Natz 🏴☠️ ☮️ 🌱
Kate NyhanRE: https://mastodon.scot/@peterbrown/116268527752626534
One of the books this UK school banned? Terry Pratchett's #Discworld Buddy Holly tribute, Soul Music.
... and the school's official justification for banning _Soul Music_ was:
"Adult audience content – may include sexual material, violence, abuse, substance misuse, or psychologically distressing themes."
"Adult audience content – may include sexual material, violence, abuse, substance misuse, or psychologically distressing themes."
A school rep wrote:
"Although the categorisation was generated using AI, I consider this classification to be broadly accurate."
"Although the categorisation was generated using AI, I consider this classification to be broadly accurate."
The school librarian was forced to resign, and won't be able to work in schools again because the local authority substantiated the accusations that she "failed to uphold safeguarding procedures."
How many school librarians would be left in the UK if you threw out everyone who had bought, or failed to deaccession (bc the poor woman didn't even buy all them all herself) books by Terry Pratchett, Michelle Obama (!), Zadie Smith, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, George Orwell....
How many school librarians would be left in the UK if you threw out everyone who had bought, or failed to deaccession (bc the poor woman didn't even buy all them all herself) books by Terry Pratchett, Michelle Obama (!), Zadie Smith, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, George Orwell....
Frankly I suspect a teenager could get a better education from reading and writing about the banned books than from attending a school whose leadership creates and relies on an LLM-generated "final List of alleged books with inappropriate content" (yes, "alleged" is modifying "books," not "inappropriate" as it ought to)
HilaryIt's appalling.
And while I understand that the librarian doesn't want the school to be named publicly...
the school should NOT be allowed to get away with such nonsense.
The head teacher and school leadership should fear retribution just as they have made this entirely innocent librarian fear for her life
Martin Vermeer FCD@regordane @nyhan She should take it up with the Good Law Project. Jo Maugham is a fighter, and this is a human rights outrage.
@nyhan Banned books lists work well as reading recommendations.
Tagomago
Tristram Brelstaff@nyhan
That's SIR Terry Pratchett. He was knighted for his services to literature.
That's SIR Terry Pratchett. He was knighted for his services to literature.
Human after all@nyhan she needs to take a case against the school
@nyhan Categorising books using an AI trained on US right-wing Christian websites.
Eric LawtonCorporations configuring machines to decide what humans can read.
Da_Gut
D. G. MarshallNothing in Terry Pratchett's Soul Music* would warrant a book ban.
Even when I remember the "standards" of book banners. Some US schools banned the graphic novel of The Diary Of Anne Frank.
I haven't read Soul Music for a few years, but "sexual material, violence, abuse, substance misuse, or psychologically distressing themes"?
*Or any of his other books.
BeeCycling@davidtheeviloverlord @nyhan "Psychologically distressing themes" probably covers most of the novels (and quite a lot of non-fiction) in existence.
Found what the "A.I." was wibbling on about. This is the cover blurb:
"This is a story about sex and drugs and Music With Rocks In.
Well.
.one out of three ain't bad.
Being sixteen is always difficult, even more so when there's a Death in the family. After all, it's hard to grow up normally when Grandfather rides a white horse and wields a scythe."
1/3
"Especially if he decides to take a well-earned moment to uncover the meaning of life and discover himself in the process, so that you have to take over the family business, and everyone mistakes you for the Tooth Fairy.
And especially when you have to face the new and addictive music that has entered Discworld. It's lawless. It changes people. It's got a beat and you can dance to it.
It's called Music With Rocks In.
And it won't fade away."
2/3
1) Blurb says sex and drugs are NOT in this book. "A.I." hallucinates that the book is chock full of sex and drugs.
2) The 16 year old's Grandfather is the anthropomorphic personification of Death. Death is a psychologically distressing theme.* Therefore, it must not be mentioned in any book teenagers have access to.
3) Main character has difficult childhood. This is not the same thing as abuse.
*Not the way Terry Pratchett writes Death.
Gordon Kerry@nyhan ‘In one of the documents seen by Index, the school admits that the categorisations of the books were written using AI…’
Ffs.
H4Heights 🇪🇺🇵🇸🇺🇦🇨🇦@gordonkerry @nyhan
Caveat published somewhere on all LLM sites, goes something like “{insert bot name here} makes mistake. Check first”
Caveat published somewhere on all LLM sites, goes something like “{insert bot name here} makes mistake. Check first”