Issues and developments related to ethics, information, and technologies. My Bloomsbury book "Ethics, Information, and Technology" will be published on January 8, 2026; Preorders are available via this webpage: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/ethics-information-and-technology-9781440856662/
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Trump is targeting several Smithsonian artworks. Here they are.; The Washington Post, August 26, 2025
Friday, August 1, 2025
What Happened When Their Art Was Banned; The New York Times, July 31, 2025
Interviews by Kate GuadagninoNick Haramis and Coco Romack
Artwork by Barbara Kruger
, The New York Times ; What Happened When Their Art Was BannedSaturday, May 24, 2025
Criticism of Trump Was Removed From Documentary on Public Television; The New York Times, May 23, 2025
Marc Tracy, The New York Times; Criticism of Trump Was Removed From Documentary on Public Television
[Kip Currier: Another example of anticipatory obedience]
[Excerpt]
"The executive producer of the Emmy Award-winning “American Masters” series insisted on removing a scene critical of President Trump from a documentary about the comic artist Art Spiegelman two weeks before it was set to air nationwide on public television stations.
The filmmakers say it is another example of public media organizations bowing to pressure as the Trump administration tries to defund the sector, while the programmers say their decision was a matter of taste.
Alicia Sams, a producer of “Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse,” said in an interview that approximately two weeks before the movie’s April 15 airdate, she received a call from Michael Kantor, the executive producer of “American Masters,” informing her that roughly 90 seconds featuring a cartoon critical of Trump would need to be excised from the film. The series is produced by the WNET Group, the parent company of several New York public television channels."
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
US Naval Academy canceled author’s lecture that would have criticized book bans; CNN, April 19, 2025
Natasha Bertrand , CNN; US Naval Academy canceled author’s lecture that would have criticized book bans
"The US Naval Academy canceled a lecture that author Ryan Holiday was scheduled to give to students there last week after he refused to remove slides from his planned presentation that criticized the academy’s decision to remove nearly 400 books from its main library.
Holiday, a writer and philosopher who has lectured at the US Naval Academy more than half a dozen times since 2019, told CNN on Saturday that he was invited by the academy in November to give a lecture about wisdom to midshipmen on April 14. He had previously spoken to students there, including during the first Trump administration, as part of a series on stoicism and the pursuit of virtue and excellence.
But an hour before he was scheduled to give his talk last week, as he was getting ready in his hotel room in Annapolis, Holiday says he received a call from the school asking him if he could refrain from mentioning the academy’s decision earlier this month to remove 381 books from the shelves of its Nimitz Library.
“I said I couldn’t do that,” Holiday recalled. “I couldn’t have spoken in front of these midshipmen about courage and about doing the right thing, and then remove, I think, a very reasonable objection to a very egregious concept."...
“I actually agree that the Academy should be apolitical,” Holiday told CNN. “That’s what makes this political meddling in their access to books so troubling. And then to suppress criticism of that obvious mistake, is to model even poorer moral leadership to the midshipman.”"
Sunday, April 6, 2025
List of Books Removed from USNA Library; America's Navy, April 4, 2025
America's Navy; List of Books Removed from USNA Library
[Kip Currier: The freedoms to read, speak, and think are fundamental American values enshrined by our Constitution. Libraries should and must have books and resources that represent a wide range of information, views, and lived experiences. Whether or not we as individuals or members of groups agree or disagree with every book in a library is immaterial and contrary to our freedoms. As the late Robert Croneberger, Director of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (1986-1998), aptly observed, a library is not doing its job if it doesn't have at least one book that offends every person.
Military service members have served, fought, and died to preserve our freedoms and core values. Enlisted persons and their families should and must have access to a broad continuum of ideas and information. Anything less is blatant censorship that is antithetical to the American way of life.]
[Excerpts from list]
"How to be an antiracist / Ibram X. Kendi.
Uncomfortable conversations with a black man / Emmanuel Acho.
Why didn't we riot? : a Black man in Trumpland / Issac J. Bailey.
Long time coming : reckoning with race in America / Michael Eric Dyson.
State of emergency : how we win in the country we built / Tamika D. Mallory as told to Ashley A. Coleman ; [forewords, Angela Y. Davis and Cardi B].
How we can win : race, history and changing the money game that's rigged / Kimberly Jones.
My vanishing country : a memoir / Bakari Sellers.
The gangs of Zion : a Black cop's crusade in Mormon country / Ron Stallworth, with Sofia Quintero.
