years.

Most Recently: On September 25, several outlets on the right reported that blogger Pete North was arrested for sharing a graphic that said “F— Palestine,” “F— Hamas,” and “F— Islam.” In early September, media across the spectrum, including Rolling Stone (Left) and The Telegraph (Lean Right), covered the arrest of Graham Linehan, an Irish comedy writer. Linehan was arrested for posts he published on X, where he shared an opinion on transgender people. In one post, he wrote, “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.” Linehan’s arrest drew condemnations from public figures like Elon Musk (Lean Right) and JK Rowling (Center).

Fact Check: The topic is often widely discussed on social media, though on September 29, Reuters Fact Check (Center) wrote that a video “being shared as evidence online that British officers investigated a teenage girl for viewing a social media post is heavily edited.” Reuters sourced its report from the police department that appeared in the video.

How The Media Covered It: Several mainstream media outlets have covered such arrests recently, with Linehan’s arrest serving as a catalyst. After the arrest, BBC News (Center) reported that Britain’s Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the laws should be reviewed. A few weeks later, on September 22, Canada’s National Post (Lean Right) published an opinion titled “UK policing of hate crimes should be a warning to Canada.”

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