Intellectual Freedom News 12/30/16
December 30, 2016
Intellectual Freedom Highlights
- Documenting hate crimes in libraries | Intellectual Freedom Blog; “An uncomfortable truth is that hate speech is also free speech. It’s not illegal for people to say stupid, ignorant, or even deliberately hurtful things. When an anti-immigrant group, for instance, books a room at the library according to usual policies, and the speakers make some overtly bigoted remarks about Mexicans, that’s the price we pay for democracy. A hate crime, however, is about more than speech. It is about specific criminal behavior.”
Censorship
- NCAC condemns high school for removing pro-life artwork | NCAC blog
- Texas Judge orders district to allow ‘Charlie Brown Christmas’ poster at school | Education Week
- S&S’s Reidy tells staff to ‘resist censorship’ after ‘tumultuous’ 2016 | The Bookseller
- Prodigy’s prison cookbook banned in California jails | HipHopDX
Academic Freedom
- GOP, UW at odds over ‘whiteness’ course | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
- There Is No Such Thing as “White Genocide” | Jezebel
Hate Crimes in Libraries
- Casa Guadalupe vandalized for 3rd time in less than a month | West Bend Daily News
Access
- Digital denied: The impact of systemic racial discrimination on home-internet adoption | Benton Foundation
- Connecting students at home | The White House
- As the drive to share data intensifies, can standards keep up? | Chronicle for Higher Education
- Broadband keeping students connected on the bus | AitkinAge.com (MN)
- EFF to Supreme Court: Strike social media ban for sex offenders | EFF (NC)
- Our view: Library helps put Erie people online | Go Erie.com (PA)
Privacy
- San Francisco libraries want to microchip their books | Los Angeles Times
- US privacy board in disarray before Trump takes office | Associated Press
- New report shows that 4% of U.S. internet users have been a victim of ‘revenge porn‘ | Data & Society
- Erasing the News: Should some stories be forgotten? | ABA Journal
- When a school’s online eavesdropping can prevent a suicide | NPR
- Congressional report on encryption shows lawmakers making progress | The Hill Blog
- For sale: Your personal data | ABA Journal
- Tech innovation vs privacy in 2017 | The Wall Street Journal
- Police demand ‘Amazon Echo’ data as part of Arkansas murder investigation | NBC News
- A French court case against Google could threaten global speech rights | Washington Post
Internet Filtering
- District beefs up internet security | Westside Connect
- Upstate Lawmakers aim to block porn on internet devices sold in SC | WSPA 7 News
- Foreign firewalls have no standing — open internet makes for a free world | The Hill
Net Neutrality
- FCC Republicans vow to gut net neutrality rules ‘as soon as possible‘ | Ars Technica
- Protecting net neutrality and the open internet: 2016 in review | EFF
First Amendment Issues
- Wisconsin teacher suspended for making studets write an essay defending the KKK | BBC
- Free Speech in America is Sacrosanct | The News and Advance
- The right shuts down free speech, too | Washington Post
- Student ‘evangelizing’ sparks lawsuit against Gwinnett college | Atlanta Journal-Constitution
- Towns grapple with legal challenges to Christmas displays | Wall Street Journal Law Blog
- Fourth circuit finds police department’s ‘negative comments’ social media violates First Amendment | Constitutional Law Prof Blog
- First Amendment freedoms need ‘breathing space’ | Newseum Institute
- Batavia library bans political activity outside library entrance | Daily Herald (Illinois)
Around the Web
- School libraries fight fake news | Knowledge Quest blog
- House Republicans Move to Block Live Streaming, Photos From Floor of Congress | Variety
- Exiled Syrian cartoonist: ‘Drawing is the strongest weapon against the regime‘ | CBLDF
- This idiotic list shows parents’ dumbass concerns about literature’s greatest works | River Front Times (MO)
- Universities are wrong to indulge student censorship | The Telegraph (U.K.)
- MILO most disinvited speaker of 2016 as campus censorship hits record highs | Breitbart
- Say hello to Hoaxy: Indiana University researchers launch tool to understand spread of fake news | Library Journal
- Facebook already has a Muslim registry and it should be deleted | Ars Technica
- As 2016 crashed in flames, libraries were the last good place | The Globe and Mail (Canada)
- KU library workers push inclusion wearing preferred gender pronoun buttons | The Kansas City Star
International Issues
- IFLA Statement on Government Provision of Public Legal Information in the Digital Age (2016) | IFLA; “The freedom to seek and receive information is recognized as a basic human right by Article 19 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This right of access to information is particularly important in regard to public legal information. People of countries throughout the world should be able readily to access the laws that govern them. Providing such access is a responsibility of governments and is necessary for transparency and accountability, for civil engagement, and for a just society.”
- The new ‘Overwatch’ comic is already banned in Russia because of its LGBTQ hero | Mashable
- Malayalam writer Chavara arrested for ‘insulting national anthem’ on Facebook | Hindustan Times (India)
- Encrypted messaging app Signal uses Google to bypass censorship | PC World
- Ministers back bill that would allow court to censor internet | Haaretz (Israel)
- Zeman rejects internet censorship in reaction to ministry’s plan | Prague Daily Monitor (Czech Republic)
- Musical censorship in India and Pakistan | US News & World Report
- How a censored version of Facebook could destabilize China’s government | The Washington Post
- Dutch market regulator bans T-Mobile’s ‘free’ streaming music service | The New York Times
Updates
- Anti-censorship, anti-Islamic indoctrination groups join Sullivan textbook debate | Times News; American Library Association’s James LaRue cosigned a letter to the Sullivan County Board of Education urging the board to retain the seventh grade social studies textbook a Bluff City Middle School mother believes is slanted toward Islam and amounts to Islamic indoctrination.
- Proposal on sexually explicit content in Va. classrooms rekindles censorship debate | The Daily Progress; A proposal requiring Virginia schools to notify parents annually of sexually explicit materials and allow students to receive alternate assignments has revived the censorship debate and raised questions of transparency. Along with the annual notice, the proposed change in the Virginia Department of Education’s regulations also directs school systems to have clear procedures for providing “non-explicit” material, should any parents request alternatives. The amendment is nearly identical to the so-called “Beloved” bill vetoed earlier this year by Gov. Terry McAuliffe. In his veto message, McAuliffe indicated that he believed that school boards are best positioned to ensure that students are exposed to appropriate literary and artistic works.
- Editorial – What should schools do about explicit books? | Richmond Times Dispatch
- Unnecessary and Disproportionate: IFLA President Donna Scheeder Calls for End to Proceedings against Natalya Sharina | IFLA
Office for Intellectual Freedom News
- Intellectual Freedom Sale: Ring in the New Year with some free speech attire! T-shirts are 10$ off at the OIF Winter Sale.
- OIF revamps reporting tools for library hate crime and material challenges
- Free webinar: Your Guide to Censorship Reporting
- New Intellectual Freedom Bloggers for 2017
ALA News
- Library Bill of Rights poster is now available at the ALA Store
- At 2017 Midwinter Meeting, talk to ALA about accessibility for people with disabilities
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