[EcommerceFlow]

Filtering content for children is not 'banning books'.

By this definition, The Bible is the most "banned book" across the country, even though it's probably the most consequential piece of literature ever written.

This continuous doublespeak is even more humorous considering the site has actual shopping links to every 'banned book'.

[rpsw]

Filtering content sounds like doublespeak for banning to me. The title is Top 52 Banned Books: The Most Banned Books in U.S. Schools, how is it that inaccurate?

[zzzeek]

because that would suggest something very bad is happening in the US and the HN party line is "this is nothing unusual, typical woke [1] panic attack over nothing, now please get back to your HN job of trying to win VC money"

[1] https://paulgraham.com/woke.html

[everdrive]

At least in my mind it's unfair because the books are not in any way banned. Anyone can get them. They're more available than perhaps any time in history. The school's decision not to stock them may merit criticism, but the books are hardly "banned" in the traditional sense of the word.

[tavavex]

99.99% of all books ever are not going to be available at your local library. But we don't consider those to be "banned" either. Here, the difference is that these books were selected and stocked in the past, but were removed due to political pressure - or these books weren't available, but a ruling from up above blanket banned their libraries from being able to consider them in the first place. It's frustrating to see so many people in this comment section equate these two.

Just because you can find those books online or elsewhere doesn't mean that the rulings to ban them from school libraries isn't about trying to restrict access to that information.

[seec]

Yes, there a selection, it reflected the previous political power sensibilities, now the current power doesn't like them that much, so they are not selected.

As far as I'm concerned, if we really wanted to do things right, any book in a school library should be no less than a hundred years old. This way, no current politics.

[tavavex]

> it reflected the previous political power sensibilities

It reflected the sensibilities of the people who were actually running the libraries and whose entire jobs was comprehending and choosing books based on what they know about their field. Now, it reflects the sensibilities of politicians from up above who are likely to know less than nothing about literature, but are important enough to scream "Nonono, you can't just do that!" and be obeyed. It's not exactly a fair trade.

> if we really wanted to do things right, any book in a school library should be no less than a hundred years old. This way, no current politics.

Thinking that all politics is categorically bad is a very strange viewpoint that I could never wrap my head around. It's especially prevalent in the US. Politics, the methods of organizing and running society, impacts absolutely every facet of our lives. Not understanding politics and not being exposed to it leaves one with an incomplete view of how humans work, and how to maneuver around human irrationality to get things done. What's worse is that giving people nothing but century-old books will just teach them about what was "current politics" a hundred years ago, leaving people with heaps of knowledge on how people lived and thought in a completely alien world, and no real objective information on how radically different the current day is, and why.

[charlie90]

Curation is not banning.

[UncleMeat]

This is explicitly not curation.

[m00x]

Agreed, this is very politically charged. The method for qualifying a "banned book" is not described in detail and seems to only include those with a political lean, when there are obviously other books that aren't shown to kids that didn't make the list.

[giraffe_lady]

The system they're using is in their faq, in detail. Basically it is books that were previously available but have been removed due to external pressure.

[m00x]

So it's not really fair to say it's a ban. You can have the book at school, but the school library won't have it.

Would you agree for the school to have the book "The Passing of the Great Race", a famously racist and white supremacist book in your school library?

[UncleMeat]

Good things are good and bad things are bad.

I have absolutely no problem saying that bigots who insist that no books containing LGBT characters appear in libraries are bad people while also thinking that The Turner Diaries shouldn't be in public schools.

[pfannkuchen]

> who insist that no books containing LGBT characters appear in libraries

Is this a common stance? I thought it was more like, no books glorifying LGBT lifestyle or teaching it as if it’s not controversial and it’s just a fact of life (as proponents sincerely believe, of course, not saying no one is thinks it is a fact of life, that’s just the part that is controversial). I understand disagreeing with that, but it isn’t the same as opponents pushing for zero gay/etc characters period, right?

I haven’t been following this topic too closely though so I might be missing what people are screeching about on the right today.

[UncleMeat]

My aunt is a Republican lobbyist. She believes that nobody is actually gay and that it is a mental illness where people are tricked into thinking it is possible to be gay and that this can originate from being exposed to gay people.

She has a bisexual daughter who has attempted suicide twice. She has told her daughter that she’d be better off dead than bi.

Also I’m very sorry if there are books that contain gay characters where there aren’t constant asides reminding the reader that these people are going to hell. The “gay lifestyle” is just gay people existing.

[LexiMax]

> glorifying LGBT lifestyle

What is an LGBT lifestyle?

My life before and after discovering the nature of my queerness is remarkably similar, though with a fair few more relationships and a lot less anguish afterwards.

[giraffe_lady]

I don't know, I didn't come in here with particularly strong feelings about what "ban" means or should mean re books but people keep coming at me extremely hot for saying not much about it at all.

Personally I think using banned for "actively prevented from accessing in ways other books are not" makes plenty of sense even if you can effectively circumvent those attempts somehow.

The strict meaning that people seem to want to apply in here does not seem particularly useful to me. Almost no books have ever been banned by that standard, but there is a clearly organized movement in the US to remove all reference to queerness from public life. Flexible on nomenclature here but that context is very important.

