Freedom House – Marking 50 Years in the Struggle for Democracy – Key Findings Global freedom declined for the 17th consecutive year. Moscow’s war of aggression led to devastating human rights atrocities in Ukraine. New coups and other attempts to undermine representative government destabilized Burkina Faso, Tunisia, Peru, and Brazil. Previous years’ coups and ongoing… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Censorship
Democracy Report 2023
DEMOCRACY REPORT 2023 #Defiance in the Face of #Autocratization. “Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) produces the largest global dataset on #democracy with over 31 million data points for 202 countries from 1789 to 2022. Involving almost 4,000 scholars and other country experts, V-Dem measures hundreds of different attributes of democracy. V-Dem enables new ways to study… Continue Reading
Weapons of control, shields of impunity: Internet shutdowns in 2022
accessnow: “From Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe, authorities are imposing internet shutdowns at staggering rates. In 2022 alone, governments and other actors disrupted the internet at least 187 times across 35 countries — breaking our #KeepItOn record for the number of countries to hit the kill switch in a single year. Not only are shutdowns resurging after… Continue Reading
Original Tweets Only: Retweeters Not Liable for Defamation
ABA: “Re-posters of digital content are not liable for statements they did not author. Only the original creators of digital content can be held liable for defamatory statements, not the re-posters of slanderous posts. The court in Banaian v. Bascom held that persons who reshared original content should not be held to the same standard… Continue Reading
EEAS Report on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Threats
1st EEAS Report on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Threats. Towards a framework for networked defence, February 2023. “This first edition of the report on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference threats is informed by the work of the European External Action Service’s (EEAS) Stratcom division 8 in 2022. It is the first of its kind… Continue Reading
I’m a teacher in Florida. Here’s what the DeSantis book bans look like in my classroom
The Guardian: “A new crackdown on books in Florida schools has had a chilling effect in classrooms. “I’m done! I’m done! What do I do now?” Every teacher, in every classroom, hears this many (thousands) of times daily from their students. In my classroom, for more than a decade, the answer has always been “Get… Continue Reading
Hide your books to avoid felony charges, Fla. schools tell teachers
Washington Post – Unsure what titles violate new state rules, two school districts tell educators to conceal every book for now..Students arrived in some Florida public school classrooms this month to find their teachers’ bookshelves wrapped in paper — or entirely barren of books — after district officials launched a review of the texts’ appropriateness… Continue Reading
2022 Corruption Perceptions Index reveals scant progress against corruption as world becomes more violent
Berlin, 31 January 2023: “The 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released today by Transparency International shows that most of the world continues to fail to fight corruption: 95 per cent of countries have made little to no progress since 2017. According to the Global Peace Index, the world continues to become a less peaceful place.… Continue Reading
Books Unbanned
“Brooklyn Public Library is adding our voice to those fighting for the rights of teens nationwide to read what they like, discover themselves, and form their own opinions. Inspired by the American Library Association’s Freedom to Read Statement, BPL’s Books Unbanned initiative is a response to an increasingly coordinated and effective effort to remove books tackling… Continue Reading
Students want new books. Thanks to restrictions, librarians can’t buy them.
Washington Post: Schools are struggling to keep their shelves stocked as oversight by parents and school boards intensifies – “States and districts nationwide have begun to constrain what librarians can order. At least 10 states have passed laws giving parents more power over which books appear in libraries or limiting students’ access to books, a… Continue Reading
Opposing Attempts to Criminalize Librarianship through State Obscenity Laws
EveryLibrary Institute: “In 2023-2024, we anticipate that many legislators whose bills failed the last session will reintroduce language in this session and anti-access activists will be inspired to sponsor their own regressive initiatives. The EverLibrary Institute is releasing a new Policy Brief “Opposing Attempts to Criminalize Libraries and Education Through State Obscenity Laws” to help… Continue Reading
Are book bans discrimination?
Washington Post – Biden administration to test new legal theory: “The federal government has opened an investigation into a Texas school district over its alleged removal of books featuring LGBTQ characters — marking the first test of a new legal argument that failing to represent students in school books can constitute discrimination. The Education Department’s… Continue Reading
