Intellectual Freedom News 9/18/2020
Banned Books Week
- Banned Books Week 2020 Goes Virtual As Threats To Intellectual Freedom Continue
- GNCRT, IFRT, and Image Comics team-up to celebrate Banned Books Week with webinar series
- Escape The Dead End Of Censorship! A Virtual Escape Room Adventure… Plus More Banned Books Week Activities | Intellectual Freedom Blog
- Banned Books Week through an Alternate Lens: Amnesty International | Intellectual Freedom Blog
Highlights
- Libraries & Reentry: The Importance of Public Spaces, Technologies, and Community to Formerly Incarcerated Patrons | ALA Policy Perspectives
- Built by E-Rate: A Case Study of Two Tribally-Owned Fiber Networks and the Role of Libraries in Making It Happen | ALA Policy Perspectives
Censorship
- California School District Considers Ban on Classic Books | NCAC; “NCAC and six co-signing organizations, (including the American Library Association and the Freedom to Read Foundation) strongly urge the District to return the challenged books to the classroom while the review process is underway and to give serious consideration to their importance as the process moves forward.
- School board withdraws controversial issues policy | Eagle Times (Springfield, VT)
- Justice Dept. Opens Criminal Inquiry Into John Bolton’s Book | The New York Times
- The danger in Utah schools — porn or censorship? | The Salt Lake City Tribune
- UC national labs suspend diversity training after Trump administration order | San Francisco Chronicle
- Trump blasts 1619 Project as DeVos praises alternative Black history curriculum | Politico
Privacy and Cybersecurity
- Online learning’s toll on kids’ privacy | Axios
- YouTube unlawfully violates kids’ privacy, new $3.2B lawsuit claims | Ars Technica
- Facebook Accused of Watching Instagram Users Through Cameras | Bloomberg
- Companies Can Track Your Phone’s Movements to Target Ads |Wired
- In a facial recognition bill backed by Microsoft, three words stand between citizens and their civil rights | Quartz
- State cites tighter use of facial recognition, but civil libertarians want more guarantees | Standard-Examiner (Salt Lake City, UT)
- Why kids need special protection from AI’s influence | MIT Technology Review
More privacy news is available at the Choose Privacy Every Day blog.
First Amendment, Free Speech, and Civil Liberties
- Freedom of Expression during COVID-19 | The Library of Congress
- Pastor threatens school with lawsuit after daughter sent home for homophobic t-shirt | Metro Weekly
- Teaching Children About Freedom Of Speech | Forbes
- Florida felons lose voting rights case in federal appeals court | Tampa Bay Times
- Opinion: Trump’s shredding of civil liberties won’t stop with antifa | The Salt Lake City Tribune
- Opinion: Reese: Sorry Conservatives, the First Amendment Doesn’t Care about Your Feelings Either | The Daily Utah Chronicle
Access
- U.S. Court Records Would Be Free Under House Judiciary Bill | Bloomberg Law
- 60 Open-Access University-Press Monographs Published through TOME Initiative | Association of Research Libraries (ARL)
- IMLS-Funded Reading Nation Waterfall Project To Bring Curated Little Free Libraries To Native American Children | Library Journal
- The Great Outdoors: Libraries turn to drone delivery, outdoor browsing, and other alfresco services | American Libraries
Net Neutrality & Broadband Access
- Distance learning while homeless in the Twin Cities: It’s complicated and challenging | MinnPost
- Remote Schooling Out of Reach for Many West Virginia Students Without Internet | The Wall Street Journal.
