Highlights

• ‘Prince and Knight’ Challenge in Upshur County, WV | Intellectual Freedom Blog; “Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, joined with the West Virginia Library Association and the National Coalition Against Censorship to express their concerns with the proposal to remove or restrict the book in a letter sent to the library board.” Read the full letter.
• ‘Share your censorship story: OIF encourages library workers to report challenges, bans; The Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) encourages library workers to report censorship incidents and challenges to library or school materials and services that occurred in 2019 using an online form by December 31, 2019. Every submitted report provides crucial information that helps the office raise awareness and respond to censorship threats by creating resources for libraries.

Censorship

• LGBTQ school book controversy in Loudon County | FOX 5 (DC)
  • As Protests Continue, School Leaders Seek Ways to Address Concerns over Diverse Classroom Library Initiative | Loudoun Now (VA)
• Citrus County commissioners vote down New York Times digital subscriptions | Tampa Bay Times (FL)
  • A Florida county weighs its recent role in Trumpian culture wars | Columbia Journalism Review
• West Virginia Public Library pulls and attempts to ban LGBTQ children’s book | WVVA
  • Author hits back after library removes LGBT picture book from shelves | The Guardian
  • Residents not happy after LGBTQ children’s book decision postponed | WDTV
  • Upshur County Library Board reviewing controversial book promoting homosexuality to children | Mountaineer Journal (WV)
  • Two additional LGBT children’s books discovered at Upshur County Public Library | Mountaineer Journal (WV)
  • Controversy surrounds LGBTQIA+ themed book at West Virginia public library | WONK (WV)
  • Upshur Library Has No Right to Ban LGBTQ+ Children’s Book | ACLU of West Virginia
• WV Library Cancels Drag Queen Event After Violent Threats | New York Times
  • Rally in favor of Drag Queen Storytime| WV MetroNews
• Nic Stone discusses book being left off reading list | WRDW (GA)
• Pepperdine university censors student’s art | Blogging Censorship
• Warsaw Library works through complaint about book | Times Union Online (IN)
• ‘Trans 101’ program at public library draws dozens of vocal critics and supporters | Fox 4KC (MO)
• ‘Vulgar’ poem sparking controversy in Steamboat Springs | Fox 31 News (CO)
• Parents Say PCSD Books Are Pornographic And Should Be Eliminated From Reading Lists | KPCW (UT)
• On reading behind bars | Cleveland Magazine
• Elementary School Art Project Leads To Claims Of Censorship | CBS Sacramento (CA)

Privacy and Cybersecurity

• DuckDuckGo Will Automatically Encrypt More Sites you Visit | WIRED
• Bipartisan Bill Would Limit Police Use of Facial Recognition Technology | FindBiometrics
• Surveillance by Facebook, Google threatens human rights, says Amnesty | Irish Times
• Move by journals to ‘seamless’ off-campus access raises privacy concerns | Science
• The real cost of tweeting about my kids | New York Times
• Your health data isn’t as safe as you think | Wall Street Journal
• Facebook Seeks Dismissal Of Location Privacy Class-Action | Digital News Daily
• Uber Embraces Videotaping Rides, Raising Privacy Concerns | New York Times
• Library Freedom Project helps patrons protect themselves online | WSHU (CT)

Additional privacy posts, news, and updates are available at the Choose Privacy Everyday blog.

Access

• When Things Go Wrong for Blind Users on Facebook, They Go Really Wrong | Slate
• AASL National Conference Keynote Speakers Ask Librarians To Support Diverse Representation and Defuse Bias | School Library Journal

Net Neutrality & Broadband Access

• Killing Net Neutrality Was Even Worse Than You Think | OneZero

Fake News, Free Press, Social Media

• Complaint concerning CCHQ misrepresentation on social media | CILIP
• Losing the News: The Decimation of Local News and the Search for Solutions | PEN America
  • Press Release and Summary
• How the Gannett/GateHouse merger could deepen America’s local news crisis |Brookings Institute
• TikTok CEO Denies Chinese Censorship, Says Company Still Drawing Up Content Policies | National Review
• Inside Facebook’s efforts to stop revenge porn before it spreads | NBC

Academic Freedom & Campus Speech

• I wasn’t censored when I was disinvited | Wall Street Journal
• Investigation: Thompson Rivers U Violated Professor’s Academic Freedom | Inside Higher Ed
• Racist and anti-semitic incidents are roiling Syracuse U. Now the governor is stepping in. | Chronicle of Higher Education
• Supreme Court agrees to review disastrous ruling on API copyrights | Ars Technica
• Educators face challenges teaching media literacy to immigrant students | School Library Journal

Hate Speech

• White supremacist manifesto shared at library, students say, as racist incidents roil Syracuse University | Washington Post
• FBI: Hate crime murders hit record in 2018; crimes targeting transgender people soar | CBS News

First Amendment & Free Speech

• Indiana University Says Professor Is Racist, Sexist And Anti-LGBTQ But Won’t Fire Him | Huffington Post; “The provost detailed the professor’s discriminatory views, but said letting him go would violate First Amendment rights.”
• Commissioners’ stripping funding from library was unconstitutional| The Enterprise (MD)
• Free Speech Be Damned: NY Man Facing 10 Years for Threatening to Kill Ilhan Omar | The Jewish Press
• Banning “the B-Word” is a Limit on Free Speech: Attempt in Mass. to Ban the Word “B***h” Sparks Debate | The Cowl (MA)

Around the Web

• To repair the irreparably riven: Censored books into healing artwork | Intellectual Freedom Blog
• Happy birthday, Richelle Mead! | Intellectual Freedom Blog
• Dispatches from the Houghton, part four: The last quarter | Intellectual Freedom Blog
• Former Principal Who Banned LGBTQ-Themed Books Indicted On Child Porn Charges | CBS Philly
• President Trump to nominate library head to federal agency | KRCG (MO)
• When the teacher’s a climate denier | School Library Journal

International Issues

• Okanagan library mangagement staff to get sensitivity training following drag queen dispute | Kelowna Capital News
• The Ayatolla comes for the internet | New York Times
• B.C. university breached whistle-blowing prof’s academic freedom, says report | Vancouver Sun
• A Prominent Chinese-American Artist Is the Latest to Fall Afoul of China’s Censors | New York Times
• Social media censorship in India has increased over five fold since 2016 | Quartz
• WhatsApp banned nearly half a million accounts during Brazilian elections | ZDNet

ALA News

• New National Library Week materials and more from ALA Graphics
• ALA unveils shortlist for 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction
• Nominations open for 2020 IFRT John Phillip Immroth Memorial Award—deadline December 1
• IFRT accepting nominations for 2020 Eli M. Oboler Memorial Award—deadline December 1
• Call for nominations for the Gerald Hodges Intellectual Freedom Chapter Relations Award—deadline January 1
• Rainbow Round Table seeks nominations for outstanding service to the LGBTQIA+ community—deadline December 30

Subscribe to future issues of Intellectual Freedom News, a free weekly compilation of news delivered to your inbox by the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, including

• current book challenges in libraries and schools
• articles about privacy, internet filtering and censorship
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