(30 Mar 2023) On 16 March librarians and academics at universities and research institutions in several countries received notices that some access to China’s largest database of academic papers would be ‘temporarily’ curtailed from 1 April. The notifications arrived without clarifying how long this would be. These notifications, in particular, affected four databases of the…
(7 Oct 2022) The Indonesian government disputes a recent report from a specialist group at the International Union for Conservation of Nature that estimates there are fewer than 50 Sumatran rhinos left in the wild. Even before Dutch conservation scientist Erik Meijaard submitted an opinion piece to The Jakarta Post last month, he was worried about…
(16 Sep 2022) The wave of attempted book banning and restrictions continues to intensify, the American Library Association reported Friday. Numbers for 2022 already approach last year’s totals, which were the highest in decades. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. “It’s both the number…
(8 May 2021) Nine books were banned from Hong Kong’s public libraries on Friday under the national security law’s provisions on censorship, Apple Daily has learned. The ban, issued by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department on Friday, requires librarians to immediately take down the nine books, including two volumes by former pro-democracy lawmakers Albert…
(6 Jul 2020) From South China Morning Post: Beijing’s national security law tailor-made for the city, which took effect on June 30, targets acts of secession, subversion, terrorism as well as collusion with a foreign country or external elements to endanger national security, with life imprisonment the punishment for the most serious offences. The Education Bureau…
Press freedom NGO, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), creates a loophole to overcome censorship by building a safe haven for press freedom. Where? Within one of the world’s most successful video games, Minecraft. (12 Mar 2020) Minecraft is a favourite – one of the world’s most successful computer games, with more than 145 million active players…
(9 Dec 2019) Staff at a public library in northwest China have set fire to “banned books” in front of the building, sparking anger online and drawing comparisons with the actions of a ruthless emperor during the Qin dynasty. According to a report on the county government website of Zhenyuan, Gansu province, the library did…
(25 Apr 2019) Academics fear global reach of new Singaporean legislation could result in censorship of international academic journals. New Singaporean legislation that is set to ban “false information” online hosted anywhere in the world poses a “severe threat” to academic freedom across the globe, scholars have warned. Earlier this month, the country’s government introduced a…
(13 November 2018) Some people like to characterize science as a religion. In this formulation, scientists are the modern equivalent of medieval theologians. They hand down precepts and dogmas that we take on faith, because there’s no way for laypeople to keep track of all the exciting study results flooding out of laboratories every day. But…
(27 November 2017) Reacting to reports of out-in-the-open porn viewing, public sex, drug use and theft at city libraries, a pair of City Council leaders is proposing to tighten the rules at these sanctuaries for children, the elderly and book nerds. “I know that taxpayers in the city do not intend for their money to…