# What is Free Speech? **URL:** **By** Adam Gurri, Trevor Burrus, Aaron Ross Powell **Published:** August 21, 2020 --- Adam Gurri joins the show today to talk about the origins of free speech and how our current understanding has been muddied by social media. Classically speaking, freedom of speech refers to freedom from state censorship. There are three distinct questions that the current debate over “free speech” runs together in a sloppy fashion: is the state engaging in acts of censorship? Are social sanctions against speech or beliefs too harsh? Is our media ecosystem sufficiently open? Failure to disentangle these questions has resulted in the current abysmal state of the conversation. What is cancel culture? Why has the free speech debate resurfaced with such fury? ## Further Reading: [Censorship, Social Sanctions, and Access to Audiences](https://www.liberalcurrents.com/censorship-social-sanctions-and-access-to-audiences/), written by Adam Gurri Frank van Dun, “[Against Libertarian Legalism: A Comment on Kinsella and Block](https://mises.org/library/against-libertarian-legalism-comment-kinsella-and-block-0)” in Journal of Libertarian Studies 17.3 (Summer 2003): 63-90 \[66\].