April 7, 2017 – Collated by OIF Staff and News Interns

Intellectual Freedom Highlights

• National Library Week – On April 10, OIF will unveil the 2016 Top Ten Challenged Books.
• Reconsider removing “Jacob’s New Dress” | IF Blog;  Jamie LaRue, director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, wrote a letter to the school board and administrators at Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District, urging them to initiate a reconsideration procedure and allow for fair and free evaluation of the book.
• The Oklahoma Science Education Act: V. 7.0 | IF Blog; “The Oklahoma Science Education Act, Senate Bill 393 , is appropriating First Amendment rights to promote religiously motivated, anti-science material into Oklahoma science classes. In seeking to allow the personal views of teachers on “scientific controversies” into the classroom it argues that the intellectual freedom of Teachers’, and their First Amendment rights, will be strengthened. It implicitly believes that Teachers are unduly restricted by having to adhere to state standards reflecting scientific consensus and analysis.”

Censorship

• Public Attitudes toward Censorship of Particular Book Topics | Humanities Indicators
• A High School Just Censored My Speech About Censorship In The Age Of Trump | Forward
• NJ parents take legal action against school using false claims of Islamic ‘indoctrination’ | NCAC
• The moral of the story: Dialogue cures didacticism | IF Blog; “Last month the question of didactic art in schools was in the spotlight when Shepard Fairey’s “We the People” posters were removed from Carroll County Public Schools classrooms after complaints that the posters were anti-Trump. School officials claimed the posters violated the district’s policy against political speech by teachers in classrooms.”

Access

• Save PBS. It Makes Us Safer. | New York Times
• Rural Americans have less access to books. There’s a way to fix that | Talk Poverty
• If you publish Georgia’s state laws, you’ll get sued for copyright and lose | Ars Technica; “If you want to read the official laws of the state of Georgia, it will cost you more than $1,000.”
• New Approach Missouri wants public meeting space | The Rolla Daily News
• Data disagreement: Make it disappear | IF BLog

Privacy

• Free ALA Webinar: Practical Privacy Practices on April 13th
• Trump signs repeal of U.S. broadband privacy rules | Reuters
• Trump just killed Obama’s internet-privacy rules — here’s what that means for you |Business Insider
• Protecting student privacy on social media: Do’s and don’ts for teachers | Common Sense
• The conservative case against trashing online privacy rules | Wired
• The Scrapping Of Internet Privacy: Something We Can All Hate Together | The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
• Three easy steps for online privacy | Inside Higher Ed
• At least three states are trying to replace the online privacy rules nixed by Trump | Recode
• New bill would crack down on border phone searches without warrants | The Verge
• 11 Democratic Senators Are Backing A Bill To Bring Back Internet Privacy Rules | BuzzFeed
• Being practical about privacy: Preparing for choose privacy week | Knowledge Quest
• The Rise of Reading Analytics and the Emerging Calculus of Reader Privacy in the Digital World | First Monday
• Unmasking: A Primer on the Issues, Rules, and Possible Reforms (Surveillance) | Lawfare

Net Neutrality / Broadband

• The tangled web of net neutrality and regulation | Harvard Business Review
• Internet privacy furor is a preview of the coming war over net neutrality | Bloomberg
• The FCC should preserve broadband access for all schools | The Aspen Institute

Filters

• Library will begin filtering websites in two months | Watertown Public Opinion (SD)
• New CIPR Project: Assessing the Implementation of CIPA-Mandated Internet Filtering in U.S. Public Libraries | UW-Milwaukee

First Amendment Issues

• The future of free speech, trolls, anonymity and fake news online | Pew Research Center; “Many experts fear uncivil and manipulative behaviors on the internet will persist – and may get worse. This will lead to a splintering of social media into AI-patrolled and regulated ‘safe spaces’ separated from free-for-all zones. Some worry this will hurt the open exchange of ideas and compromise privacy.”
• Twitter is suing the government for trying to unmask an anti-Trump account | Recode
• Twitter dropped its lawsuit after the US government withdrew its demand to unmask those behind anti-Trump account| Business Insider

Around the Web

• Judge to Trump: No protection for speech inciting violence | Seattle Times
• America’s cult of ignorance – and the death of expertise | The Daily Beast
• Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the web, plots a radial overhaul of his creation | Wired

International Issues

• Russian web censor cracks down ahead of next anti-corruption protests | Global Voices
• Facing death threats and a ban on his novel, a Palestinian author flees | NPR
• Children’s book with Hitler drawing removed from Belgian shops | Politico EU
• IPA publishes Freedom to Publish Manifesto – A pledge to act when publishers are gagged, imprisoned, or threatened | International Publishers Association
• Germany approves bill curbing online hate crime, fake news | Associated Press
• Traveling librarian spreads enthusiasm for reading | CBS News

ALA News

• Fight for Libraries! Include #SaveIMLS on Twitter when you advocate for libraries.
• Get ready for National Bookmobile Day 2017 with free materials, ideas and more
• The Freedom to Read Foundation is offering $1,000 and $2,500 grants to execute Banned Books Week programs. Apply now!

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