American hate : survivors speak out / edited by Arjun Singh Sethi.
The rage of innocence : how America criminalizes Black youth /
Kristin Henning.
Our time is now : power, purpose, and the fight for a fair America /
Stacey Abrams.
What's your pronoun? : beyond he & she / Dennis Baron.
Rainbow milk : a novel / Paul Mendez.
The genesis of misery / Neon Yang.
The last white man / Mohsin Hamid.
Light from uncommon stars / Ryka Aoki.
Everywhere you don't belong : a novel / by Gabriel Bump.
Evil eye : a novel / Etaf Rum.
Lies my teacher told me : everything your American history
textbook got wrong / James W. Loewen.
Gender queer : a memoir / by Maia Kobabe ; colors by Phoebe
Kobabe.
The third person / Emma Grove."
Monday, March 10, 2025
Washington Post columnist quits after her opinion piece criticizing owner Jeff Bezos is rejected; The Hill, March 10, 2025
DAVID BAUDER, ASSOCIATED PRESS via The Hill; Washington Post columnist quits after her opinion piece criticizing owner Jeff Bezos is rejected
Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, just sent out this email of total submission.; The Ink, February 26, 2025
The Ink; Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, just sent out this email of total submission.
[Kip Currier: Nail by nail by nail by nail, the three richest persons on the planet -- Elon Musk (Twitter/X), Jeff Bezos (Amazon/Washington Post), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta/Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp/Threads) -- are erecting barriers to information and solidifying control of their versions of information.
Note what Bezos, in part, wrote today:
"We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We'll cover other topics too, of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others."
Point 1: Bezos's prior conduct tells us that he will decide how the two pillars of "personal liberties" and "free markets" are defined. That's censorship of ideas and free expression.
Point 2: Bezos will determine the parameters of "viewpoints opposing those pillars". That's also censorship of free speech.
Point 3: Bezos downplays the time-honored tradition of U.S. newspapers providing "a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views" by stating that "Today, the internet does that job." This is an abject abandonment of the historical role of one of the nation's foremost papers of record; indeed, the very newspaper that exposed the Watergate scandal that brought down the presidency of Richard Nixon. Bezos knows, too, that the internet is rife with misinformation and disinformation. A chief reason that readers seek out creditable, trusted news providers like The Washington Post is the expectation of fact-checking and responsible curation of opinions and facts. Bezos's statement amounts to disingenuous dissembling and the ceding of responsibility to the Internet and social media, which he well knows are highly flawed information ecosystems.
Point 4: Bezos states later that "freedom is ethical". But freedom always comes with ethics-grounded responsibilities. Nowhere in Bezos's statement does he talk about ethical responsibilities to truthfulness, free speech, accountability, transparency, the public/common good, constitutional checks and balances, or the rule of law, all of which are integral to informed citizenries and functioning democracies.
Bezos's actions and viewpoints are antithetical to free and independent presses like The Washington Post, as well as to the core principles of one of the world's oldest democracies.]
[Excerpt]
"Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, just sent out this email of total submission.
Bezos appears to have misread Timothy Snyder’s advice “Do not obey in advance” as “Obey in advance,” missing a couple words."
Saturday, February 8, 2025
President Trump's Self-Described "Takeover" of the Center is an Attack on Creative Freedom; PEN America, February 8, 2025
PEN America; President Trump's Self-Described "Takeover" of the Center is an Attack on Creative Freedom
"In response to President Trump saying he is firing the Kennedy Center trustees and naming himself chair, Hadar Harris, PEN America’s Washington managing director, made the following comment:
“President Trump’s self-described “takeover” of the Kennedy Center is another salvo in his demonstrated attack on free expression. He is taking the unprecedented move of clearing out board members “who do not share our vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.” Presidents should not be dictating a singular view of culture. The cultural sector must remain free from political control; that is fundamental to protecting creative freedom in a democracy.”
About PEN America
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Learn more at pen.org."
Saturday, January 4, 2025
A Pulitzer winner quits 'Washington Post' after a cartoon on Bezos is killed; NPR, January 4, 2025
David Folkenflik, NPR; A Pulitzer winner quits 'Washington Post' after a cartoon on Bezos is killed
[Kip Currier: Every day, U.S. oligarchs like Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong feel more emboldened to cravenly censor criticism of themselves and impede freedom of expression and access to information.
Thank you, Ann Telnaes, for speaking truth to power with your satirical artistry and standing up for the importance of free and independent presses with your principled resignation decision. As the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist underscored in explaining her resignation, "Democracy can't function without a free press".
