BERNIE SPOFFORTH: They thought they thought I'd made the name up in order to create hate and to incite violence, which of course, of course I didn't do. And yes, my post was incorrect, but there were thousands and thousands of posts all over Telegram, Signal, Facebook, everywhere, that same name, but they decided to arrest me. And they arrived, five of them were police cars with a van to put me in the back like a prisoner. I was incredibly distressed because I just could not believe this was happening to me. 'Look, I've made a mistake. I said I'd made a mistake. I apologized for the mistake. I showed you how it happened. You can't possibly be arresting me.'

SHARYL ATTKISON: It's a 2023 British law that's largely responsible: the Online Safety Act. The government framed it as vital to protecting children. But Claire Fox says shocking provisions in the fine print outlaw speech that harms. She was one of the only legislators who opposed it.

CLAIRE FOX: And in this particular bill, the Online Safety Act, they then stressed, 'Well, no, when we say 'harm,' we don't mean physical harm, we mean psychological harm.' Psychological harm is an elastic term that's become inflated beyond any recognition, which basically says, you know, anything can be harmful.

SHARYL ATTKISON: 'You hurt my feelings.'

CLAIRE FOX: 'You hurt my feelings.' And that's what happened through the online safety bill. And that became institutionalized in law.

SHARYL ATTKISON: Comedy writer Graham Linehan was also arrested after posting that men in female-only spaces are committing a violent, abusive act. "Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls, he wrote.

He later released audio of his arrest.

Police: Calm down

Linehan: I will calm right down but if you cuff me I swear to God I'll be a problem. You don't f***ing cuff me. For standing up for women's rights don't f***ing cuff me.

And British Army veteran Darren Brady was arrested for making an unnamed person anxious by sharing this image of gay pride flags in a swastika.

Police: Because someone has been caused anxiety based on your social media post. That's why you're being arrested.

SHARYL ATTKISON: Police in England and Wales arrested more than 12,000 people in 2023 alone for violating communications law. Not only for obvious incitement to violence but also for private messages and direct chats deemed to persistently cause "annoyance, inconvenience, or needless anxiety."

The controversy has inspired scathing parodies like this:

Parody video: You're under arrest for daring to criticize immigration on the internet.

We wanted to hear from Ofcom, the UK office tasked with making life safer online.

Ofcom video: And we also protect people who are online. Setting out rules and making sure services and measures are in place to protect their users from harm.

Oliver Griffiths oversees online safety regulations at Ofcom's London offices. He insists big drivers in the arrests are social media companies because they're too slow to remove posts.

OLIVER GRIFFITHS: So we made an announcement last month where we had seen that there was just far too much illegal content on X. That people were reporting it and it was taking far too long to come down. And so they've made commitments to us that they will be taking down the vast majority of this within 24 hours. And I think that's a really important step forward for us.

As arrests mount, some are pushing to change the law.

Freespeechunion.org video: The number of cases the Free Speech Union has fought since it was set up in February 2020 has just surpassed 5,000. Demand for our services has never been greater. We get about 75 requests for help a week.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith is on the conservative side in Parliament.

IAIN DUNCAN SMITH: I'm definitely certain that we've gone way too far now in over-interpreting hate crime and figuring out who's more likely to be offend or not offend.