As it approaches its 25th anniversary, Cambridge Community Television, that city’s official cable access channel, has become known for many things — among them activism to close the tech knowledge gap between the city’s well off and poor, comprehensive training for would-be filmmakers, and the cable access tradition of serving as a community bulletin board.

But in recent years, the station, which airs on Channel 9 on Comcast Cable, has become best known for something it never set out to be: a model for First Amendment champions promoting the notion that free speech means that anyone can say whatever is in his heart.