November 17, 2017 – Collated by OIF Staff and News Interns

Intellectual Freedom Highlights

• What Veterans Day should mean to a library | Intellectual Freedom Blog; “As a veteran and a librarian, I got to thinking about what Veterans Day should mean to a library, and the truth is that it should mean a whole lot.”
• YouGov poll shows who’s willing to ban what | Intellectual Freedom Blog; “The reasons people challenge books, in schools and in libraries, are numerous. Regardless, a surprising number of Americans, when faced with the right reason, are actually pro-book banning. This is reflected in a recent YouGov.com poll, which asked what kinds of content in books should be banned and in what settings.”
• Florida county bans…almost everything | Intellectual Freedom Blog; “A county in Florida is now doing away with the more personal approach to book banning that we’ve come to expect. Instead of artisanally crafting each book challenge from scratch, Dixie County Superintendent Mike Thomas has issued a ban on materials with ‘profanity, cursing or inappropriate subject matter.'”
• Responding to database challenges | Intellectual Freedom Blog; “EBSCO is an online database company whose products are in thousands of schools, colleges and universities’ around the world. In September of 2016, the products they developed for the K-12 market came under attack in Colorado and Alabama. The challenges were made concerning the inclusion of sexual content deemed inappropriate for school-age children.”

Censorship

• Conejo Valley Unified board passes book opt-out policy after changes made to draft amendment | Ventura County Reporter (CA)
  • Permission to Read: Conejo Valley School teachers, students fear censorship coming to classrooms via proposed book policy | Ventura County Reporter (CA)
  • Booking it on free speech | Santa Clara Gazette
• Censorship of messages of healing in a time of pain | Huffington Post; “In April, TEDxBeaconSt named me as a selected and approved speaker for their November TEDx event in Boston, MA. The venue was then confirmed to be the JKF Library, an institution which claims to celebrate courage. Less than a month before the talk, I was censored and restricted from this opportunity.”
• 7th graders assigned to read explicit book | KTNV (NV)
• Disney lifts ban on L.A. Times film critics | Los Angeles Times

Privacy

• Criminals make student data public in escalating demands for ransom  | NBC News
• Sessions: Surveillance Reform Could Be ‘Exceedingly Damaging’ to National Security | Nextgov.com
• The NSA should delete its trove of data on Americans | The Atlantic
• In California, anonymity for online reviewers is slipping away | Reuters
• Missouri AG launches antitrust and privacy probe of Google | MediaPost
• TV stations are about to track you and sell targeted ads, just like Google and Facebook | Washington Post
• It’s time to tax companies for using our personal data | New York Times
• Facebook safe from massive privacy lawsuit for now | CNet
• As Amazon looks to unlock your door, taking stock of meaning of privacy | NPR
• Hackers say they’ve broken face ID a week after the iPhone X release | Wired
• Is it a good idea to share patient info on social media? | NPR
• Florida court: Dead or not, privacy right remains alive | U.S. News and World Report
• Freedom of expression: Paper looks at ‘right to be forgotten’ in Latin American context | Intellectual Property Watch
• See this week’s additional privacy news and updates on the Choose Privacy Week blog.

Access

• What I learned about the limits of school choice in New York City from a mother whose child uses a wheelchair | Chalkbeat
• Digital loitering reality of life for poor: A Greater Cleveland | Cleveland.com

Free Press, Social Media, and Fake News

• Manipulating Social Media to Undermine Democracy | Freedom House; “Nearly half of the 65 countries assessed in Freedom on the Net 2017 experienced declines during the coverage period, while just 13 made gains, most of them minor. Less than one-quarter of users reside in countries where the internet is designated Free, meaning there are no major obstacles to access, onerous restrictions on content, or serious violations of user rights in the form of unchecked surveillance or unjust repercussions for legitimate speech.”
• Cheap tricks: The low cost of internet harassment | ProPublica
• Twitter un-verifies accounts attached to the “alt-right” | Salon

Net Neutrality and Broadband Access

• Protect net neutrality and Internet freedom: World Wide Web inventor | USA Today
• FCC plans December vote to kill net neutrality rules | Bloomberg
• When students can’t get broadband, career success proves elusive | EdTech Magazine
• FCC’s latest gift to telcos could leave Americans with worse Internet access | Ars Technica

