Elite police squad reports over 100 social media posts to local forces

Max Thompson, Campaigns Officer

10 August 2026

An elite police squad, set up in the wake of the heinous Southport murders, has been revealed as having reported over 100 social media posts to local police forces.

The unit is called the National Internet Intelligence Investigations team, and it was established by government ministers in response to the unrest that followed the Southport murders, to monitor online platforms for any sign of "protest-related activity".

In recent years, we have seen the Government and police forces clamp down on our right to free speech and protest online. This has been driven largely by the introduction of the Orwellian Online Safety Act. This dedicated police squad is just the latest example of sinister tactics being deployed to stifle free speech online.

Freedom of Information requests have obtained figures which should concern us all. The unit has flagged 106 posts to local forces thus far and made fifty referrals in June alone, following the appalling handling of eighteen-year-old student Henry Nowak's murder by Vickrum Digwa, a Sikh man who falsely accused Nowak of racism and stabbed him to death, and which saw protests take place across the streets of Southampton.

When the squad was established, the then Policing Minister, Dame Diana Johnson MP, told MPs that it would "provide a national capability to monitor social media intelligence and advise on its use to inform local operational decision-making".

This will be a dedicated function at a national level for exploiting internet intelligence to help local forces manage public safety threats and risks.

The National Police Coordination Centre has said that this new unit "supports policing's understanding of protest-related activity in the online environment by developing a broader picture of emerging, potential risks".

Looking across force boundaries enables the identification of issues that may not be evident from information held within individual force areas alone.

Its remit is focused on providing strategic insight and improving awareness of protest-related developments that may have relevance to policing, supporting a coordinated understanding of matters at a regional and national level. Policing continues to work with partners and the Home Office to develop its capabilities and ensure it is appropriately positioned to understand and respond to emerging issues where necessary.

We have also seen another concerning and related pattern: the weaponisation of public order legislation to clamp down on dissent after Southport, including in the cases of Lucy Connolly, Jamie Michael, and James Cooper — all three supported by the Free Speech Union.

Read more in The Telegraph.