c/censorship-survivors

9

emma768•21h ago

Found my old zine got deleted from a university archive last month

Back in 2019 I wrote a little zine about housing rights in Portland. I had put it in a local university's digital collection. Last month I tried to find it for a friend and it was just gone. No notice, no reason given. I emailed the librarian and they said it didn't meet their 'current content standards.' Has anyone else had old work quietly removed from archives like that?

12

fiona_sullivan29•2d ago

A librarian told me to stop using book banning statistics from a single source

She showed me how one national report I relied on from 2022 actually missed half the local school board challenges in my own state, so now I cross-check with three different databases before I post anything about censorship trends - has anyone else found a similar blind spot in their research?

11

cole_davis47•4d ago

Rant: My old boss told me to just "ignore the trolls" on our community page

Back in 2019, my property manager boss at a complex in Austin said to never block or hide comments on our Facebook page, even the nasty ones. He insisted it looked more 'authentic' and would blow over. Well, after 3 months, a few angry posts about laundry room fees turned into a full-blown mob with local news picking it up. The company finally stepped in and made us delete the whole page. Has anyone else been told to just let hateful comments sit there, only for it to backfire?

5

aaron677•4d ago

Hit 500 deleted comments in my local news site comment section before they shut it down entirely

I live in Cleveland and used to post on the local paper's comment boards. I noticed I hit exactly 503 comments that got removed over 3 years, mostly for calling out the same politicians over and over lol. The mods never gave me a warning, just silently nuked everything I said. When the site killed the whole comment system last month, it felt like they were admitting the truth. Has anyone else tracked how many of their own posts got axed like I did?

22

brooke71•18d ago

The time my 7th graders caught me in a censorship debate got real awkward fast

So I was teaching a unit on banned books and I brought up the classic "Huckleberry Finn" debate about its language. I laid out both sides - some say it's a historical document that shows racism, others say it's harmful to use that word in classrooms today. Then one kid straight up asked me "Which side are you on, Ms. B?" and I froze for like 10 seconds because I didn't want to push my view on them. What I learned is that even trying to be neutral gets framed as taking a side, and I'm still not sure how to handle that. Has anyone else dealt with teaching controversial material where you felt stuck between honest discussion and influencing kids?

8

richardknight•18d ago

That week my history essay got flagged for 'hate speech' was brutal

Last semester I wrote a paper about the 1917 Espionage Act for my college class in Boston, and the plagiarism checker flagged it for hate speech because I quoted a senator saying 'disloyal' a few times. Spent 4 days emailing the dean to prove I was just analyzing historical records. Has anyone else had academic censorship freak out over old source material?

25

sean_park8•20d ago

Had a librarian in Ohio tell me something I still think about

Back in 2019 I was at the Medina County District Library helping a friend with a website about local zoning issues. A librarian named Carol walked over and said "you know they can see everything you post in these public terminals." She wasn't trying to scare me. She just wanted me to know. We ended up talking for 20 minutes about how the Patriot Act changed things after 2001. She said she'd seen people lose jobs over forum posts they made from library computers. Ever had a librarian give you a heads up like that?

6

brookep62•20d ago

TIL my old habit of just sharing news links without context got me flagged repeatedly

I used to copy-paste URLs from foreign media outlets into a local discussion group, thinking the facts spoke for themselves. After the third warning in two months, I realized they were using an automated filter that flagged any link to certain domains. Has anyone else had to change how they share information just to keep a group alive?

20

ericfox•20d ago

Found a stat that 73% of online news articles in India get edited or deleted within 48 hours of going live

I stumbled on that number from a freedom of press report last month and it made me wonder if we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg or if that's actually normal elsewhere too, what do you think?

27

willow_ellis•21d ago

Argued with a mod in a history forum about deleting old newspaper scans

I posted a scan from a 1987 local paper in Birmingham about a protest that got shut down, and a mod deleted it for being 'too political' even though it was just a historical document. Some people say mods need to keep things clean, but others argue that removing old news is a form of censorship. Where do you draw the line between curating a forum and erasing history?

3

mark676•21d ago

That time a Facebook mod in a gardening group nuked my post for saying 'weed killer'

Was in a local gardening group out of Phoenix. Somebody asked how to deal with crabgrass in their Bermuda lawn. I just wrote 'get a good weed killer and follow the label.' Next day I'm banned for 30 days. Mod said I was promoting chemical use without a disclaimer. Never even thought about it that way before. Got me wondering how many other groups have rules like this that just catch regular people off guard. Any of yall run into surprise bans like that?

4

king.kevin•23d ago

Shoutout to the library in Wichita that deleted my comment about book bans

I posted a fact-check on a city Facebook page about a challenged LGBTQ+ book, and they removed it within 20 minutes without any warning. Has anyone else had local government pages quietly scrub your free speech when you push back on their policy?

5

elliotr39•23d ago

Got yelled at for posting a news article in a local Facebook group in Austin...

I shared a link from the Austin Chronicle about city council zoning changes and within 15 minutes an admin deleted it. No warning, no message, just gone. So I reposted it as a screenshot with the source text and they banned me for 30 days saying I was "circumventing moderation." The article wasn't even political, just info about a park being sold to developers. Has anyone else had admins kill straight up factual posts without even talking to you first?

