This is not a great moment for free speech.

Suddenly seeing the Trump administration going after green card holders for their speech

is obviously not great.

In the UK, it's something like 30 people a day being arrested for offensive online communications.

My home country of Denmark reintroduced a blasphemy law to prevent Koran burnings.

The silver lining of all this is that very often free speech is strengthened on the basis of overreach, of crackdowns,

and where people realize that, you know, no, we can't take it for granted.

Hello, welcome back to the Brendan O'Neill show with me, Brendan O'Neill, and my special guest this week, Jakub Mushengama.

Jakub, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Brendan.

It's great to have you back on. We've spoken before.

Last time we taught was in relation to your excellent book, Free Speech,

a history from Socrates to social media.

And many listeners will be familiar with your sterling work

in defence of freedom of speech as one of the great virtues of a civilised society.

And I feel like there's a lot to talk about on this issue. I mean, freedom of speech as one of the great virtues of a civilized society. And I feel like there's a lot

to talk about on this issue. I mean, freedom of speech is always in the news in one way or another,

but at the moment it really is front and center in a lot of public discussion, given what's

happening in America and also things that are happening in Europe. So to kick us off, I just want to

ask you about your optimism levels at the moment in

relation to freedom of speech.

I think you're one of those people whose optimism levels goes up and down on this question.

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