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 ‘huge victory’ for Maine, judge rejects key argument against new internet privacy law | Bangor Daily News
  • Does First Amendment let ISPs sell web-browsing data? Judge is skeptical | Ars Technica
  • The Most Important Privacy Case You’ve Never Heard Of | TechDirt
• 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
  • Opinion analysis: Fractured court rules in favor of political consultants in First Amendment challenge to federal robocall law but keeps robocall ban in place | Scotusblog
• SCOTUS Broadens Ministerial Exemption from Anti-Discrimination Laws | Constitutional Law Prof Blog
  • Supreme Court Narrows Employment Protections for Parochial School Teachers | Education Week
  • Justices Rule Teachers At Religious Schools Aren’t Protected By Fair Employment Laws | NPR

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
  • Facebook’s Civil Rights Audit – Final Report | Facebook
  • Why Facebook Failed Its Civil Rights Audit | Vox
  • What a damning civil rights audit missed about Facebook | The Verge
• 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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