Friday, April 11, 2025

Majority of Attempts to Ban Books in US Come from Organised Groups, Not Parents

Last year 72% of demands to censor books were initiated by pressure groups and government entities; with just 16% of ban attempts made by parents

Posted by retort at 09:07 AM | 11 COMMENTS | permalink

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Already facing burnout and book bans, librarians face a 'catastrophe' for institutions deemed central to democracy www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025 ...

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-- EveryLibrary (@everylibrary.bsky.social) April 7, 2025 at 9:14 AM

Comments

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone old enough to remember Tipper Gore.

#1 | Posted by qcp at 2025-04-11 09:59 AM

The Organizations are obviously, KKK, and Talibaptists, and MAGA.

A Venn diagram of these groups appears as a single circle.

#2 | Posted by Wardog at 2025-04-11 10:17 AM

One of the biggest ways Social Media erodes civil society is Astroturfing.

Astroturfing was not really possible until Social Media. Not at this scale.

It's the same core concept as spelled out in Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent. Just orders of magnitude more of it.

#3 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-04-11 10:35 AM

#3

Before social media, ALL media was effectively astroturfing.

Everything was the same center-right pseudo-moderate crap. The left had no voice in the media at all.

#4 | Posted by DarkVader at 2025-04-11 10:46 AM

"Before social media, ALL media was effectively astroturfing."

I don't really agree with that, but that's beside the point.

Politically engineered messaging masquerading as the voice of the common man didn't have the saturation or the penetration it has today.

You didn't have an AstroTurf signal booster in your pocket and on your desk.

#5 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-04-11 10:49 AM

Republicans thrive on censorship.

It's how they maintain their narrow worldviews.

Banning books should be illegal.

But conservatives want a homogeneous society and they're doing their best to force it to happen.

#6 | Posted by ClownShack at 2025-04-11 10:50 AM

Politically engineered messaging masquerading as the voice of the common man didn't have the saturation or the penetration it has today.

#7 | Posted by qcp at 2025-04-11 11:13 AM

Give the man some credit. He's responsible for today's Republican Party.

#8 | Posted by ClownShack at 2025-04-11 11:17 AM

Social Media takes the messaging of #7, anamplifies it, and falsely democratizes it.

That's the what AstroTurfing is.

#9 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-04-11 12:05 PM

#7 I take solace in the fact that he is no longer able to poison the airwaves with his hatred and lies.

However he has inspired a gaggle of imitators that picked up where he left off.

#10 | Posted by Nixon at 2025-04-11 12:30 PM

I thought it was this one random guy in Florida named Bruce Friedman who is in a mission to ban any book that mentions sex.

He even got the "Handmaidens Tale" and "I know why the caged bird sings" banned in Florida.

It's a competition there apparently and he is the Michael Jordan of book banners. He has challenged over 1200 books already.

I guess Floridian parents just love the idea of some rando dude getting to decide what their children can and cannot be exposed to.

#11 | Posted by donnerboy at 2025-04-11 01:16 PM

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