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When you turn on your news app, YouTube, or television, chances are you’re going to be deluged with content about “cancel culture,” an amorphous term that no one ever actually defines, but seems to be about private citizens criticizing other private citizens.

What you’re much less likely to hear about is that right now, America is facing an epidemic of censorship--actual government officials using their power to ban speech or content that they don’t like.

According to the free expression and literary human rights group PEN America, since 2021, there have been 185 educational gag orders in 41 states targeting authors and teachers from teaching specific books and topics. Censorship advocates are also coming after the nation's public libraries, trying to block and remove materials they deem inappropriate based on their religious opinions.

In this episode, we're joined by Jonathan Friedman who is the director of free expression and education programs at PEN America.


AUDIO TRANSCRIPT (Patreon membership required for full text):
https://flux.community/matthew-sheffield/2022/12/americas-public-libraries-are-facing-an-epidemic-of-censorship/



GUEST INFO
Jonathan Friedman on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/jonfreadom

PEN America website:
https://pen.org/

PEN report, "Banned in the USA"
https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/



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Theory of Change is hosted by Matthew Sheffield and is part of the Flux network, a new content community of podcasters and writers. Please visit us at https://flux.community to learn more and to tell us about what you're doing. We're constantly growing and learning from the great people we meet.

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