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CNN: “Book banning — or at least, book banning attempts — appears to be having a resurgence. The American Library Association recorded 729 challenges to library, school and university materials and services in 2021, the most since the organization began tracking those attempts in 2000. While that might seem low overall considering the approximately 99,000 …
Book Riot: “The rise in book censorship across the United States is reminiscent of the fascist tendencies throughout history. While book banners and censorship supporters paint their concerns as specific to contemporary issues, it’s a common way to consolidate power. The history of Nazi book burning is one of the most obvious antecedents to the …
Tracking Exposed: “On March 15, 2022, Tracking Exposed released a special report documenting our investigation into TikTok’s content restrictions in Russia, which was picked up by news outlets, such as The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Vice News, Le Monde, and WIRED Italia. It also gained substantial traction on Twitter. Today we release a …
Axios: “The National Urban League’s 2022 “State of Black America” report warns of a systematic effort to “disenfranchise, delude, manipulate and intimidate American voters,” Axios’ Russell Contreras writes. “[T]here’s a plot to destroy American democracy,” National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial told reporters on a call ahead of today’s release of the annual …
New on LLRX – The Russian invasion shows how digital technologies have become involved in all aspects of war – Since Russia invaded Ukraine, we keep hearing that this war is like no other; because Ukrainians have cellphones and access to social media platforms, the traditional control of information and propaganda cannot work and people are …
Articles and Columns for March 2022 Libraries and the Contested Terrain of “Neutrality” – Rick Anderson is University Librarian at Brigham Young University. His commentary addresses timely, thoughtful and critical conversations and knowledge sharing around the issues of censorship, book banning, library ethics and professional responsibility across communities. Truth to Power – Robert McKay discusses his …
Pudding – Story by Rebecca Monteleone and Jamie Brew; Design + code by Michelle McGhee “Writing text that can be understood by as many people as possible seems like an obvious best practice. But from news media to legal guidance to academic research, the way we write often creates barriers to who can read it. …
“Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) produces the largest global dataset on democracy with over 30 million data points for 202 countries from 1789 to 2021. Involving over 3,700 scholars and other country experts, V-Dem measures hundreds of different attributes of democracy. The level of democracy enjoyed by the average global citizen in 2021 is down to …
Global Investigative Journalism Network: Editor’s Note: This is the introductory chapter of a new, five-part GIJN guide to investigating elections that will be serialized over the coming month. Look for the second installment, “Chapter 1: New Election-Digging Tools,” next week. Elections around the world face increasingly common threats, including disinformation campaigns, foreign interference, voter suppression, rising …
The Atlantic: “The Russian invasion of Ukraine and a series of COVID-related shutdowns in China do not, on the surface, appear to have much in common. Yet both are accelerating a shift that is taking the world in a dangerous direction, splitting it into two spheres, one centered on Washington, D.C., the other on Beijing. …
Washington Post: “Meet the librarians fighting bans and scrambling to preserve children’s freedom to read..Slowly — over months of meetings, investigations and secret conversations with fearful librarians across her counties — she came to understand the disturbing reality. Administrators, afraid of attracting controversy, were quietly removing books from library shelves before they could be challenged. …
AP via NBCNews – “There’s an “Island of Misfit Toys” in the popular holiday classic. Now there’s an island for unwanted and banned books, too. The tiny library on Matinicus Island 22 miles off the Maine coast is on a mission to fill its shelves with books that have fallen out of favor elsewhere. From …
