Highlights

• Censorship beyond books | American Libraries
• Banned Books: Librarians push back against censorship | WTTW (IL)
• Nominations open for 2020 IFRT John Phillip Immroth Memorial Award
• Searching for Intellectual Freedom Bloggers 2020 – Apply by September 30th. Click to retweet.

Banned Books Week

• “Keep the Light On” with these helpful tools | OIF Blog
• Censorship leaves us in the dark: A banned books reading list | NCAC
• Libraries ‘Keep the Light On’ During Banned Books Week | ALA News
• Join “Celebrate Banned Books Week”: a Facebook group designed to foster meaningful conversation and share engaging ideas for anyone who celebrates Banned Books Week.
• Harry Potter and the poorly-read exorcists | The New York Times
• Banned Books Week–Let’s keep our shelves controversial | Daily Utah Chronicle
• Banned Books Week: Oppose censorship and ‘keep the light on’ | People for the American Way
• What banned books tell us about the literary canon | The Mary Sue
• Have you ever read a book you weren’t supposed to read? | The New York Times
• Banned Books Week: A European perspective | Fine Books & Collections
• I’m with the Banned…Books, ALA, and City Lit Theater | Rebellious Magazine for Women
• Banned Books around the world | Bookseller
• Yes, Books Are Banned | Inside Higher Ed
• Literature locked up: A Banned Books Week 2019 reading list | PEN America
• Obscene, unpatriotic, blasphemous: Banned books through time | Al Jazeera
• “I wish we didn’t need Banned Books Week”: The real cost of banning books | NCAC
• History of comics censorship | CBLDF
• Why Barry Wittenstein and Jerry Pinkney want you to read these banned books | School Library Journal
• Alex Gino shares what it’s like to author the #1 most banned book | OIF Blog

Censorship

• Book challenges put small library in a bind | Portland Tribune (OR)
• Book discussing police brutality cleared to be read after CMS review process | WBTV (NC)
  • Mom, long-time officer, decides against child reading school-assigned book about police brutality | WBTV (NC)
• Library weighing options before ‘filtering’ content | Coeur d’Alene Press
• Groups protest outside Drag Queen Story Hour Spartanburg library | Upstate.com (SC)
• Mid-Continent Library evaluating future of transgender program | KSHB 41 (KC)
• US prisons banning thousands of books ‘on arbitrary grounds’ | The Guardian
  • Literature Locked Up: How Prison Book Restriction Policies Constitute the Nation’s Largest Book Ban | PEN America

Privacy and Cybersecurity

• Amazon cracks down on third party apps over privacy violations | Wired
• Jeff Bezos Says Amazon is Writing its Own Facial Recognition Laws to Pitch to Lawmakers | Vox
• FTC may loosen children’s digital privacy rules | Digital News Daily
• How Your Private Illinois Tollway Data is Shared with Cops and Divorce Lawyers | WBEZ Chicago
• The iOS 13 privacy and security features you should know | Wired
• Amazon pushes Alexa privacy with new delete options | The Verge
• Vimeo collects facial scans without permission, lawsuit alleges | Ars Technica
• GDPR’s right to be forgotten limited to EU websites | Inside Privacy
• Should artificial intelligence be used to assess potential employees | OIF Blog

Additional privacy posts, news, and updates are available at the Choose Privacy Everyday blog.

Access

• Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers From Seeing Job Ads. The Federal Government Thinks That’s Illegal. | ProPublica
• 2019 Inclusive Intership initiative concludes in D.C. | American Libraries
• One-in-five Americans now listen to audiobooks | Pew Research Center

Net Neutrality & Broadband Access

• Testing the economics of the net neutrality debate | Telecommunications Policy [peer-reviewed]

Academic Freedom & Campus Speech

• Education Dept. takes aim at a center on Middle East studies. Scholars say that could chill academic freedom. | Chronicle of Higher Education
  • The right’s latest attack on academic freedom might actually work | Slate
  • Feds cite Islam focus in review of Duke-UNC language grant | Associated Press
  • Team Trump’s free-speech attack on U.S. universities reminds us what’s really at stake | Philadelphia Inquirer
• Students’ attitudes toward controversial speech are changing. Here’s why. | Chronicle of Higher Education
• Michigan’s bias-response team uses indirect threats to chill free speech, appeals court finds | Chronicle of Higher Education
• Diversity of thought | Chronicle of Higher Education; “As polarizing forces threaten campus conversations, this guide can help you learn to better support productive debates and civic engagement at your institution.”
• The Senate takes on campus censorship | Wall Street Journal

Fake News, Free Press, Social Media

• Facebooks restricts speech by popular demand | The Atlantic
• The Pee Tape Is Real, but It’s Fake | Salon
• Hawley claims Facebook’s Zuckerberg admitted bias in censoring pro-life content | National Review

First Amendment & Free Speech

• Court: First Amendment protects ‘hate group’ label | Associated Press
• The controversial use of rap lyrics as evidence | The New Yorker
• A Pastafarian hilariously trolled a town council meeting. The stakes are profoundly serious. | Vox

Around the Web

• Who doesn’t read books in America? | Pew Research Center
• Books Won’t Die | The Paris Review
• Steal This Book? There’s a Price | The New York Times
• A hateful, conspiracy-filled book just got harder to buy. That’s no cause for celebration. | Washington Post
• These 15 Jewish heroes rescued books from the jaws of censors | Forward
• FOX censors Sarah Silverman’s salty complaint on Emmy red carpet about…censorship | Deadline
• A preview of the new Kurt Vonnegut Library and Museum is open for Banned Books Week | Mental Floss
• History of comics censorship | CBLDF
• A Brief History of Time–Censored for being unethical | OIF Blog
• Scientific Censorship: Not Merely a Problem of Yesterday | OIF Blog

International Issues

• One brother stabbed another. The journalist who wrote about it paid a price. | The New York Times
• Revealed: How TikTok sensors videos that do not please Beijing | The Guardian
• The growing threat to journalism around the world | New York Times
• New report on academic freedom and China | Inside Higher Ed
• The Irish For: How censorship has affected Irish language books | The Journal (Ireland)
• Kenya Publishers Association calls or thorough review of books | KBC (Kenya)
• Netflix and Amazon Prime may have to censor explicit content in India soon | Vice

ALA News

• Rainbow Round Table seeks nominations for outstanding service to the LGBTQIA+ community
• New from ACRL–Improving Library Services in Support of International Students and English as a Second Language Learners
• ALA announces National Library Legislative Day to be held in May 2020
• Introducing the Libraries Transform Book Pick 
• To be considered as a volunteer for the ALA, Council, and Joint committees for the 2020-2022 term, forms must be submitted no later than September 30, 2019.
• Nominate a superstar librarian for the I Love My Librarian award before Oct. 21, 2019.

Subscribe to future issues of Intellectual Freedom News, a free weekly compilation of news delivered to your inbox by the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, including

• current book challenges in libraries and schools
• articles about privacy, internet filtering and censorship
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