November 30, 2018 – Collated by OIF Staff and News Editors

Intellectual Freedom Highlights

• OIF Seeks Censorship Information from 2018
  • Twitter Chat with OIF on Monday, December 17 | OIF Blog
  • Facebook Live with OIF on Wednesday, December 12 | OIF Blog
• Searching for Intellectual Freedom Bloggers 2019 – Apply by December 9

Censorship

• At Louisiana prisons, there’s some mystery in what gets a book banned | NOLA.com
• Opponents renew fight to end Drag Queen Story Hour at Houston libraries | Click 2 Houston
  • Opponents of ‘Drag Queen Storytime’ push council to shut it down | KHOU 11
• Creative solution: State prisons, advocates work around a book ban | Post-Gazette (PA)
• Graphic novel ‘steeped in Islamophobia’ pulled after protests | The Guardian
  • Abrams cancels controversial ‘Suicide Bomber’ graphic novel | Publishers Weekly
• Loud, tense protest outside Drag Queen Story Hour | WKRG (Alabama)
• Hey! Those don’t belong to you: Why you shouldn’t burn library books | OIF Blog
• Trans advocates criticize Vancouver Public Library for welcoming controversial speaker | The Star Vancouver

Privacy

• Life, privacy, and the pursuit of happiness: America’s great failure | McGill International Review
• New Site Offers Privacy Resources for Underserved Populations | Syracuse University School of Information Studies
• Should book choices be private? Harold Washington Library patron calls for change | CBS Chicago
• European privacy search engines aim to challenge Google | The Tribune
• Live free or die trying – New Hampshire voters enshrine right to privacy in state’s constitution | Lexology
• Surveillance kills freedom by killing experimentation | Wired
• A review of “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” | OIF Blog

See this week’s additional privacy news and updates on the Choose Privacy Everyday blog.

Net Neutrality and Broadband Access

• Another Net Neutrality day of action draws fewer big names | Wired
• House Democrats who haven’t supported Net Neutrality yet have all taken money from telecoms | Motherboard
• Internet service in Marshall was slow, so the city built its own fiber-optic network | Battle Creek Enquirer
• Appeals court ruling on Net Neutrality will not be reviewed by the Supreme Court | American Legal News

Access

• Library of Congress Chrome extension offers easy access to Congress.gov | FedScoop
• Library is limiting book rentals to boost kids’ screen time. Parents are peeved | NJ.com
  • Editorial: Library shouldn’t limit book rentals to boost kids’ screen time | NJ.com

Filtering

• Starbucks to block porn from its free wifi in 2019, report says | Fortune

Free Press, Social Media, and Fake News

• How archivists could stop deepfakes from rewriting history | Gizmodo
• Wiley debunks fake news censorship claims | Science 2.0
• Teens’ social media habits and experiences | Pew Research Center
• Misinformation, hoaxes, and hyperpartisan news | Freedom Forum Institute

Academic Freedom & Campus Speech

• A 100th birthday wish: Uphold academic freedom in dark times | Nature
• A chancellor, a porn star, and $5,000: Did a Wisconsin campus find the limit to free speech? | The Chronicle of Higher Education
• Law expert talks academic freedom from political involvement | Michigan Daily

First Amendment and Free Speech

• The first amendment and the public library | Petoskey News Review
• District’s response to photo of apparent Nazi salute raises questions about free speech, discipline | Education Week
• Free speech violation or a simple arrest? Supreme Court faces a familiar problem. | The Washington Post

Hate Crimes and Hate Speech

• The Costs of Forcing an Online Haven for Racists Off the Internet | American Civil Liberties Union

Around the Web

• Challenge to District’s Pro-Transgender Policy Reaches U.S. Supreme Court | Education Week
• Where have Iowa’s teacher-librarians gone? State has 40 percent fewer librarians than 20 years ago | Des Moines Register
• After public outcry, Medford mayor removes Native American items from sale | Medford Local (MA)
• ‘Little Free Library’ honoring  Michelle Obama vandalized with Trump’s name | The Hill
• Small acts of kindness in banned books | OIF Blog
• The Marvel-out Stan Lee and diversity in comic books | OIF Blog

International Issues

• Kuwaiti artist creates graveyard for books to protest government’s literature ban | Euronews
• Google employees demand that Google stop work on censored Chinese search | Ars Technica
• The other war in Yemen – for control of the country’s internet | Foreign Policy
• Online censorship in Saudi Arabia soared after Jamal Khashoggi’s murder | MIT Technology Review
• Fighting fake news: Can technology help the Middle East throw off the shackles of censorship? | Forbes
• 3 books banned in Singapore for extremist religious content | The Independent
• Orban and his allies cement control of Hungary’s news media | The New York Times

ALA News

• ALA awards 250 libraries with microfunding for CS Education Week 2018, launches Ready to Code website
• Sarah Jessica Parker book club pick is Heartland, a personal story of working-class poverty in America
• ALA president reminds members of professional EDI tools to address microaggressions, quash racial profiling

 

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