Censorship - Blog Posts

For everyone of us US Folks that are going to have to live through the next four years of hell, I just want to remind you that it's perfectly understandable to invest in any and every one of your offline interests going forward. Doomscrolling the next four years of our lives isn't going to help us at all, especially with TikTok essentially becoming a right-wing leaning platform overnight and Meta doing whatever they can to fall in line with Trump. Invest in yourself and your people (friends, family) by investing in your own offline interests and hobbies. Create that small little comfort zone and world that'll help you and your people get through the next four years. Buy your favorite movies (physically!), buy more books (physically!), rebuy those childhood consoles or video games you no longer have, build up a stock of LEGOs to build or collect whatever it is that'll help bring you a sense of joy and escapism. Do whatever it is you need to do to in order to create an offline world or ecosystem that makes you and your people feel a sense of safety.

If that sounds like a terrible recipe for abuse of power, that’s because it is.

If enacted, a new law would make it so a simple allegation of copyright infringement—with no review process—could lead to the shutdown of sites from YouTube to Wikipedia to MoveOn.org. Any...

I'm a little worried that it'll pass... but im not sure...

Anyway, the KOSA bill is going to be shown to the Senate tomorrow but I have a gut feeling that tells me everything will be okay.

Welp... today's the day according to the date this was posted... I hope things go well for us...

Anyway, the KOSA bill is going to be shown to the Senate tomorrow but I have a gut feeling that tells me everything will be okay.

if you are a USAmerican and care about any of the following:

fandom spaces and activities, such as shipping, fanart, fanfiction, and more

the LGBTQ+ community

sexism, feminism

racisism, racial equality

the genocide in palestine

the things happening in sudan, congo, lebanon, yemen, etc...

equality and equity

being able to voice your opinions on the government

government transparency

your right to freedom of speech, expression, and press under the constitution

THEN PLEASE HELP STOP KOSA

Article about a literature censorship board formed in 1953 in the US - The Georgia Literature Commission - 

"Thus, with God and a pure, unyielding ignorance on his side, Wesberry developed an eight-question checklist with which to gauge literature for obscenity: 1. What is the general and dominant theme? 2. What degree of sincerity of purpose is evident? 3. What is the literary or scientific worth? 4. What channels of distribution are employed? 5. What are contemporary attitudes of reasonable men toward such matters? 6. What types of readers may reasonably be expected to peruse the publication? 7. Is there evidence of pornographic intent? 8. What impression will be created in the mind of the reader, upon reading the work as a whole?”

Catcher in the Rye did not pass through this test. 

I made the decision to "clean things up" and get off of Tumblr's naughty list. Once done, I immediately noticed I was seeing so much more.

I had been visiting so infrequently, I hadn't realized Tumblr had put some sort of blindfold on me. Grrr.

genuinely insane how any words for bad things get censored even if you're denouncing it or bringing awareness. God forbid a company can't sponsor a video or liberals get offended by seeing a bad word.

Do people not realize how this makes the problems worse? How can you fight nazis without even being able to say the word "nazi"?

Talking like "people are being unalived on a mass scale like in bad germany". literally 1984 what the fuck is wrong with people.

genuinely insane how any words for bad things get censored even if you're denouncing it or bringing awareness. God forbid a company can't sponsor a video or liberals get offended by seeing a bad word.

Do people not realize how this makes the problems worse? How can you fight nazis without even being able to say the word "nazi"?

Talking like "people are being unalived on a mass scale like in bad germany". literally 1984 what the fuck is wrong with people.

omg everyone following me, rwvlog this, KOSA cannot pass!!! this would be horrible for so many people if it passed

GET KOSA TRENDING.

STOP SCROLLING NOW!

AS OF FEBRUARY 21ST, 2024, WE GOT FIVE DAYS UNTIL THE DAY OF DECISION OF THE KOSA BILL, WHICH WILL CAUSE MASS CENSORSHIP ROUND THE INTERNET IF PASSED. OR DOOMSDAY. WE NEED EVERYONE TO KNOW ABOUT THIS AND CONTRIBUTE. I'M NOT GIVING UP ON YOU ALL.

WE'RE DOWN TO THE WIRE BUT WE CAN'T GIVE UP YET. IF WE GIVE UP, EVERYTHING IS OVER. IF WE DON'T, AT LEAST WE HAVE A CHANCE.

I'M THE ONE WHO SOUNDED THE ALARM, AND I'M NOT GOING TO CURL UP AND DIE YET.

Reblog this post in every LEGAL way you can under the Tumblr guidelines with the appropriate tags. TELL AND TAG EVERYONE YOU KNOW, then add the tags to see below... and more if you can think of any complying.