- Tribal broadband in focus with hearing and summit in nation’s capital | Indianz.com
Academic Freedom & Campus Speech
- Joint Statement of the Deans of the University of California Law Schools About the Value of Critical Race Theory | UCLA Law
- Blackademic Lives Matter: An Interview with Lavelle Porter | Los Angeles Review of Books
- CSUSM will not remove controversial Instagram comment, citing First Amendment rights | The Cougar Chronicle (San Marcos, CA)
- Opinion: The right to free speech doesn’t include hate speech | The Appalachian (Boone, NC)
- New Freedom of Speech and Expression Statement released | The Record (Goshen College, IN)
Fake News, Free Press, Social Media
- FBI director: It’s a mistake to get election information on social media | CNET
- YouTube removed Trump adviser’s video for misinformation. He compared it to ‘Third World’ censorship | The Washington Post
- Opinion: YouTube’s Political Censorship | The Wall Street Journal
- Why the most controversial US internet law is worth saving | MIT Technology Review
- Plaintiffs Continue Effort to Overturn FOSTA, One of the Broadest Internet Censorship Laws | EFF, Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Reviving democracy requires reviving local journalism – Columbia Journalism Review
- Digital Disinformation and Vote Suppression | Brennan Center for Justice
- The Far Reaches of Misinformation | Intellectual Freedom Blog
- Another Facebook worker quits in disgust, saying the company ‘is on the wrong side of history’ | The Washington Post
- Trump replaces FCC member in bid to push through Twitter/Facebook crackdown | Ars Technica
- U.S. To Bar Downloads Of TikTok, WeChat | National Public Radio
- What Is Happening With TikTok and WeChat as Trump Tries to Ban Them? | The New York Times
- Hate Speech on Facebook Is Pushing Ethiopia Dangerously Close to a Genocide | Vice News
International News
- Judd Apatow Calls Out Hollywood Censorship in China: ‘They’ve Bought Our Silence with Money’ | IndieWire
- Chinese Users Turned GitHub into a Land of Free Covid Speech | WIRED
- First Nation members have Charter free speech rights on reserves, says B.C. civil liberties group | National Post
- Irish Dept. of Education may drop US literary classics in wake of BLM protests | Irish Central
- Bangladesh in the Shadow of Censorship | The Diplomat
- Reading the Evolution of Censorship and Sedition in India | The Wire
- Judge: DPHSS disregarded fundamental civil liberties | The Guam Daily Post
- ‘I literally weep’: anguish as New Zealand’s National Library culls 600,000 books | The Guardian
- A Danish Children’s TV Show Has This Message: ‘Normal Bodies Look Like This’ | The New York Times
- Munroe Bergdorf, Jameela Jamil co-sign Instagram open letter against ‘censorship of plus-sized Black women’ on platform by Nyome Nicholas-Williams | Evening Standard (ES) Magazine
Around the Web
- Support for Black Lives Matter has decreased since June but remains strong among Black Americans | Pew Research Center
- F.B.I. Director Warns of Russian Interference and White Supremacist Violence | New York Times
- Justice Gorsuch Tells Students: The Constitution Is in Your Hands to Protect | Education Week
- Education Dept.: High Court Ruling Does Not Support Transgender Athletes | Education Week
- Nearly two-thirds of US young adults unaware 6m Jews killed in the Holocaust | The Guardian
- Books by Authors of Color and on Issues of Race in CHS Curriculum | The Coronado Times (Coronado, CA)
- How a Hacker Launched a Decentralized Network to Track Internet Censorship | Coindesk
- FBI agent’s unredacted book released with help from Law School clinic | Yale Daily News
- Woodward book: Former intelligence head Dan Coats thought it useless to speak out against Donald Trump | USA Today
- Everything you need to know about J.K. Rowling’s new controversial book Troubled Blood | The Shields Gazetter
- Opinion: Don’t judge JK Rowling’s new book by its tweets | The Sydney Morning Herald
- How the Black Lives Matter Protests Impacted Book Media | Book Riot
- War, Anonymity, and the Dangerous Line Between Truth and Fiction | Lit Hub
- VCA spotlight: Drag Queen Story Hour goes virtual during pandemic | WRAL (Raleigh, NC)
ALA News
- ALA Midwinter Virtual, Jan. 22-26, offers exciting lineup of activities, speakers
- ALSC, BCALA leadership to join national Netflix conversation on race, identity, and social justice in children’s literature
- Four Projects Receive 2020 AIA/ALA Library Building Award
- Core Webinar Presents Effective Communications for Libraries in a Crisis
- Public libraries connecting readers through national digital reading event
- Tribal libraries, partners leverage federal E-rate to deliver high-speed connections to six pueblos, new ALA case study shows
- Mapping new methods for information literacy
- The Prison Library as an Agent of Rehabilitative Change
- New ALA report highlights how library services aid formerly incarcerated patrons throughout the reentry process
- Remember to volunteer by September 30, 2020 to serve on ALA, Council, and Joint committees for the 2021-2023 term
- Nominate a Superstar Librarian for the I Love My Librarian Award; Has a librarian made a difference in your life? Nominations for this year’s I Love My Librarian Award are open until November 9, 2020. Ten amazing librarians from public, school, and college/university libraries will win $5,000 each in recognition of their outstanding service to their communities. If you know a librarian who’s gone above and beyond, especially during the pandemic, submitting a nomination is the perfect way to thank them.
- ALA Scholarship Application for 2021 Now Open; Due March 1, 2021
- Core webinar will help you build a communications plan to convey your library’s values
- ALA calls for nominations for IFLA Section Committees for 2021-2024
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