Intellectual Freedom News 1/19/2018
January 19, 2018 – Collated by OIF Staff and News Editors
Intellectual Freedom Highlights
- OIF Seeks Information on 2017 Censorship Incidents
- Why Should You Report Censorship? OIF Answers a Few Questions | OIF Blog; “While we know that many challenges are never reported, we strive to be as comprehensive as possible. We would greatly appreciate if you could send us any information on challenges in your library, state or region that you are aware of from 2017. The deadline for reporting 2017 challenges to OIF is Wednesday, January 31, 2018.”
- Library material destroyed, teacher fired, and policy not followed at Utah elementary school | OIF Blog
- Controversial YA novel restored to some Katy ISD school libraries | Community Impact Newspaper; Meanwhile, KISD will be presented with changes to its EF Local policy at the regular board agenda meeting next week. The policy describes how KISD should choose instructional materials for students and in particular, how to choose materials that cover potentially controversial topics or display a diverse range of backgrounds and ideas.
Censorship
- Why are American prisons so afraid of this book? | The New York Times; “In the eight years since its publication, “The New Jim Crow,” a book by Michelle Alexander that explores the phenomenon of mass incarceration, has sold well over a million copies, been compared to the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, been cited in the legal decisions to end stop-and-frisk and sentencing laws, and been quoted passionately on stage at the Academy Awards. But for the more than 130,000 adults in prison in North Carolina and Florida, the book is strictly off-limits.”
- Exactly what gets a book banned, in one US state’s spreadsheet | Quartz
- Librarians despise censorship. How can prison librarians handle that? It’s complicated. | The Washington Post
- Inside the world of prison libraries | Mental Floss
- Texas’ banned books list for prisoners needs serious editing | The Daily Texan
- Book ban backlash in N.J. prisons raises local questions, even after reversal | The Chicago Tribune
- Why Trump’s effort to censor ‘Fire and Fury’ will fail | Rolling Stone
- Texas library evaluates policy after criticism of LGBT display | National Coalition Against Censorship
- California middle school pulls ‘Night’ from curriculum after mass opt-out | CBLDF
- Parents seeks to remove ¨To Kill a Mockingbird¨ from Monona Grove curriculum, citing racial slurs | Madison 365 (Wisconson)
Privacy
- Senate passes controversial spying law that scoops up Americans’ phone calls and emails without a warrant | Business Insider
- A Google app that matches your face to artwork is wildly popular. It’s also raising privacy concerns. | Washington Post
- Google’s art selfies aren’t available in Illinois. Here’s why | The Chicago Tribune
- NY Education Department announces data breach by outside assessment vendor | News10.com (Albany, NY)
- Aetna agrees to pay $17 million in HIV privacy breach | NPR
- Carpenter v. United States: A battle for privacy rights | OIF Blog
- EFF to Supreme Court: Protect the privacy of cross-border data | Electronic Freedom Foundation
See this week’s additional privacy news and updates on the Choose Privacy Week blog.
Net Neutrality and Broadband Access
- How to check for net neutrality violations on your network | Lifehacker
- Senate Dems searching for one last vote to revive FCC’s net neutrality rules | CNBC
- 21 states are suing the FCC to restore net neutrality rules | Fortune
- Twitter, Facebook, YouTube support bid to restore net neutrality | Bloomberg
- Why eliminating net neutrality is bad for women | Adweek
- Wave a lawsuits filed to block net-neutrality repeal | The New York Times
Filtering
- Moral judgments begin at home and stop at the library door | The Altamont Enterprise
- There is no right to view internet pornography in public libraries | The Altamont Enterprise [letter to the editor]
Free Press, Social Media, and Fake News
- Our best hope for civil discourse is on…Reddit | Wired
- Twitter tried to curb abuse. Now it has to handle the backlash | Wired
- Teenagers are our best hope in fighting fake news | The Boston Globe
- Is Twitter really censoring free speech? | Forbes
- Let’s focus on real journalism – not so-called “fake news” | The Newseum
- Twitter’s Trump exception | OIF Blog
Academic Freedom and Campus Speech
- The other piece of academic freedom | Inside Higher Ed
- Florida House: Are students safe to express their views? | US News & World Report; “Florida may require its 12 public universities to do a survey on the “intellectual freedom” and “viewpoint diversity” that is allowed on campuses.”
- Chinese Institute at UMass is accused of promoting censorship | The Boston Globe
- The latest: Kent State rejects white nationalist’s speech | The New York Times
- Colleges brace for tumult in 2018 as white supremacists demand a stage | The New York Times
First Amendment and Free Speech
- It’s the (democracy-poisoning) golden age of free speech | Wired
- 10 reasons why American trust in the media is at an all-time low | Medium; “As the debates over trust in media, misinformation and control over information rage, a new Knight-Gallup survey of more than 19,000 U.S. adults shows that Americans believe that the media have an important role to play in our democracy — yet they don’t see that role being fulfilled.”
- Why Cloudfare let an extremist stronghold burn | Wired
- Meet Antifa’s secret weapon against far-right extremists | Wired
- The cake case presents an interesting question of free speech or conduct | The Newseum
- Cary-Grove High School student files federal lawsuit against Crystal Lake-based District 155 over free speech dispute | Northwest Herald (IL)
Around the Web
- Libraries sue Elbert County commissioner over censorship fears | 9news.com
- Computers are getting better than robots at reading | CNN Tech
- Survey shows that Americans are becoming savvier news consumers | The Newseum
International Issues
- Tech companies are complicit in censoring Iranian protests | Wired
- Marriott removes ‘banned books’ from China hotel to avoid backlash | Independent
- Branson orders UK’s Virgin Trains to restock ‘Daily Mail’ after censorship spat | Reuters
ALA News
- OIF to showcase new selection policy toolkit at Midwinter
- ALA invites nominations for 2018 Eileen Cooke State & Local Madison Award. The award recognizes an individual or group who has championed, protected, or promoted public access to government information and the public’s right to know at the state or local level.
- New eCourse—Online Privacy & Security: Best Practices for Librarians. 5-week facilitated eCourse starting on Monday, March 12, 2018.
- ALA announces petition candidates for ALA Council
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