petersuberMar 26

An unnamed school in the UK used #AI to decide which books to ban from the library.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/uk-school-library-1984-ai-b1276535.html

#BookBans #Censorship #DefendResearch #Libraries

EDIT. I fixed a broken link. Thanks to @staringatclouds .

George Orwell's 1984 purged from school library by AI 'Big Brother', campaigners claim

The school library has purged nearly 200 books, using AI to deem titles like '1984' and ‘Twilight’ inappropriate

Evening Standard
Show threadpetersuber

Update. Here's some detail on #AI tools to help conservative schools ban books.
https://www.404media.co/blockade-the-right-is-using-ai-content-scanners-to-try-to-supercharge-book-banning/

One is BLOCKADE, which stands for “Blocking Lustful Overzealous Content, Keeping Away Depravity and Extremism."

"The program’s script includes a list of roughly 300 words, each assigned a severity score that contributes to an overall appropriateness score…The script explicitly defines 'educational inappropriateness' as 'content offensive to conservative values,' while also asking the AI 'not to include any additional text or explanation' for its decisions."

#BookBans #Censorship #DefendResearch #Libraries

‘BLOCKADE’: The Right Is Using AI Content Scanners to Try to Supercharge Book Banning

Groups that challenge books have begun using Gemini, ChatGPT, xAI, and other AI tools to try to get books banned.

404 Media
Apr 1 at 4:58pmWeb
Show threadlambtorApr 1
@petersuber a snowflake score?
Show threadEmoryApr 1

@petersuber there was an episode of It Could Happen Here I think that walked through the book banning orchestration and what they were suggesting was that these are dupes doing ground game for people that want to privatize knowledge and essentially end public libraries among other things.

not surprised someone actually thought to just ask for an app to find books that have themes they find uncomfortable like gender and sex, i'm surprised people think it stops there!