LitHub: “Book banning is a chaotic and illogical business. How a book is received or understood is often subject to the historical moment—and the tastes of individuals. The notion of an objective measure or checklist to decide what is “appropriate”—something far-right school boards have worked to police and enforce—has long been slippery to define. In… Continue Reading
Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002
Category Archives: Censorship
Tools for Thinking About Censorship
Ex Urbe: “Was it a government action, or did they do it themselves because of pressure?” This is inevitably among our first questions when news breaks that any expressive work (a book, film, news story, blog post etc.) has been censored or suppressed by the company or group trusted with it (a publisher, a film… Continue Reading
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Affirms That Texas Book Ban Law is Unconstitutional
Association of American Publishers: “The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit today affirmed the preliminary injunction of the “Reader Act” (formerly HB 900) granted by Judge Alan D. Albright of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division in a written opinion issued on September 18, 2023. The law would have required independent bookstores, national… Continue Reading
A leak-hosting site looks to thaw the chill of censorship
Columbia Journalism Review: “In November, Reuters published a special investigative feature headlined, “How an Indian startup hacked the world.” The story alleged that a hacking-for-hire firm called Appin had stolen secrets from executives, politicians, military officials, and wealthy elites around the globe. (Appin has denied this.) A few weeks later, however, the story was taken… Continue Reading
NYC Public School Wipes Israel from the Map
The Free Press: “The poster at Brooklyn’s PS 261, where young students are taught ‘Arab Culture Arts,’ is part of a program funded by the Qatar Foundation. A New York City public school is being accused of “Jewish erasure” after a map from one of its classrooms surfaced showing all the countries of the Middle… Continue Reading
Protecting Students from Faulty Software and Legislation: 2023 Year in Review
EFF: “Lawmakers, schools districts, educational technology companies and others keep rolling out legislation and software that threatens students’ privacy, free speech, and access to social media, in the name of “protecting” children. At EFF, we fought back against this overreach and demand accountability and transparency. Bad bills and invasive monitoring systems, though sometimes well-meaning, hurt… Continue Reading
The Atlas of Surveillance Hits Major Milestones: 2023 in Review
EFF: “If you haven’t checked out the Atlas of Surveillance recently, or ever before, you absolutely should. It includes a searchable database and an interactive map, and anyone can download the data for their own projects. As this collaboration with the University of Nevada Reno’s Reynolds School of Journalism (RSJ) finishes its fifth year, we… Continue Reading
International Threats to Freedom of Expression: 2023 Year in Review
EFF: “2023 has been an unfortunate reminder that the right to free expression is most fragile for groups on the margins, and that it can quickly become a casualty during global conflicts. Threats to speech arose out of the ongoing war in Palestine. They surfaced in bills and laws around the world that explicitly restrict… Continue Reading
Read it yourself: All 673 books removed from Orange classrooms
Orlando Sentinel: “These books are among the 673 rejected by Orange County Public Schools this year [read free] for fear they violate a new Florida law that prohibits “sexual conduct” in books available to students. The books were in teachers’ classroom libraries. The books will get another review by OCPS staff, and could be returned… Continue Reading
The lives upended by Florida’s school book wars
Washington Post (read free): “…The battle over what children should be allowed to read in school has riven Florida’s Escambia County School District. It’s part of a national battle, as school book objections surge to historic highs across the country. In Escambia County, the controversy kicked off in 2022, when a high school language arts… Continue Reading
Inside America’s School Internet Censorship Machine
Wired [read free]: “…WIRED requested internet censorship records from 17 public school districts around the US, painting a picture of the widespread digital censorship taking place across the country. Our investigation focuses on Albuquerque Public Schools (APS), one of the largest school districts in the US, which provided the most complete look at its web-filtering… Continue Reading
EU Fundamental Rights Report 2023
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights Report 2023 reflects on the developments and shortfalls of human rights protection in the EU in 2022. Its focus section covers the fundamental rights implications of the aggression in Ukraine for the EU and the challenges that arose. For example, the EU’s Temporary Protection Directive provided welcome access to… Continue Reading