The evidence is now even more clear than one year or a decade ago: Consolidation of ownership of print journalism and broadcast media by a few billionaires and corporate conglomerates chills the ability to dissent and provide access to diverse perspectives.
The diagnosis and ramifications are also clear: Having a handful of oligarchs control America's newspapers is antithetical to well-informed citizenries and healthy democracies. (See here for a prescient 2017 article by veteran journalist and free speech/free press advocate Bill Moyers.)
Potential remedies? It's absolutely imperative that free speech-supporting Americans develop and nurture alternative ways to promote access to information and freedom of expression, as is increasingly being done on Substack accounts (see examples here, and here, and here) and via podcasts.
In the longer term, collaborative trusts (see here, for example) that can purchase newspapers and share ownership among more than one individual offer some potential ways to challenge oligarch newspaper monopolies.]
[Excerpt]
"A Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for the Washington Post has resigned after its editorial page editor rejected a cartoon she created to mock media and tech titans abasing themselves before President-elect Donald Trump.
Among the corporate chiefs depicted by Ann Telnaes was Amazon founder and Post owner Jeff Bezos. The episode follows Bezos' decision in October to block publication of a planned endorsement of Vice President Harris over Trump in the waning days of last year's presidential elections.
The inspiration for Telnaes' latest proposed cartoon was the trek by top tech chief executives including Bezos to Trump's Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, as well as the seven-figure contributions several promised to make toward his inauguration. She submitted a sketch before Christmas. It was never published."
Saturday, September 7, 2024
Trump’s other legal problem: Copyright infringement claims; The Washington Post, September 7, 2024
"Music industry experts and copyright law attorneys say the cases, as well as Trump’s decision to continue playing certain songs despite artists’ requests that he desist, underscore the complex legalities of copyright infringement in today’s digital, streaming and licensing era — and could set an important precedent on the of use of popular music in political campaigns."
Wednesday, September 4, 2024
Trump campaign ordered to stop using classic R&B song; Associated Press via Politico, September 3, 2024
Associated Press via Politico; Trump campaign ordered to stop using classic R&B song; Associated Press via Politico
"A federal judge in Atlanta ruled Tuesday that Donald Trump and his campaign must stop using the song “Hold On, I’m Comin’” while the family of one of the song’s co-writers pursues a lawsuit against the former president over its use.
The estate of Isaac Hayes Jr. filed a lawsuit last month alleging that Trump, his campaign and several of his allies had infringed its copyright and should pay damages. After a hearing on the estate’s request for an emergency preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash ruled that Trump must stop using the song, but he denied a request to force the campaign to take down any existing videos that include the song."
Friday, August 9, 2024
Utah outlaws books by Judy Blume and Sarah J Maas in first statewide ban; The Guardian, August 7, 2024
Ella Creamer , The Guardian; Utah outlaws books by Judy Blume and Sarah J Maas in first statewide ban
"Books by Margaret Atwood, Judy Blume, Rupi Kaur and Sarah J Maas are among 13 titles that the state of Utah has ordered to be removed from all public school classrooms and libraries.
This marks the first time a state has outlawed a list of books statewide, according to PEN America’s Jonathan Friedman, who oversees the organisation’s free expression programs.
The books on the list were prohibited under a new law requiring all of Utah’s public school districts to remove books if they are banned in either three districts, or two school districts and five charter schools. Utah has 41 public school districts in total.
The 13 books could be banned under House bill 29, which became effective from 1 July, because they were considered to contain “pornographic or indecent” material. The list “will likely be updated as more books begin to meet the law’s criteria”, according to PEN America.
Twelve of the 13 titles were written by women. Six books by Maas, a fantasy author, appear on the list, along with Oryx and Crake by Atwood, Milk and Honey by Kaur and Forever by Blume. Two books by Ellen Hopkins appear, as well as Elana K Arnold’s What Girls Are Made Of and Craig Thompson’s Blankets.
Implementation guidelines say that banned materials must be “legally disposed of” and “may not be sold or distributed”."
Thursday, June 27, 2024
The Supreme Court rules for Biden administration in a social media dispute with conservative states; AP, June 26, 2024
MARK SHERMAN , AP; The Supreme Court rules for Biden administration in a social media dispute with conservative states
"The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with the Biden administration in a dispute with Republican-led states over how far the federal government can go to combat controversial social media posts on topics including COVID-19 and election security.
