Intellectual Freedom News 10/01/2021
Highlights
- Libraries: Strongholds of the First Amendment | South Dakota Public Broadcasting
- During Banned Books Week, Readers Explore What It Means To Challenge Texts | NPR
Censorship
- Pa. school district ends ban on list of books by or about people of color after student backlash | The Washington Post
- “Moms for Liberty” group demands school censor book because drawing of seahorse is too “sexy” | LGBTQ Nation
- Calls to Ban Books by Black Authors Are Increasing Amid Critical Race Theory Debates | Education Week
- Fairfax school system pulls two books from libraries after complaints over sexual content | The Washington Post
- Tigard High football fans display Pride, Black Lives Matter banners to protest Newberg school board’s proposed ban | Oregon Live
- Controversial book of writing prompts takes center stage at Hudson board of education meeting | Cleveland.com
- Commissioner says county should stop funding the library | Gillette News Record
- Book about Rosa Parks removed, then returned to Volusia classrooms | Daytona Beach News-Journal
- Oregon school board adopts stricter political symbols ban | Federal News Network/AP
Privacy & Cybersecurity
- Keystroke tracking, screenshots, and facial recognition: The boss may be watching long after the pandemic ends | The Washington Post
- Federal Prisons’ Switch to Scanning Mail is a Surveillance Nightmare The Intercept
- Leaving Surveillance Tech Behind in Higher Education: Towards Trust and Abolition [PDF] | Tech X Belonging
- When the FBI seizes your messages from Big Tech, you may not know it for years | The Washington Post
- The pandemic is testing the limits of face recognition | MIT Technology Review
- How a Secret Google Geofence Warrant Helped Catch the Capitol Riot Mob | WIRED
More privacy news is available at the Voices for Privacy blog.
First Amendment, Free Speech, & Civil Liberties
- Deputy’s demand that Wisconsin teen remove COVID-19 Instagram post violated First Amendment, judge rules | Wisconsin State Journal
- Voting rights groups sue Ohio over redistricting maps | Fox 19
- The First Amendment: Where America Stands | Freedom Forum
Access
- Contraband Books: What Texas prisons have against Michelle Alexander, Frederick Douglass, and Alice Walker | Scalawag Magazine
- Restricted Reading: New Original Audio Series on Prison Censorship | Intellectual Freedom Blog
Copyright
- Disney Sues to Keep Complete Rights to Marvel Characters | The New York Times
Academic Freedom & Campus Speech
- Ron DeSantis’ campus ‘intellectual freedom’ survey has already spawned a lawsuit | Florida Phoenix
- What if Trigger Warnings Don’t Work? | The New Yorker
Social Media
- Tech billionaire: Facebook is what’s wrong with America | CNN
- Texas sued by group of Big Tech giants over censorship bill they say would protect ‘pro-Nazi speech’ and ‘terrorist propaganda’ | Business Insider
Information Literacy & Disinformation
- Troll farms reached 140 million Americans a month on Facebook before 2020 election, internal report shows | MIT Technology Review
- YouTube bans all anti-vaccine misinformation. | The New York Times
- UB, partners awarded $750K to fight online disinformation | Niagara Gazette
- COVID Conspiracy: Foreign disinformation driving American vaccine resistance | WTOP
- Ivermectin disinformatoin leads to new kinds of chaos | The Hill
International News
- 14 Cuts in 25 Minutes: How Hong Kong Censors Movies | The New York Times
- Concern is Growing in Turkey Over President Erdogan’s Push to Restrict Social Media | NPR
- Pakistan’s government wants to impose centralised censorship office | Reporters Without Borders
- Amnesty International Sheds Light on the High Cost of Corrupt Government Censorship | Intellectual Freedom Blog
Banned Books Week
- Jason Reynolds helps put a spotlight on Banned Books Week | Washington Post
- Restricted Reading: New Original Audio Series on Prison Censorship | Intellectual Freedom Blog
- Banned Books Week Fights Censorship by People in Power | Teen Vogue
- Bad Takes: Even as we celebrate Banned Books Week, Texans keep asking for school board censorship | San Antonio Current
- Banned books, disinformation, and how public libraries are the solution — Opinion | Tennessean
- Banned Books Week: We defend 30 challenged books including ‘Beloved’ and ‘1984’ | USA Today
- Life in America is sometimes challenging. But don’t blame that on books | Miami Herald
- Learning the Lesson of ‘Banned Books Week’ | The Wall Street Journal
- A Censored Science Book for Banned Books Week | Intellectual Freedom Blog
- Banned Books Week — More Than a Display | Intellectual Freedom Blog
Around the Web
- Minority Voices ‘Filtered’ Out of Google Natural Language Processing Models | Unite.AI
- Proposed iPhone Protections Could Put LGBTQ Youth at Risk | Center for Public Integrity
- The US and 23 other countries enacted laws to try and control content on the internet, study finds | Yahoo! news
- Who doesn’t read books in America? | Pew Research Center
- Mapping rural America’s diversity and demographic change | Brookings Institute
- The Sex Education Pamphlet That Sparked a Landmark Censorship Case | Smithsonian Magazine
- Happy Birthday, Shel Silverstein! | Intellectual Freedom Blog
ALA News
Awards & Grant
- Ellen R. Avis Selected as the First Julia J. Brody Public Librarian Scholarship Recipient
- AASL commends fourteen programs, events, and products across the country
eLearning
- October Online Learning with RUSA
- United for Libraries’ Oct. 12 Learning Live session will focus on end-of-year giving campaigns
Publishing
- New from ACRL – “Envisioning the Framework: A Graphic Guide to Information Literacy (Publications in Librarianship No. 77)”
- Using AASL’s Shared Foundation of Include as a roadmap for more inclusive spaces and practice
- Quick copyright guidance for common situations
- PLA releases ‘Strategic Planning for Public Libraries’ publication
- Centering the lived experience of generational poverty
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