I’ve written books which feature librarians as heroes who are doing everything in their power to train themselves to be epistemic warriors dedicated to the free flow of information.
But there are librarians who walk a different path, happy and even righteously satisfied to use their curating power to control and suppress what ideas people encounter, according to their own preferences and bias. This is the sort of librarian who would likely be curiously incurious about the Twitter Files.
Thank you for this great take on this Case in Point!
I've really struggled with why librarians have ignored this. Two of us tried to get this discussed but could find no one wiling to publish it. So we published at Heterodoxy in the Stacks--it got a few readers but not many. Thank you for understanding.
Truly frustrating. One sometimes feels gobsmacked facing that kind of moment. You expect principle to drive action, but instead find some variety of Daniel Webster's "factionalism" in control of the steering wheel.
And it saddens me, having years ago retired from a career in journalism during its more proud and relevant days, to see the many bad actors there as well. Journalists once understood that their freedoms were only as enduring as their willingness to fight for those freedoms on behalf of others.
I'm not sure it can ever be counted as a "big win" when consent decrees replace jail time or at least stiff fines for the alleged serious criminal offense of government systematically and with wanton disregard violating Americans' fundamental rights of free speech.
As with politically calculated and carried out vote fraud, there will almost certainly be more of the same where punishment is neither swift nor just.
I’ve written books which feature librarians as heroes who are doing everything in their power to train themselves to be epistemic warriors dedicated to the free flow of information.
But there are librarians who walk a different path, happy and even righteously satisfied to use their curating power to control and suppress what ideas people encounter, according to their own preferences and bias. This is the sort of librarian who would likely be curiously incurious about the Twitter Files.
Thank you for this great take on this Case in Point!
I've really struggled with why librarians have ignored this. Two of us tried to get this discussed but could find no one wiling to publish it. So we published at Heterodoxy in the Stacks--it got a few readers but not many. Thank you for understanding.
Truly frustrating. One sometimes feels gobsmacked facing that kind of moment. You expect principle to drive action, but instead find some variety of Daniel Webster's "factionalism" in control of the steering wheel.
And it saddens me, having years ago retired from a career in journalism during its more proud and relevant days, to see the many bad actors there as well. Journalists once understood that their freedoms were only as enduring as their willingness to fight for those freedoms on behalf of others.
I'm not sure it can ever be counted as a "big win" when consent decrees replace jail time or at least stiff fines for the alleged serious criminal offense of government systematically and with wanton disregard violating Americans' fundamental rights of free speech.
As with politically calculated and carried out vote fraud, there will almost certainly be more of the same where punishment is neither swift nor just.
you are a realist, but this is first step.
Hoping it's the first of many, and that we start to see some accountability.
Me, too, John. I do not understand why the big media didn't find this a major story. Maybe they are embarrassed they got snookered.
I'd like to think they are capable of feeling embarrassment, but I don't.