Intellectual Freedom News 7/10/2020
Censorship
- Students’ Calls to Remove a Mural Were Answered. Now Comes a Lawsuit | The New York Times
- Removing an offensive mural from the University of Kentucky isn’t ‘racial justice’ | Washington Post
- NCAC opposes removal of mural depicting slavery | National Coalition Against Censorship
- Murals that ‘whitewash’ American history come under fire | The Art Newspaper
- Hong Kong security law: Pro-democracy books pulled from libraries | BBC
- Teachers face threats, and books are banned as China pushes party line in Hong Kong schools | Washington Post
- Hong Kong schools told to remove books that violate new law as police powers extended | CNN
- In echo of Mao era, China’s schools in book-cleansing drive | Reuters
- China’s Great Firewall descends on Hong Kong internet users | The Guardian

Privacy and Cybersecurity
- U.S. tech giants suspend review of Hong Kong data requests, TikTok to pull out | Reuters
- ISPs Lose Facial Challenge to Maine Privacy Law | Multichannel News
- In privacy legislation, a private right of action is not an all-or-nothing proposition | Brookings
- Facial Recognition Is Here But We Have No Laws | NextGov
- Customs and Border Protection Outgoing Head on Biometrics on Law Enforcement Use of Facial Recognition | Nextgov
- Massachusetts Could Become First State to Ban Facial Recognition | Bloomberg Law
- Portland’s Radical Facial Recognition Proposal Bans the Tech From Airbnbs, Restaurants, Stores, and More | OneZero
First Amendment, Free Speech, and Civil Liberties
- U.S. Supreme Court bolsters law banning ‘robocalls’ | Reuters
- SCOTUS Broadens Ministerial Exemption from Anti-Discrimination Laws | Constitutional Law Prof Blog
Access
- Rethinking police presence: Libraries consider divesting from law enforcement | American Libraries
- When not to call the cops: A plea to protect Black patrons | American Libraries; “Calling the police when a patron is disruptive may seem like a library’s only course of action. But often, the potentially violent results aren’t considered. They should be.”
Net Neutrality & Broadband Access
- Mozilla Drops Appeal of FCC Net Neutrality Decision | Multichannel News
- Internet speeds were awful, so these rural Pennsylvanians put up their own wireless tower | The Philadelphia Inquirer
- How to ensure home broadband access for every student | eSchoolNews
Academic Freedom & Campus Speech
- Campus Speech Claim Revived as Justices Agree to Hear Challenge | Bloomberg
- UW Milwaukee Calls Lecturer’s Comments on Vanessa Guillen ‘Repugnant’ | Inside Higher Ed
Fake News, Free Press, Social Media
- Facebook’s Decisions Were ‘Setbacks for Civil Rights,’ Audit Finds | New York Times
- Free speech and hate speech: Another Reckoning for social media companies | NPR
- Does Zuckerberg Understand How the Right to Free Speech Works? | New York Times
- As local news crumbles, should the federal government intervene? | Columbia Journalism Review
- TikTok, Once an Oasis of Inoffensive Fun, Ventures Warily Into Politics | Wall Street Journal
- Trump administration “looking into” ban on TikTok, other Chinese apps | Ars Technica
- What’s the Deal With Parler? Inside the “free speech”–centric, far right–friendly alternative to Twitter | Slate
International News
- Contact tracing: Ireland launches its app following Apple and Google’s model | ZD Net
- Moscow’s Use of Facial Recognition Technology Challenged | Human Rights Watch
- In Hong Kong, a Proxy Battle Over Internet Freedom Begins | New York Times
- The internet is changing drastically for Hong Kong’s citizens | MIT Technology Review
Around the Web
- Director of Henderson County Public Library under scrutiny for personal Facebook posts |14 News (IN)
- Inspired by Protests: Reading March in 2020 | Intellectual Freedom Blog
- Teaching America’s Exceptionalism | Intellectual freedom Blog
ALA News
- ALA, Capital One invite rural libraries to apply for Community Connect: Digital Access at Home grants; due August 26
- Recruiting and retaining younger generations for library boards, Friends groups, and Foundations
- ALA summons support for Library Stabilization Fund Act
- ALA Council approves Core; dissolves ALCTS, LITA and LLAMA
- Libraries invited to apply for ALA’s ‘Resilient Communities: Libraries Respond to Climate Change’
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