Tag Archives: censorship

Salt Lake Tribune: Explore The Tribune’s database of books banned in Utah schools

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Salt Lake Tribune: Explore The Tribune’s database of books banned in Utah schools. “The district with the most bans — Washington County School District — removed 54 titles. The top author — fantasy writer Sarah J. Maas — had her books pulled 38 times. These are just some of the findings from The Salt Lake Tribune’s survey of the titles banned across 17 of the state’s largest school districts since a new 2022 law on books challenges took effect. Search through our database and see what’s been banned at your kid’s school.”

All The Public Libraries Offering Free Access To Banned Books: A Comprehensive Guide (Book Riot)

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Book Riot: All The Public Libraries Offering Free Access To Banned Books: A Comprehensive Guide. “This list is as comprehensive a roundup as possible of all the U.S. public libraries offering access to banned books. It includes the name of the library, the people who are being granted access to the collections, materials within the collections, as well as any other pertinent or relevant information.”

Government Technology: Library Nonprofit Counters Censorship With Banned Books List

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Government Technology: Library Nonprofit Counters Censorship With Banned Books List. “Ahead of Banned Books Week this week, the nonprofit EveryLibrary Institute published a spreadsheet of book titles and authors that have been targeted by parents across the U.S. trying to get them banned from schools.”

Turning the page on banned books: LA libraries widen access to restricted titles (USC Annenberg Media)

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USC Annenberg Media: Turning the page on banned books: LA libraries widen access to restricted titles. “In response to increasing book challenges in California schools, a new motion from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors aims to widen access to restricted titles by giving every California resident access to LA County libraries’ e-book database.”

MIT Technology Review: Google has a new tool to outsmart authoritarian internet censorship

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MIT Technology Review: Google has a new tool to outsmart authoritarian internet censorship. “Jigsaw, a unit of Google that operates sort of like an internet freedom think tank and that creates related products, already offers a suite of anti-censorship tools including Outline, which provides free, open, and encrypted access to the internet through a VPN…. Now Jigsaw is releasing Outline’s code in the form of a software developer kit (SDK) so that other websites and applications can build censorship resistance directly into their products, the company exclusively told MIT Technology Review.”

Associated Press: Russia fines Google $32,000 for videos about the conflict in Ukraine

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Associated Press: Russia fines Google $32,000 for videos about the conflict in Ukraine. “A Russian court on Thursday imposed a 3-million-ruble ($32,000) fine on Google for failing to delete allegedly false information about the conflict in Ukraine. The move by a magistrate’s court follows similar actions in early August against Apple and the Wikimedia Foundation that hosts Wikipedia.”

West Volusia Beacon: Quakers give away hundreds of Black-history books

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West Volusia Beacon: Quakers give away hundreds of Black-history books. “The Quakers had been collecting books for months as a response to the widespread culling of Black-history books from school libraries in reaction to the Anti-Woke Act promoted by Gov. Ron DeSantis and passed by the Florida Legislature, making it a felony to teach or lend books on Black history not vetted by the Florida Department of Education. We were hoping to get 100 books. But books kept coming. We were stunned to receive nearly 500 books in the mail, delivered by UPS, and left on doorsteps. A woman in Pennsylvania donated $100 by PayPal.”

Associated Press: Judge blocks Arkansas law allowing librarians to be criminally charged over ‘harmful’ materials

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Associated Press: Judge blocks Arkansas law allowing librarians to be criminally charged over ‘harmful’ materials. “Arkansas is temporarily blocked from enforcing a law that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing ‘harmful’ materials to minors, a federal judge ruled Saturday.”

New York Times: Russia’s Online Censorship Has Soared 30-Fold During Ukraine War

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New York Times: Russia’s Online Censorship Has Soared 30-Fold During Ukraine War. “To compile its findings, Citizen Lab analyzed more than 300 court orders from the Russian government against Vkontakte, one of the country’s largest social media sites, demanding that it remove accounts, posts, videos and other content. Before the war, Russia’s government issued internet takedown orders to Vkontakte, known as VK, once every 50 days on average. After the conflict began, that number jumped to nearly once a day, according to Citizen Lab.”

Hindustan Times: Govt warned Twitter of ‘consequences’ for failing to block URLs during farmers’ protest

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Hindustan Times: Govt warned Twitter of ‘consequences’ for failing to block URLs during farmers’ protest. “In a significant move, the Union government has accepted that it sent out a notice to Twitter warning it of ‘significant consequences’ after the platform failed to block certain URLs during farmers’ protest.”

The Register: China outsources censorship to web giants to break the fake news business model

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The Register: China outsources censorship to web giants to break the fake news business model . “Revealed on Monday, the 13 rules apply to ‘self-media’ – publishers and social media accounts not operated or approved by government, and therefore the responsibility of social media and hosting platforms. Platforms will have to enhance review processes for new accounts and name changes. Accounts with political, government, military or media logos must be manually reviewed, and blocked if found to be imposters.”

Jack Dorsey: India threatened to shut Twitter and raid employees (BBC)

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BBC: Jack Dorsey: India threatened to shut Twitter and raid employees. “Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has alleged that the Indian government threatened to shut the platform and raid employees’ houses in the country. In an interview with a US-based YouTube channel, Mr Dorsey said India requested removal of several tweets and accounts linked to the farmers’ protest in 2020.”

Bloomberg: Hong Kong Bid to Ban Protest Song Spurs Fear of Google Pullout

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Bloomberg: Hong Kong Bid to Ban Protest Song Spurs Fear of Google Pullout. “Hong Kong’s intent to ban internet platforms from hosting a protest song is raising concern the move may prompt Western tech firms such as Google to reconsider their presence in the finance hub.”

Coda: In Hong Kong, a digital memorial of the Tiananmen Square massacre disappears

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Coda: In Hong Kong, a digital memorial of the Tiananmen Square massacre disappears. “On Tuesday, I decided to go back and look at Weiboscope, a gripping digital archive of photos, art and messages censored on social media in China for their connection with the 1989 democracy movement. But all I found was a blank page. Weiboscope — a joint project of the University of Hong Kong and the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab — still has a domain, but the archive itself is gone.”

Twitter Admits in Court Filing: Elon Musk Is Simply Wrong About Government Interference At Twitter (Techdirt)

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Techdirt: Twitter Admits in Court Filing: Elon Musk Is Simply Wrong About Government Interference At Twitter. “To date, not a single document revealed has shown what people now falsely believe: that the US government and Twitter were working together to ‘censor’ people based on their political viewpoints. Literally none of that has been shown at all. Instead, what’s been shown is that Twitter had a competent trust & safety team that debated tough questions around how to apply policies for users on their platform and did not seem at all politically motivated in their decisions.”