Academic Freedom/ Campus Speech

• Defunding Black Panther research infringes on academic freedom | The Daily Californian
• Virginia president puts academic freedom at heart of China speech | Times Higher Education
• FIRE Brings together free-speech advocates | National Review
• There have been so many bad lefty free-speech takes lately | New York Magazine
• Try to discuss speech and academic freedom at Boise State, and nuance is the first casualty | Idaho Statesman

First Amendment Issues

• “Laughing librarian” gets the last laugh | American Libraries
• Supreme Court agrees to hear three new First Amendment cases | The Washington Post
  • SCOTUS grants certiorari on First Amendment challenge to California’s regulation of “crisis pregnancy centers” | Constitutional Law Prof Blog
  • Supreme Court to hear Minnesota voter apparel law challenge | Reuters
  • Supreme Court to hear Florida First Amendment case | St. Augustine Record
• Mass. schools wrestle with hate incidents | Telegram (MA)
• Across Wisconsin, Recent Rises In Hate, Bias Incidents Spark Concern | Wisconsin Public Radio
• Hate crimes in the United States increased last year, FBI says | Washington Post
• As it looks to end hate speech, Saucon Valley High School to ban five offensive words | McCall
• MCSD board’s proposed zero tolerance policy against racial slurs heads toward vote | Ledger Enquirer
• ECC panel: ‘Good speech’ can conquer hate speech | Chicago Tribune
• The First (Terms of Service) Amendment | Huffington Post
• ECC panel: ‘Good speech’ can conquer hate speech | Chicago Tribune
• Policy Architecture and Internet Freedom | The Recorder

Around the Web

• Becoming a woman | Chronicle of Higher Education; “Transitioning in academe, as in any employment sector, involves both difficulties and advantages, drawbacks and conveniences. My experience has been generally positive, and, by writing this, I hope to assist others who may be facing this life change. […] I have chosen to focus on my personal perspective as a librarian in my 15th year on the faculty of a small, private, liberal-arts college.”
• Removing racist monuments is about making history, not erasing it | Brookings Institute
• Giant Wall of Lava Lamps Helps to Protect 10% of Internet Traffic (Seriously) | Nerdist
• Winners of the 2017 National Book Awards announced | Library Journal
• State board of education votes down second Mexican-American Studies textbook | Austin Chronicle
• 15 comic book stories way too controversial to ever happen on-screen | CBR
• ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ not the most controversial book in Mississippi classrooms | Clarion Ledger
• The dangers of tweeting at conferences | Chronicle of Higher Education
• Why doesn’t everyone love reading e-books? | Insights
• Chalkboard controversy: Naughty graffiti and social media safety in a middle school library space | School Library Journal
• Mother claims son checked out vulgar book from school library | News 4 San Antonio; Mother challenges the presence of SP4RX by Wren McDonald in a middle school library.
• Why did LibraryCon 2017 cancel drag queen storytime? | Phoenix New Times

International Issues

• Chinese nationalism jostles with academic freedom in Australia | New York Times
• Beyond state control | Dublin Inquirer
• Books come under suspicion in post-coup Turkey | Deutsche Welle
• Africa’s largest TV platform has a growing free speech and censorship problem | Quartz
• Manchester University accused of unprofessionalism and censorship | Mancunion
• Cambridge slammed for ‘censoring’ Palestine BDS event | Aljazeera
• Iranian regime’s censorship of films is easing, says director Hamid Nematollah | Sydney Morning Herald
• Japanese politician apologizes for suggesting serial killer ‘influenced’ by anime | CBLDF
• China cyber watchdog rejects censorship critics, says internet must be ‘orderly’ | Reuters
• How North Koreans bypass media censorship | Deutsche Welle
• Academic freedom cited as stumbling block in talks between colleges and striking faculty | Toronto Star

ALA News

• John Phillip Immroth Memorial Award for intellectual freedom due December 1
• Webinar – Privacy to Pornography: What Staff Need to Know about Intellectual Freedom (Free for FTRF and IFRT members)

---

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
• ALA activities, conferences and institutes, products, online learning opportunities, awards and grants, international exchanges, and more
• how to get involved and make the most of what ALA offers

You can also find us at Facebook, Twitter, and online. Or email us at oif@ala.org