censorship
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Peter Thiel’s War on Free Speech: A Rumpus Roundup
Last week, tech billionaire Peter Thiel admitted to funding lawsuits against Gawker Media, including the lawsuit brought by Hulk Hogan. Hogan won a $140 million judgment against Gawker after the site published a small portion of a recording of Hogan…
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Save the Children
Graeme Whiting, headmaster of the Acorn School (motto: “Have courage for the truth”) of Nailsworth, Great Britain, recently published a blog post condemning “sensational” fantasy novels such as the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Hunger Games series that…
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Two Bangladeshi Writers Murdered
Two secular journalists in Bangladesh were murdered recently, and these are far from the first incidents: These are only the latest in a recent string of killings of writers and journalists in Bangladesh. In a searing editorial Monday, the Dhaka…
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Censoring Censorship
Emma Garman discusses the ability of UK’s elite to pay lawyers to keep their names out of the press. She raises the topics of censorship, public interest, and the availability of these resources to people of all classes: The loftiest…
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All About Banned Books
Americans love banning books, and the winners of this year’s most banned books have been announced by the American Library Association. John Green’s young adult novel Looking for Alaska takes the top spot, keeping Green in the top ten. He…
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This Week in Indie Bookstores
Beijing’s censorship crackdown on bookstores is being extended to Hong Kong’s airport. India Today looks at six must-see bookstores from across India. Take a look inside 2nd & Charles, the rapidly expanding used bookstore from Books-A-Million.
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Literature Out of Pain in Afghanistan
As part of Electric Literature’s The Writing Life Around the World series, Fazilhaq Hashimi discusses the influence of pain and social activism on the literary landscape in Afghanistan: In Afghanistan, we do not write for fun, passion, or money but to…
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China Bans Foreigners from Publishing Online
China has issued a ban on foreign-owned media from publishing online within the nation. Global news agencies like Reuters, Dow Jones, the New York Times, and Bloomberg have invested considerable sums in building bureaus in the country. The foreign media…
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Russia’s Clandestine Censorship
In Soviet-era Russia, publishers had dedicated censors responsible for approving printed material. Many things were prohibited, and the rules were clear. In modern Russia, ostensibly censorship is banned, but complex laws and ambiguous threats have made contemporary publishers far more conservative.…
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Writers for Human Rights
Hundreds of writers around the world are protesting Saudi Arabia’s death sentence of Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh, accused of promoting atheism in his 2008 book of poetry Instructions Within. As a show of solidarity with the poet, Fayadh’s poetry will be…
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The Missing Hong Kong Booksellers: A Rumpus Roundup
Hong Kong functions as a semi-autonomous city-state, a condition imposed when the United Kingdom ceded control to Beijing. Hong Kong’s special status has allowed its independent bookstores to sell two kinds of books banned in mainland China: political books and…
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Weekly Geekery
The long dark history of socialist utopias. Get all the gadgets! Netflix binges are ruining the environment. Internet hate speech law.