this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2025
496 points (98.4% liked)

News

28270 readers
4047 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Summary

Rightwing groups across the US are driving a wave of legislation to restrict books in school and public libraries, targeting content deemed “sexually explicit” or “obscene,” often affecting LGBTQ+ and race-related titles.

Texas leads with 31 bills and 538 book bans in the 2023–24 school year.

Proposed laws, like Texas Senate Bill 13, shift book selection power from librarians to parent-led advisory boards.

Critics, including librarians and legal scholars, warn these efforts amount to censorship, risk violating First Amendment rights, and reduce access in underserved communities.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago

Why are links from The Guardian posted so often here?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago

Are these the ones with blowjobs and things?

Is it not considered pornographic, and if not where do we draw the line, is anything with LGBT in the title fair game?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Why do they care so much about libraries. it's not like they or their kids read. How do you get illiterate people excited to ban books. It's a god damn conspiracy!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago

Libraries are stores of knowledge. Can't have that. Educated people aren't as easy to manipulate.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

so they are banning the Bible because of the obscene material in it?;

[–] [email protected] 2 points 16 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 17 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Right wings lie bout wanting freedom of speech. They just want to sprout racist stuff and other phobic stuff. They treat LGBT like it's a fetish.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 hours ago

It is a fetish for most of them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

only one thing for it. Put as much indecent material in the library as possible. Also I used to work at a library and every now and then this like 80 year old dude would come in and say "show me where your dirty books are!" that guy was awesome.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 19 hours ago

That country is so fucking stupid its unbelievable

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

"Bu-but the right wingers promised me that I could say the hard-R N-word yet again, and if people were to call me 'racist' for it they'd be jailed for defamation, and they'd also jail feminist video game critics for censoring games!"

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Surely the free speech absolutists will be staunchly opposed. Why, if they weren't, one could think it was never about free speech and always just about hate...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The "free speech absolutists" just wanted to call black people the N-word, they don't actually care about the rest.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

The "free speech absolutists" just wanted to call black people the N-word,

They are able to say it already (and they still do amongst themselves).

What they wanted is to be able to say it in public without consequences.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago

And I hope they try

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago

Obscene books like the Bible?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

So more wasting tax money for posturing and campaigning and not solving any actual problems

[–] [email protected] 8 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

This isn't posturing, it's having a direct impact on the education of children in this country. This is them creating more problems.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 20 hours ago

I'd call it "wasting tax money perpetuating culture wars as a distraction from the class war; while also making the population dumber, and less inclined to resist feudalism."

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Please support your local library. Even if you just get a card and keep it active, it helps with stats that they use to get more funding.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 19 hours ago

probably direct support with your time and funding is a good idea, if you can. it certainly looks like federal grants are going away ☹️

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2025/03/agency-funding-libraries-and-museums-puts-all-employees-on-leave-ahead-of-major-cuts/?readmore=1

[–] [email protected] 117 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I heard there's one book in there that talks about a pair of sisters who get their father drunk so they can take turns raping him. Are they banning that one?

[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 day ago (63 children)

wow, the bible is fucked up.

load more comments (63 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (2 children)

How do they know something is obscene? None of them know how to read.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I've yet to discover a conservative "Christian" that possesses even a passing familiarity with their own self proclaimed testaments.

Like seriously, you claim to take your belief seriously, it's 1 fucking book! It's not a page turner I grant them, but it's ONE book.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Conservatives simply hate free speech.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›