September 8, 2017 – Collated by OIF Staff and News Interns

Celebrate #LiteracyDay by reading any book you want!

Intellectual Freedom Highlights

• Webinar (PLA): Making Banned Books Week Work in Your Community | Wednesday, Sept 13, 2017 @ 1pm CST
• Webinar: Intellectual freedom is not just about censorship! | Wednesday, Sept 13, 2017 @4pm CST, presented by Michelle Luhtala and Kristin Pekoll
• Words Have Power: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Banned Books Week | Knowledge Quest
• Prominent authors read censored works to benefit ACLU at Public House Theatre | Broadway World

Censorship

• Reporter: Google successfully pressured me to take down critical story| Ars Technica
• Follow-up opinions on the Conejo Valley (CA) school board’s decision to approve The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian
  • School board should make its policy crystal clear | Thousand Acres Acorn (CA)
  • Book will have kids spouting racist slurs | Thousand Acres Acorn (CA)
• Can Trump censor climate change? | Huffington Post

Privacy

• The Feds promised to protect Dreamer data. Now what? | Wired
  • Dreamers’ new risk after Daca: US could use their personal data to target them | The Guardian
• Data of 143 million Americans — nearly half the country — exposed in Equifax hack | Baltimore Sun
  • Why the Equifax breach is very possibly the worst leak of personal info ever | Ars Technica
• Justice Department: ‘Legislation may be necessary’ if companies do not turn over data | Washington Examiner
• Google promised not to scan Gmail for targeted ads—but for how long? | Ars Technica
• U.S. surveillance and the eye of the beholder | IAPP
• Speedway, Lettuce Entertain You tagged with class actions under IL biometric privacy law | Cook County Record

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

Access

• Parent concerned about Huntsville City Schools laptop content filters | WHNT (AL)
• Trump Will End DACA in 6 Months, Confirming Dreamers’ Fears and Putting Onus on Congress | Chronicle for Higher Education
• Urgent: Today’s students need a digitally fluent school website | eSchool News

Net Neutrality

• Franken pushing FCC to keep internet protections | Minnesota Public Radio; “Franken said the FCC was flooded with messages supporting net neutrality during a recent public comment period. FCC chairman Ajit Pai has described the 2015 order as a “heavy handed” approach to “hypothetical harms.” He prefers returning to a “light touch” regulatory framework. Megan Kocher, science librarian at the University of Minnesota and chair of the Minnesota Library Association’s intellectual freedom committee, opposes the changes Pai is pushing. Kocher said that internet access must remain equal.”
• FCC’s broken comments system could help doom net neutrality | Wired
• Apple’s real reason for finally joining the net neutrality fight | Wired
• FCC makes net neutrality complaints public, but too late to stop repeal| Ars Technica

Academic Freedom/ Campus Speech

• Why this professor is wearing a bulletproof vest to class | Washington Post
• White supremacist group sues university over refusal to rent room for speech | ABA Journal
• ‘The Man-Not’ | Inside Higher Ed; “Tommy Curry, the philosopher at Texas A&M whose comments on race set off a furor, discusses his new book on how critical theory has ignored the realities of black maleness.”
• Scholarship and protest in the age of Trump | Chronicle for Higher Education

First Amendment Issues

• Woman who laughed during Jeff Sessions confirmation hearing turns down plea deal, gets second trial | New York Daily News
• Metro issues refund over rejected ads for controversial writer’s book | WTOP (D.C.)
• Library official removed after reported comments on homosexuality | Chicago Tribune

Hate Speech

• The Internet of hate| Slate; “After Charlottesville, Nazis, white supremacists, and the alt-right have become a lot less welcome on the web. So they’re building their own.”
  
• Disturbing photo tests boundaries of free speech, hate crime | KCCI (IA)
• Bumble rejects hate speech to make users feel safe on its dating app | KUT (TX)
• The far-right’s favorite social network is facing its own censorship controversy | The Verge
• Should we ban hate speech? Nazis in the street and the “paradox of tolerance” | Salon
• Where hate speech begins | Fordham Observer
• Perspectives on Harmful Speech Online | Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society
• Central Minnesota high school banned flags on vehicles, until the protests began | Star Tribune

Around the Web

• Did school overstep when it disciplined students for appearing in photo wearing KKK-style hoods? | Washington Post
• New Reading Lists Aid Advanced Readers | School Library Journal
• ‘Techdirt’ Defeats Defamation Suit By Man Who Claims He Invented Email | MediaPost
• Boys puberty book is pulped after aging badly | New York Times
• Back to school with political talk | Intellectual Freedom Blog
• Should the Bible be banned? | Huffington Post
• Should kindergarten include books about being transgender?| Los Angeles Times
• The fake-news fallacy | The New Yorker
• Thousands of Facebook ads tied to bogus Russian accounts | Wired
• Duel speech/Speech duel: Trigger warnings | Newseum Institute
• The right stuff: Teaching kids about copyright | eSchool News
• Book burning: A sordid history of cultural erasure | Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
• 1st Amendment wins in self-proclaimed e-mail inventor’s Techdirt libel suit | Ars Technica

International Issues

• Guinea Bissau state TV employees kick against rising govt censorship | Africa News
• Australian mothers attack Aldi for stocking children’s book about cross-dressing | Telegraph Herald
• Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering| European Digital Rights
• Bejing’s bold new censorship | New York Review of Books
• How does the Cuban government censor the internet? Report reveals some details | Miami Herald
• Western social media firms in dialogue with Iranian regime re: censorship| Iran News Update
• Russian complaint brings accusations of censorship for Estonia| ERR

Banned Books Week

• Celebrate September 24-30; Posters, Buttons and Totes in the ALA Store, Free Downloads, Rebel Reader Twitter Tournament, Thunderclap, and Stand for the Banned. #BannedBooksWeek
• D.C.’s library foundation is hiding provocative books around the city. It’s up to you to find them. | Washington Post

ALA News

• Library Card Sign Up Month with Teen Titans #LibraryCardSignUp
• ALA responds to end of Deferred Action to Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program
• ALA and GLBTRT work to safeguard civil liberties, continue to support understanding and mutual respect
• LLAMA Webinar: 21st Century Library Ethics
• Libraries invited to join social media activity this Banned Books Week

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