Visit badinternetbills.com if you want to find a way to defeat KOSA. It WILL NOT take much of your time. Reblog with any other information or sources, too-- but make sure to reblog if you can.

Reblog if you support lgbtq+ content.

Reblog if you support questioning queer youth and/or abused youth getting the information they need.

Reblog if you support Ao3 and/or other sites that wholeheartedly preserve talentedly made media.

Reblog if you're going to repost this on other sites than Tumblr and spread the word across Twitter, Tik Tok, Pinterest, or elsewhere, alongside the link to badinternetbills.com.

Reblog if you think KOSA is unfair and shouldn't be anyone's problem -- including the adults ALL OVER THE DAMN EARTH forced to face the mass censorship it causes because "think of the American Children!".

Reblog if you support internet activism and Palestine.

Reblog if you hate fascism or censorship, and don't want actually serious and helpful conversations censored on the internet.

Reblog if you value the internet in any way at all whatsoever.

We won't let this stand any longer. Let's start a riot and get this trending.

Books, Books, Book

All-in-all, reading has a lot of benefits and by limiting the diversity of books, you are taking away some of these benefits and taking them entirely from someone who might have started reading if they had just read *that book*. Earlier today the Washington Post listed other reasons to not fall into the paranoia of banning or challenging books from the superficial: a lot of classic books were at one time banned; many books are based on issues with unique diversity and representation that are unique in a society becoming more accepting (in most places), and when you find a book has been banned or challenged, that may start a conversation.  

A Circle of Chaos

So, who puts in the effort to try and ban or challenge a book? I would think, and could agree to a certain extent, that parents are those who attempted to restrict their children’s access to books (thou I don’t know why they just don’t do it as parents instead of loophole out of their authority and try to use someone else’s) at their child’s school depending on their age (where some of their authority has temporarily been given over to the teacher or administration). However, while parents make up the second largest percent of challenges against books (32%) only 37% of all challenges occur at schools or school libraries with the majority happening at public libraries (59%) by other local library users (33%).

Books are also not the only things get challenged and for some, removal of the book includes vandalism, theft and destruction (burning books). In 2018 62% of all challenges or censorship actions in libraries were against books, but 15% of challenges were against meetings, 10% were against databases, films and games and 6% were about artwork. This scope of the challenges is the reason for the focus of censorship during banned books week as these challenges extend past the idea usually presented that books are banned because the material is “too mature” for the age group it was recommended too but has to do more with the prejudice behind those promoting the bans and can create an horrific self-fulfilling prophecy as those who were limited in the experiences and connections to these book will remain close-minded and become the passionate censorship leaders of our future.

http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/statistics

Oooooo THE HORROR

This week is apparently Banned Books Weeks and this year, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (pretty much the point of books in MY opinion) released the top 11 books so far calculated as the most banned in 2018. (1) (2)

George by Alex Gino*

A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Jill Twiss, illustrated by EG Keller*

Captain Underpants series, written and illustrated by Dan Pilkey*

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Drama, written and illustrated by Raina Telgemeier*

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki

Skippyjon Jones series, written and illustrated by Judy Schachner

The Absolutely True diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

This Day in June by Gayle E. Pitman, illustrated by Kristyna Litten*

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan*

It’s important to note that six of the eleven books (asterisked above) were challenged or banned because of LGBTQIA+ content. As books are meant to open your mind and bring you connection, the hateful reasons behind banning books remind us why PRIDE and representation are so important. This is especially true when looking at the statistics from the Trevor Project, that have found that LGB youth contemplate suicide 3x the rate of heterosexual youth and are 5x as likely to attempt. (3)

Going more off the serious side I cannot understand how a same-sex couple was the only reason listed as people’s issue with Captain Underpants. Seriously? I always thought they were stupid so I stopped trying to read them after a few but with everything else I remember finding (now the word I would use) distasteful, it was not any non-heterosexual relationships. What complete horsecrap.

(1)    https://bannedbooksweek.org/11-challenged-and-banned-books/

(2)    https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/22/us/banned-books-week-2019-trnd/index.html

(3)    https://www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/preventing-suicide/facts-about-suicide/

Here is my small piece of advice/plea for for the future for y'all for today, and I may be lightly skirting an NDA to say it, so please listen:

If you can, buy physical books.

I work in publishing and I'm scared about what the election results are going to mean for the future of books by and about marginalized people, especially books for children. There are a lot of things you can do by trying to get involved locally, especially to mobilize against book bans and laws targeting libraries and schools. Voting with your wallet is still an extremely important tactic, because we're going to be hit with economic issues re: diverse books before we get hit with legal ones. But my immediate concern is what might happen with e-books.

