Intellectual Freedom News 7/7/2017
July 7, 2017 – Collated by OIF Staff and News Interns
Intellectual Freedom Highlights
- The queering of the public library | OIF Blog; “A complaint about Pride Month programs and materials in libraries prompted this response from an academic librarian.”
- Out of sight, out of mind | OIF Blog; “Sometimes the inclusion of specific titles in those displays or the themes of the displays themselves can become points of controversy in our libraries.”
Censorship
- New Florida law lets any resident challenge what’s taught in science classes | The Washington Post
Access
- Anchorage library system adopts ‘no porn’ policy | Alaska Dispatch News
- Miami-Dade Library converts old bookmobile into modern Technobus | Miami Herald
- 50 million US homes have only one 25Mbps internet provider or none at all | Ars Technica
- Ballot language approved for age limits on smartphone sales | Associated Press
Privacy
- Maryland dad wants June 30 to be “National Student Data Deletion Day” | Education Week
- Trump wants all your voter data. What could go wrong? | Wired
- Why almost every state is partially or fully rebuffing Trump’s election commission | Washington Post
- Facebook beats privacy lawsuit in U.S. over user tracking | Reuters; “A U.S. judge has dismissed nationwide litigation accusing Facebook Inc of tracking users’ internet activity even after they logged out of the social media website. In a decision late on Friday, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California said the plaintiffs failed to show they had a reasonable expectation of privacy, or that they suffered any “realistic” economic harm or loss.”
- TSA Doesn’t Want Your Books | Inside Higher Ed
- TSA ends test of separate screening for books | CBLDF
See more current privacy updates on the Choose Privacy Week blog.
Net Neutrality
- Net Neutrality Day of Action July 12 may be the largest online protest in years | Common Dreams
- Why our kids will thank us for rolling back net neutrality | The Fiscal Times
- How Net Neutrality became the latest civil rights fight | NewsOne
- Don’t trust in antitrust law to protect net neutrality | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Academic Freedom/ Campus Speech
- Out opinion: Free speech bill a reason to cheer on Fourth of July | The Wilson Times (NC)
- Report: No easy alternative for UNC Center for Civil Rights | The New York Times
First Amendment Issues
- How a Supreme Court case in Canada could force Google to censor speech worldwide | The Washington Post
- U.S. judge allows Twitter lawsuit over surveillance to move forward | The New York Times
- Still going strong after 225 years: Our love-hate relationship with the First Amendment | The Newseum Institute
Around the Web
- VidAngel is a stupid censorship service and we should welcome it anyway | BoingBoing; “Vidangel is the latest attempt (along with services like Clearplay and Sony’s own filtering tool) to sell a product that allows cringing, easily triggered evangelicals to skip swear words, sex and blasphemy in the media they watch.”
- When kids share banned books: Scales on Censorship | School Library Journal
- Should YA fiction have to teach a lesson? | Houston Chronicle
- What the 21st-century library looks like | Chronicle of Higher Education
- New advocacy to save school librarians, one click at a time | School Library Journal
International Issues
- China’s cracking down on VPNs to make Great Firewall stronger | CNet
- Knesset panel clears bill allowing court to censor internet | Haaretz (Israel)
- Germany passes censorship law to fight online hate speech | The Christian Science Monitor
- National Library Board manager gets jail, fine, for accessing members’ data to help loan shark | The Straits Times (Singapore)
- Myanmar mulls change to law seen as violating free speech | The New York Times
ALA News
- Open call for submissions to Journal of Intellectual Freedom & Privacy
- Every child has a right to read; “Reading by Right” available in the ALA Store
- New Session: Creating Inclusive Storytimes for ALL Children; August 17
- Nominate a librarian for 2017 I Love My Librarian Award
- ALISE Awards, Grants, and Competitions: The Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) sponsors several funding opportunities, including the the
- Fight for Libraries! Include #SaveIMLS on Twitter when you advocate for libraries.
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