2

angelac63•24d ago

Appreciation post for that tiny bookstore in Vancouver that fought the city over banned books

I drove by Pendragon Books on Main Street last weekend and noticed they still have that faded sign in the window from 2019 about fighting the school board ban. I wasted about $60 on a self-published history book from Amazon last year that turned out to be full of rewritten facts, no sources at all. It made me think about that little store. They spent like 8 months and probably thousands in legal fees just to keep three titles on their shelves that the district wanted pulled. The owner, a quiet lady named Sue, told me at the time that she didn't even care if the books sold, it was about the principle. Has anyone else found a local shop that went to bat like that for what they carry?

21

the_uma•25d ago

Unpopular opinion: That time a moderator told me to 'tone down my language' actually made my writing BETTER

I used to think any kind of editing feedback was censorship. But last year a forum mod sent me a private message saying my posts were getting reported for being too aggressive with caps and exclamation points. I got really mad at first. But then I looked back at some of my old rants and yeah, I was just YELLING about everything. They said 'try making your point without shouting and see if people listen more'. So I tried it for a week. And honestly, more people started agreeing with me. My comments got more upvotes. So now I still use caps sometimes for EMPHASIS but only on important words. Has anyone else gotten feedback that actually helped you communicate better instead of just shutting you up?

13

barbara278•27d ago

A small win after getting a book pulled from my local library

I noticed my local library in Akron had quietly removed a book I wanted to see for a discussion group. I asked the librarian and she said it was due to "budget cuts" but I knew better. So I filed a formal reorder request with the county board and showed them how it was taken down without a vote. After 3 months of calls, they finally put it back on the shelf. Has anyone else had luck fighting a quiet removal?

21

tylerr39•28d ago

Paid $40 for a VPN after my post about a local city council meeting got deleted by the ISP in Texas

Worked like a charm for 3 months until the VPN itself started blocking me from even visiting the forum I was trying to use it for, anyone else run into that weird loop?

23

king.kevin•29d ago

Finally figured out why my posts were getting flagged on Facebook

I spent 6 months writing careful, factual updates about a protest in my city, thinking I was being smart by not using any harsh words. Then a friend who used to work on content moderation told me the algorithm flags certain sentence structures, not just keywords. She showed me how my posts had the exact pattern of wording that triggers automated review. Has anyone else run into this weird grammar-based shadowbanning thing?

15

taylor82•1mo ago

That time my blog got nuked just for linking to a study from a real university

Last April I posted a link to a peer-reviewed paper about mask efficiency and my whole WordPress site was flagged as misinformation within 3 hours, so now I keep offline backups and host my own email list.

4

gavins43•1mo ago

The day my local library in Phoenix pulled a graphic novel for having one swear word on page 3

I went to check out Blankets by Craig Thompson and the librarian said it was moved to the back office for review after a parent complained, so I filed a formal reconsideration request and it took 6 months to get it back on the shelf, but has anyone else dealt with a single complaint removing a book without any committee vote?

20

martin.vera•1mo ago

My neighbor the librarian made me reconsider something

She told me her library quietly stopped buying 12 specific nonfiction titles last year because of pressure from a local school board member. Said they just labeled them as 'out of stock' and moved on. Ever notice how small censorship like that flies under the radar?

4

rodriguez.jordan•1mo ago

The day my landlord censored my statement board in the lobby...

I live in a building in Austin with a community board where tenants can post little notes. Last week I put up a sign that just said 'ask your neighbors about the rent hike meeting on Thursday'. The property manager ripped it down within 2 hours... said it was 'inciting unrest'. I was honestly shocked, I thought that board was for everyone. Has anyone else had a landlord or HOA shut down something as simple as a meeting announcement?

0

baker.ben•1mo ago

I finally figured out how to get around a school web filter without breaking rules

Used to try VPNs and proxy sites to access news sites blocked by my high school in Des Moines, but the IT guys always caught on within a week. Then I discovered that the school's filter didn't block text-only versions of sites like NPR's text feed or archive.org copies of articles. Been using that trick for 3 months now with zero issues. Has anyone else found a legal workaround that actually sticks?

20

elliot_miller22•1mo ago

Got my Instagram post shadowbanned for sharing a protest livestream link

I was at a climate rally downtown Austin last Saturday around 3pm and filmed the whole thing. When I got home I uploaded a 2 minute clip and added a link to the full livestream on another platform. Within 3 hours my post had zero reach even though I had 200 likes in the first 30 minutes. I appealed but Instagram said it was for "spam behavior" which is total BS. Has anyone else had a post about a protest get buried like this?

1

charles_chen93•1mo ago

My neighborhood Facebook post got deleted for mentioning a library book ban

I live in a small town in Ohio and last week I posted about how our local school board quietly removed three books from the high school library without any public discussion. The post got flagged within an hour and Facebook said it violated community standards on 'controversial topics.' Has anyone else had their local library or school censorship discussions scrubbed from social media?