It's already a known problem that if you "buy" a book on Kindle or another e-reader, that you're essentially renting it from that retailer, and if that retailer decides to remove that book, they can wipe it from your device. We also know that servers can be shut down. Content policies can change. It could get very difficult to find a copy of the files to pirate, much less to purchase.

But you can't delete a physical book from the world.

Physical books are about to become very important repositories. Collect them, if you can. Go to library sales. Go to thrift stores. Go to your local bookstore -- and bonus point here: independent bookstores are and will be great hubs for organizing in the coming days. Hell, I'd even encourage you to go through Amazon to send a message that these books are still financially viable. Lord knows the latter doesn't want to advertise them to you.

I know (I know) that physical books are expensive and getting more so. I know space is at a premium in a world where we're being pushed to live in smaller and smaller apartments with more and more roommates. But if there's a book that was important to you, and if it's a book you think a bigot wouldn't want to exist in the world, I urge you to get your hands on a physical copy of that book. If nothing else, to preserve it for the next generation.

ALL of us can be librarians. ALL of us can be archivists. ALL of us can work together to preserve marginalized voices, and to ensure that they are heard.

I love you. Keep fighting. We're in this together.

read the full article here

help fight book censorship

So, you know all those bad laws I tell y'all to call your senators to kill? Well here's a good one for you to promote!

Basically, you know how payment processors freak the fuck out if even the slightest whiff of adult content shows up on a website, which has lead to the widespread sanitization of the internet?

Well, this bill, S.293; aims to prevent that crap!

And, it's currently in the Committee of Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, so if your Senator is one of the following, call them and tell them to vote yes on it:

Sherrod Brown, Ohio, Chairman

Jack Reed, Rhode Island

Bob Menendez, New Jersey

Jon Tester, Montana

Mark Warner, Virginia

Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts (Tell her it would be a start on apologizing for voting yes on FOSTA/SESTA)

Chris Van Hollen, Maryland

Catherine Cortez Masto, Nevada

Tina Smith, Minnesota

Kyrsten Sinema, Arizona (ugh)

Raphael Warnock, Georgia

John Fetterman, Pennsylvania

Tim Scott, South Carolina, Ranking Member

Mike Crapo, Idaho

Mike Rounds, South Dakota

Thom Tillis, North Carolina (Probably not reaching this asshole)

John Kennedy, Louisiana

Bill Hagerty, Tennessee

Cynthia Lummis, Wyoming

J.D. Vance, Ohio (Ugh)

Katie Britt, Alabama

Kevin Cramer, North Dakota

Steve Daines, Montana

If they're one of those right-wing dipshits, tell them it would help them prevent "cancel culture" via socially-conscious payment processors. Because subterfugue towards conservatives is always cool and good! Always!

Also mention that, in a happy irony, this would actually make kids safer by allowing platforms to acknowlege that, yes, people make a living selling well-endowed monoecious horsegirl drawings on their platform, and actually put properly finetuned safeguards in place.

As opposed to now, where they have to dance around it and put it in a grey-area hell so that Peter "Dracula" Thiel doesn't get his seastead in a shoal and ban them, which nobody likes!

So, call 'em if you can, boost even if you can't!

“Play the man, Master Ridley…”

“It Was A Pleasure to Burn” by Sunny (me!)

A defiled and half-burned corpse, featuring poems made from the scraps of words on both the front and back. I could feel the book die as i burned it and it was a truly devastating but necessary experience for the piece. I actually made this piece in 2023, and it scares me how it’s becoming more and more relevant. Protect your books at all costs. Defend them with everything you’ve got. You won’t know just how valuable they are until you have been stripped of them.

Water color, colored pencil and flame on Ray Bradbury’s “Farenheit 451” 60th anniversary edition

Tumblr's reply to the situation with CEO's transphobia is pathetic and you should not be thanking them for doing the bare minimum of saying he's not speaking for them. They fucking thanked that bitch.

The affected trans women are still banned.

A transphobic manchild offered no proper apology. Or stopped. He is also still in his position.

Tumblr is still factually transphobic. Keep pushing.

Can everyone just ditch their stupid fucking iPhones so Tumblr can break free of the Appstore's puritanical control?

Thanks

“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office,”

KYSSSS 😭

Reminder for when he “saves” it. He was the one who wanted this, and now he gets to be the hero and win favour with young constituents. Don’t give him the credit for fixing his own problem.