By a 6-3 vote, the justices threw out lower-court rulings that favored Louisiana, Missouri and other parties in their claims that federal officials leaned on the social media platforms to unconstitutionally squelch conservative points of view.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the court that the states and other parties did not have the legal right, or standing, to sue. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissented.
The decision should not affect typical social media users or their posts."
Tuesday, June 18, 2024
‘Trump Too Small’ Trademark Case Morphs Into Free Speech Debate; Bloomberg Law, June 18, 2024
Laura Heymann , Bloomberg Law; ‘Trump Too Small’ Trademark Case Morphs Into Free Speech Debate
"The US Supreme Court’s June 13 decision in the “Trump Too Small” trademark case revealed a potential rift among the justices on First Amendment jurisprudence but did little to advance intellectual property law...
Trademark law, the Supreme Court has said in prior cases, is primarily about two goals: preventing confusion among consumers by ensuring accurate source identification and preserving trademark owners’ reputation and goodwill. For these justices, the names clause passed muster because prohibiting the registration of personal names without consent was self-evidently reasonable in light of these purposes; no further analysis was required."
Monday, April 1, 2024
A fight to protect the dignity of Michelangelo’s David raises questions about freedom of expression; AP, March 28, 2024
Monday, February 19, 2024
MAGA’s Violent Threats Are Warping Life in America; The New York Times, February 18, 2024
David French, The New York Times; MAGA’s Violent Threats Are Warping Life in America
"So we called the local sheriff, shared the threat, and asked if the department could send someone to check our house.
Minutes later, a young deputy called to tell me all was quiet at our home. When I asked if he would mind checking back frequently, he said he’d stay in front of our house all night. Then he asked, “Why did you get this threat?”
I hesitated before I told him. Our community is so MAGA that I had a pang of concern about his response. “I’m a columnist,” I said, “and we’ve had lots of threats ever since I wrote against Donald Trump.”
The deputy paused for a moment. “I’m a vet,” he said, “and I volunteered to serve because I believe in our Constitution. I believe in free speech.” And then he said words I’ll never forget: “You keep speaking, and I’ll stand guard.”
I didn’t know that deputy’s politics and I didn’t need to. When I heard his words, I thought, that’s it. That’s the way through. Sometimes we are called to speak. Sometimes we are called to stand guard. All the time we can at least comfort those under threat, telling them with words and deeds that they are not alone. If we do that, we can persevere. Otherwise, the fear will be too much for good people to bear."
Tuesday, November 7, 2023
Guidelines for the governance of digital platforms: safeguarding freedom of expression and access to information through a multi-stakeholder approach; UNESCO, November 2023
"Guidelines for an Internet for Trust
Safeguarding freedom of expression and the right to information while dealing with dis- and misinformation, hate speech, and conspiracy theories requires a multistakeholder approach. This is the reason why UNESCO, the leading UN agency for the promotion and protection of freedom of expression and to information, is launching Guidelines for the Governance of Digital Platforms. The Guidelines outline a set of duties, responsibilities and roles for States, digital platforms, intergovernmental organizations, civil society, media, academia, the technical community and other stakeholders to enable the environment where freedom of expression and information are in the core of digital platforms governance processes. The Guidelines were produced through a multi-stakeholder consultation that gathered more than 10,000 comments from 134 countries. These global-scale consultations fostered inclusive participation, ensuring a diversity of voices to be heard, including those from groups in situation of marginalization and vulnerability.
Cultivating an Internet of Trust is a shared responsibility among all stakeholders. It calls upon us all to sustain an enabling environment for freedom of expression and the right to information."
0,000 comments from 134 countries. These global-scale consultations fostered inclusive participation, ensuring a diversity of voices to be heard, including those from groups in situation of marginalization and vulnerability85% of people worry about online disinformation, global survey finds; The Guardian, November 7, 2023
Jon Henley, The Guardian; 85% of people worry about online disinformation, global survey finds
"More than 85% of people are worried about the impact of online disinformation and 87% believe it has already harmed their country’s politics, according to a global survey, as the United Nations announced a plan to tackle the phenomenon.
Audrey Azoulay, director general of the UN’s culture body, Unesco, told reporters on Monday that false information and hate speech online – accelerated and amplified by social media platforms – posed “major risks to social cohesion, peace and stability”.
Regulation was urgently needed “to protect access to information … while at the same time protecting freedom of expression and human rights”, Azoulay said as she presented a “governance blueprint” for governments, regulators and platforms."