July 27, 2018 – Collated by OIF Staff and News Editors

Intellectual Freedom Highlights

• Why the Janus decision matters to library unions | American Libraries; “The 5–4 decision in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) declares it unconstitutional for public sector unions to collect agency fees from nonmember employees based on free speech grounds. Library workers in public, school, academic, and other libraries who are employed through state and local governments in the 22 states that are not already right-to-work states are affected by this decision.”
• Choose Privacy Every Day! | Knowledge Quest

Censorship

• Southern Utah library workers told to remove buttons, displays featuring LGBTQ-themed materials | The Spectrum
  • Utah Library Workers Told To Remove LGBTQ-Themed Displays | Nevada Public Radio
• Trump’s EPA rule would censor science, putting public health at risk | The Hill
• Board tables library book issue | Cody Enterprise (WY); follow-up on Cody School District challenge to A Bad Boy Can be Good for a Girl

Privacy

• Amazon’s face ID tool mismatched 28 members of Congress to mugshots: ACLU | Reuters
• Trump’s criticism of the Carter Page FISA warrant is wrong. But that doesn’t mean the FISA process is right. | NBC News
• Which US states best protect privacy online? | Comparitech
• The best and worst US states for protecting online privacy | Tech Republic
• Twitter is banning users who created their accounts while underage | Vox
• White House urges Supreme Court to scrap Google privacy settlement | Media Post
• Texas judges continue to turn expungement orders into ‘right to be forgotten’ requests | TechDirt
• St. Louis Uber driver has put video of hundreds of passengers online. Most have no idea. | St. Louis Post-Dispatch

See this week’s additional privacy news and updates on the Choose Privacy Everyday blog.

Net Neutrality and Broadband Access

• Ajit Pai gets message from his hometown ISP: Don’t hurt us small ISPs | Ars Technica
• The U.S. Needs a New Policy Framework for an Open Internet Ecosystem | Benton Foundation (Four-Part Series)
  • Regulatory Oversight and Privacy Policy for an Open Internet Ecosystem | Benton Foundation
  • Competition Policy for an Open Internet Ecosystem | Benton Foundation
  • Access and Affordability Policy for an Open Internet Ecosystem | Benton Foundation

Filtering

• Utah law says libraries and schools should have filters against internet porn. A new study says filtering doesn’t work. | Salt Lake Tribune (UT)

Libraries & Hate Speech

• Babysitters, lawn care and white supremacists: These are ads popping up on community bulletins | New Jersey

Access

• Boosting my bookmobile program with the AASL Innovating Reading Grant | Knowledge Quest
• Why a (now-deleted) op-ed about replacing libraries with Amazon blew up the internet | CNN
• Archiving While Black | Chronicle; “A black body in a space presumed to be white is at best out of place and at worst a threat. This reality extends to less visible spaces, such as the historical archive. The archive, and black marginalization within it, has important implications for both scholarly and popular ideas about history.”

Free Press, Social Media, and Fake News

• People like you: How personal and community ratings influence trust in media | Knight Foundation
  • Three-quarters of Republicans trust Trump over the media | The Washington Post
• Why the White House banning a CNN reporter actually matters | Columbia Journalism Review
• Tech Companies Like Facebook and Twitter Are Drawing Lines. It’ll Be Messy. | The New York Times
  • Want Facebook to censor speech? Be careful what you wish for | Wired
  • Facebook shouldn’t censor offensive speech | ACLU blog
• How neglected archives lead to propaganda | Columbia Journalism Review
• Facebook’s Fight Against Fake News Keeps Raising Questions | Wired
• Shadow Politics: Meet the Digital Sleuth Exposing Fake News | Wired
• Facebook angers Flanders with Rubens ban | BBC
• History in an age of fake news | Chronicle for Higher Education
• How to teach information literacy in an era of lies | Chronicle of Higher Education

Academic Freedom & Campus Speech

• The AAUP’s Shame: Professors Union Smears The First Amendment, Opposes Campus Free-Speech Laws | Forbes
• After George Mason dust-up, Koch Foundation will start putting its college deals online | Chronicle of Higher Education
• What Is academic freedom? Statement that alarmed professors at U. of Texas sets off debate | Chronicle of Higher Education

First Amendment and Free Speech

• Is literacy a right? My internal conflict | OIF Blog
• Student with banned Trump shirt to get apology, $25,000 from school district | The Oregonian
• Court Revives Suit by Educator Fired Over Letter in Support of Criminal Defendant | Education Week
• Firefighters union files lawsuit challenging enforcement of ‘free speech zones’ | KSAT (TX)
• When do rants exceed First Amendment boundaries and become true threats? | Freedom Forum Institute
• Appeals court strikes down school board prayer policy in California district | Education Week
• From Nazis To Incels: How One Tech Company Helps Hate Groups Thrive | Huffington Post

Around the Web

• Library Publishing Coalition (LPC) Announces Publication of “An Ethical Framework for Library Publishing, Version 1.0″ | InfoDocket
• Dispatches from the Houghton Library, Part One | OIF Blog
• An interview with author Elliot Wake | OIF Blog
• Intellectual freedom: The tyranny of the, maybe, majority | OIF Blog
• Teaching comics and censorship: The National Archives and the 1954 Senate Subcommittee Hearings | Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
• Using graphic novels in education: Soupy Leaves Home | Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
• AI is hurting people of color and the poor. Experts want to fix that | CNN
• Post about man in Nazi T-shirt at Crossgates goes viral | Times Union (NY)
• Nazi propaganda found in Lincoln Little Free Libraries | 1011 NOW (NE)
• A librarian, a shopkeeper and an $8M rare book heist | Trib Live (PA)
• New Documentary from ProPublica and Frontline chronicles a year of reporting on violent white supremacists and Neo-Nazis | ProPublica

International Issues

• How free expression is suppressed in Saudi Arabia | The Economist
• More African governments are trying to control what’s being said on social media and blogs | Quartz
• Whakawhanaungatanga, not censorship: A Māori perspective on ‘free speech’ | The Spinoff
• Censorship is alive and well in Israel | Arab Weekly
• Haruki Murakami’s new novel declared ‘indecent’ by Hong Kong censors | The Guardian
• After Haruki Murakami novel ban, five other Hong Kong censorship controversies | South China Morning Post
• Facebook accused of censoring feminist campaign website concerned with transgender “self-identification” | Telegraph (UK)
• What have I done for my words to be censored? | The Guardian
• Facebook quietly registers a subsidiary in China despite hardening censorship | South China Morning Post
• ‘Fake News’ Law: A Threat to Liberté? | U.S. News & World Report (France)

ALA News

• Freedom to Read Foundation celebrates educational collaboration with San Jose State University School of Information
• New eCourse bundle: Working with children of all ages
• Public Library Association adds new awareness toolkit to suite of family engagement resources
• AASL releases guide addressing challenges related to censorship and LGBTQ+ materials
• Anita Mechler named YALSA executive director
• ALA: New Tor delay on library ebooks hurts readers, authors and libraries
• 100 libraries selected to lead Great Stories Club reading programs with underserved youth
• Harry Potter Poster and more arrive in the new ALA Graphics catalog
• PLA to hold short-fiction writing contest this fall
• Resolution to Rescind Meeting Rooms: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (ALA Connect)
• Suggested Language & Resources for “Meeting Rooms: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights” – The Intellectual Freedom Committee formed a working group to revise the meeting rooms interpretation. Library community members — ALA members & non-members alike — are invited to suggest language & resources for the interpretation by 8/24, using this form

 

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