Digital Censorship

Through analyzing content ban legislation, public hearings, public reports on student searches, and interviews with librarians from across the United States, we found that a vocal minority of activists are using "pornography" as a bogeyman to erode free speech and information access in schools and libraries.
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I can tell you that over the last 5 years companies have put in place search term filters within their own products to prevent surfacing even legitimate material.
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Study Participant

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They would take images that weren’t actually found in the database and kind of ransom-note it so it looked way more risqué. That was a technique they used quite often.

Study Participant

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Library Futures Releases Digital Censorship Report

READ Report

Key Findings

  1. Bogus Claims: Challenges against “porn” in library databases are not only unsubstantiated—they are sometimes purposeful acts of disinformation presented with false narratives about the source, context, or character of the information.
  2. Normal School Use: Despite the claims from censorship advocates that minors use library databases to access porn, there is no evidence to support this claim, as well as more than five years of evidence from Utah demonstrating that students use databases to conduct normal and assigned student research.
  3. Self-Censorship: Increased content bans and the threat of worrisome legislation have a chilling effect on libraries, with librarians reporting “self-censorship” even when content hasn’t been challenged.
  4. Local Controls: Database providers have implemented more local controls as a result of the EBSCO pornography accusations, resulting in an increased use of overly restrictive stopwords and other filtering that limits minors’ access to critical information, particularly health and race information.
  5. Influence and Escalation: High-volume content challenges often originate from a single or small number of sources that wield disproportionate influence through use of social media or capturing the attention of an authority figure. These challengers often circumvent established policies and procedures to rapidly escalate their threats. 
  6. Harmful to Minors: Claims of pornography in library materials are based on discriminatory ideologies that can negatively impact children’s learning, civil rights, and wellbeing. However, students recognize the real harm in censorship and are one of the most powerful change agents when advocating for or against legislation impacting library collections.

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