#censorship

[worrynoodle]

🔹️This is a great article on the benefits of reading [click me]

🔹️Reading leads students to infer the characters’ thoughts and feelings (McTigue et al., 2015). The fact that students need to understand the narrator and the primary and secondary characters’ different points of view promotes the development of cognitive empathy (Guarisco & Freeman, 2015; Lysaker & Sedberry, 2015).

🔹️"54% of adults (in the US) between the ages of 16 and 74 years old -- lack proficiency in literacy, essentially reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level" -Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy (2019)

There is a direct link between a lack of literacy and the way US Americans treat one another and how they vote. They lack empathy, they lack the literacy needed to comprehend what they're voting for, they demonize intellectualism, they demonize education, they ban books. This is a major major problem.

Censorship, book bans, defunding the department of education etc. Are all in the plans for these next four years (and beyond) this is only going to get worse.

If you are or know of an expert in this topic, I'd love to hear what you think would help this problem in the US on a national scale.

But for now, my unprofessional opinion is KEEP READING. Get physical copies of books if you can. Read banned books, read fiction with characters outside of your experiences etc. If you have family that struggles with this get them some easy books to start with, tell them about libby and hoopla. Try to be there for them and encourage good reading habits.

Buy books locally! Don't buy from Amazon (unless it's an indie author publishing through them). Amazon sells their books at a cut price to suffocate their competitors. If you can't afford the books at stores go to the library! (Or libby or hoopla)

Support your local library!

Discourage anti intellectualism just like the post above. (Another I've seen is discouraging the "sometimes the curtains are just blue argument" that also feeds into media illiteracy.)

Vote in local elections. Vote in midterms. Vote in major elections.

Get involved in your local school board and discourage book bans and censorship

Be kind to other people. Be an example of how that empathy pays off. (Don't be empathetic towards hate though, of course)

If you have more to add I'd love to hear it.

[lokiinmediasideblog]

Bill H.R. 9495 is back. It'd give Trump power to kill non-profit orgs

This would make pro-Palestine nonprofits illegal among others. This is time-sensitive as it'll be back on Monday.

If you are too anxious to call use this free fax service:

[moonssugar]

if you can't watch the banned moon girl devil dinosaur because it keeps getting taken down its on internet archive and i also have the entire thing downloaded already and you can too

[sinkingtime]

Replying to myself because the link's been taken down. Or that may be regional, dunno.

Anyways, this one works.

this is definitely NOT the moon girl episode with a trans character that disney shelved and has no plans on airing and i am definitely NOT advising you to spread it around like wildfire in retaliation to this stupid-ass chickenshit coward decision. i repeat, i am DEFINITELY not encouraging you to spread this episode around like crazy to show disney that trans people will not bow down to the whims of the people that want them dead. definitely DON'T do that. definitely

[taikeero-lecoredier]

HOUSE TO VOTE ON HR9495 AGAIN THIS MONDAY

If H.R. 9495 passes, this would without a doubt fuck over non profits orgs fighting for people's rights, such as ACLU, EFF, Fight for the future,so on and so forth, which we need more than ever in this time and age. ACLU has updated their call tool : https://shorturl.at/5k3PQ FFTF set up one too, albeit it hasnt been up to date yet it seems, but putting this here still http://fftf.link/no9495 Call in number is 319-313-7674 Script you can use : "I am calling to urge my representative to vote no on H.R. 9495 . This is a dangerous bill would give the Trump administration unilateral power to label any non-profit as terrorist supporting and shut it down without due process. I am calling on my representative to defend civil rights organizations and oppose this bill. Thank you.” You can send faxes with this too if you wish https://faxzero.com/

Leave messages on your rep's voicemails this weekend if they're unavailable,send faxes, and call back on Monday before the vote takes place. If your Rep is one of the Dems that voted "Yes" on this, tell them this is their chance to stop this bill and not give Trump more power. Tell them you'll vote for them in the next election if they vote "no" on this bill. If your Rep is Republican, tell them that this bill would also affect the Salvation Army as it is nonprofit. (fyi we know the salvation army is homophobic and everything,but perhaps like this,republican will actually care and stop this bill,to save actual orgs that care about people lives, thats the point. ) If your Rep previously voted "No" on this bill,encourage them to keep their stand and stick to their "No",and thank them for this.

[bnwo-warrior]

safe for tumblr is safe for yt

[election2024-2028]

Some things to do if you live in the United States as a queer person or a woman:

Learn self defense. You don't know whether someone will harm you. The idea that someone might is not far-fetched.

Stock up on contraceptives. Shelf life of plan B is four years. See this list for information about condom shelf life. These may become banned.

Buy queer books. As many as you can afford, starting with trans books. These may be banned soon.

Stock up on HRT medication if possible. This will likely be quickly banned when Trump becomes president. HRT meds have a shelf life of 1-3 years depending on the kind; check on the container! Read about DIY HRT here.

Read about what Trump and his followers are planning to do about abortion and other reproductive healthcare (i.e. contraception, IVF, etc.).

Read about what Trump and his followers plan to do about trans healthcare and rights for same-sex couples (I say same-sex instead of same-gender because they don't care about gender).

Teach your children (if you have any), siblings, friends, family, and especially other queer people and other women around you.

If you are too afraid to remain in danger, register for a passport as soon and look into countries you could move to. Look at what you'll have to do for jobs, living, a visa, citizenship, etc.

You may want to stock up on educational materials about prejudice, slavery, Native people, and other materials that may be censored.

As a reminder: This won't necessarily become a necessity. But based on the many things Trump and his supporters have said about the issue mentioned within this list, these actions will, unfortunately, probably be needed. Don't avoid taking these actions until it's too late. Do these before it's too late. Start now.

[physalislantern]

Well those children think about fairy tales and fables. Those were meant to teach you a moral lesson (even if sometimes a questionable one). It's just really sad that they never seem to have left their kiddy mindset and developed adult understanding of what literature is about...

“it sounds like you’re justifying their actions-“ i am. they’re a fictional character. i’m okay with anything they do all the time. hope this helps.

[folksonomy]

In case you're unaware, this dystopian crap is likely to come for all Australians over the age of 16 [and there's been talk of it in the UK too].

The unprecedented ban has drawn swathes of criticism – not only for threatening pivotal community and educational resources for youth social media users – but also for the logistics of how it will be implemented. “There’s a reason the Government isn’t telling you how they intend social media age bans to be enforced,” Senator David Shoebridge told Information Age. “It’s because they know it will involve the surrendering of personal information from everyone. “Make no mistake, this is a national age verification system masquerading as being about online safety for children.”

[the-uncanny-dag]

If any of you fuckers make the trans Moon Girl episode erasure about China again, I'm gonna shit a house

[relaxedstyles]

[magical-grrrl-mavis]

Twitch is gonna start kinda censoring queer people and it would be really helpful if you could read the next few sentences and then also go to a link and click the word vote.

They're implementing a new rule where if you discuss "sensitive social issues" at all you have to flag your streams as such, these issues include things like war and political unrest but also any lgbtq topics (once again our existence is political).

Essentially a streamer will have to choose between never ever mentioning anything queer (or even just discussing their own life if they're queer themselves) or flagging every stream with "sensitive social issues" and scaring away 90% of viewers.

If you have a twitch account you can go here and log in and click vote. They do listen. Please vote.

[renthony]

Okay, so y'all know the phenomenon where American media companies say they can't produce queer stories because they'll just get censored in foreign markets? It's transparent as hell, because the dominant culture of the United States is still violently queerphobic, and in many cases, state queerphobia in other countries is the direct result of Christian imperialism. The US is not the enlightened gay haven in a world of evil homophobic foreigners, and trying to pretend that American media can't be too gay because it'll be censored overseas is asinine. We all know that, right?

Anyway, today I learned that there is an episode of the Australian cartoon Bluey that has been censored in the United States because it shows the dad character pretending to be pregnant and have a baby as part of a game of pretend. Disney refuses to air it on the Disney Channel or on Disney+. It has been made available on YouTube by the Australian rights holders.

So let's quit fucking pretending that Disney is actually scared of foreign censors, hm? The queerphobic censorship is coming from inside the House of Mouse, and it always has been.

[mswyrr]

[problematic-faves-appreciation]

Degeneration

Oh look, the old school version of bad-fiction-corrupts-you, pro-censorship rhetoric used by the "fiction is reality" crowd. Why am I not surprised?

What's more, the hypodermic needle theory was disproven.

Stop using the word degenerate to mean horny challenge

[bunnie-the-idiot]

the kids online safety act passed the u.s. senate.

long story short (for anyone who hadn't heard of this before) the kids online safety act, aka kosa, is a bill that will censor online content and resources for lgbtq+ matters, reproductive healthcare, activism (INCLUDING PALESTINE AND LIKELY OTHER CRISES GOING ON LIKE IN CONGO OR SUDAN), mental health, etc. everywhere--its effects likely won't be contained to just america.

today, july 30th, 2024, the senate passed it 91-3. it has officially moved to the house of representatives.

is this a pretty massive setback? yes. do you have every right to be scared, sad, angry, or whatever else about this happening? absolutely. but should you give up hope completely? NO!

even though kosa passed the senate, the house is on break/august recess at the moment. we have around an entire month to get emails, calls, and faxes in to house reps, maybe more depending on when they decide to vote on it.

should it pass the house and get signed into law, we still have a whole 18 months before it actually goes into effect. this is plenty of time for digital rights orgs (e.g. fight for the future, the electronic frontier foundation) and other groups that oppose it to file a lawsuit against it. even if, worst-case scenario, it flies through the house immediately after the recess ends, we can still fight this up to march 2026.

so, yes, remember what's at stake here, but also remember that it's not over yet. we lost a battle, not the war.

below are some resources to learn more about kosa and how to contact your reps (first link) + a page that lets you directly contact progressive house reps, sign an open letter opposing the bill, and view others' testimonies against it (second link):

FIGHT. FIGHT. FIGHT.