[khaki54]

It may seem like an attack on queer books, but as far as I can tell none of the straight books seem to be trying to explain how minors should get access to adult dating apps to meet older men, or showing obscene graphical depictions of sodomy involving children.

I think if librarians were buying "straight" books with the same explicit and adult content and putting them in elementary, middle, and high schools, the same parents would be complaining about those too.

[gumby271]

The hell kind of library are you visiting?

[jkestner]

What queer book with that content was in libraries?

[macintux]

For high school students, sure. I'd be very uncomfortable, but know thy enemy.

[antonymoose]

In my state (South Carolina) this is exactly how they handled it. If a parent or activist wishes see a book banned it goes through reviewed based on school-level appropriateness. A book like The Kite Runner with its deprecations of Bacha Bazi are a bit rough for a 5th grader but considered acceptable for a High Schooler given the cultural significance of the work.

[everybodyknows]

As cryptically referred to by the villain in the perhaps most famous of American novels. Credit Wikipedia:

> Grant became a part of popular culture in 1920s America. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald made a lightly disguised reference to Grant in The Great Gatsby. In the book, the character Tom Buchanan reads a book called The Rise of the Colored Empires by "this man Goddard", a combination of Grant and his colleague Lothrop Stoddard. ...

> ... "Everybody ought to read it", the character said. "The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be — will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved."

[mcphage]

Is it currently there now?

[jfindper]

>You can have the book at school, but the school library won't have it.

False.

[tastyfreeze]

Without the banning method this is just click bait to sell books. Every book on a ban list is still easily available. It would be weird for something as explicit as a kama sutra book to be found in an elementary school library. It might be appropriate at a high school library. But any kid at any time can go to a public library or book store and find just such a book. The parents get to decide when sexually explicit material is appropriate for their children. Schools do the same by proxy. There is nothing wrong with this setup.

[UncleMeat]

The most targeted book in america is Looking For Alaska. You and I have a very different understanding of what "sexually explicit material" means if you think that this book is erotica.

Remember that the parents are deciding for other parents what appears in libraries.

[tastyfreeze]

Apparently I made my point poorly. Kama sutra was an example that I think everybody could agree shouldn't be in a children's library. My point was that everybody gets to decide what is in their children's library. Most of the people in that area probably agree. But, everybody can still go to any bookstore and find the same books. They are not banned in any way. As the OP said, without criteria on why a book is "banned" lists like this are pointless. A library or school district deciding they don't want a book doesn't make it banned. The problem is that people thousands of miles away think that those people far away are too restrictive or liberal in their book selections presented to children.

My second point was that since all these "banned" books are still available for sale; getting on a banned book list is just a tactic to sell more books. This list even has affiliate links to the books. Which make the whole page click bait.

[UncleMeat]

Bigoted parents forcing librarians to remove books that they feel have educational merit because they offend the sensibilities of bigoted parents is bad.

You can call it a different word if you want I guess. But I'm absolutely baffled that people are spending their time worrying about the word "banned" here. This shit is awful.

[bdangubic]

every parent that is “pro” book banning is a shitty parent, period. I am kind of glad this book banning has spread as it helped me weed out some people from my life. life is to short to spend around shitty parents. I can pretty much live with any flaw (I have 100’s) but being a shitty parent is not one I am willing to be around

[LexiMax]

Conversations like these are so immensely frustrating to have on Hacker News.

This thread is full of people falling over themselves trying to convince you that a book ban isn't actually a book ban, and whatever it happens to be isn't that big of a deal.

If the banning of books from libraries isn't a big deal - why is it being done in the first place? Is it just virtue signaling, or does it have a specific objective? If it has a specific objective, isn't that objective worth interrogating instead of brushing off as not a big deal because the book is still available through other means?

[sokka_h2otribe]

I think it might be the literalism sometimes common with autistic spectrum. Uhm, not to cause offense, I relate to it?

[LexiMax]

As someone who is also on the spectrum, literalism explains confusion over the definition, but not the downplaying of the consequences.

[UncleMeat]

The objective is a foothold in culture war stuff, largely around LGBT people but about other things too. The ultimate goal is to re-establish a culture where gay people are unable to be out in public, especially in places where there are children. This means no gay teachers. No gay characters in media. Websites with LGBT content being treated as pornographic and requiring age verification.

The narrative is "look at these liberals forcing sex on children." Parents go to school board meetings and read passages ripped from context as lurid eroticism to rile up their neighbors. If normies go along with this "think of the children" stuff then it becomes a foothold to the next steps. We've seen this trans people, where bigots have successfully converted "this is about girl's sports" into policies banning healthcare and safe bathroom use.

[TheOtherHobbes]

At this point it's extremely clear - objectively, by counting criminal convictions - which demographic is a real danger to kids, not just sexually but in many other ways.

And it's very much not the writers of books with LGBT content.

I can understand why the real culprits might want to deflect attention from their moral failings onto others, and why pointing out the facts might make them very, very angry.

But it's going to have to be done at some point.

[ModernMech]

"The parents get to decide when sexually explicit material is appropriate for their children."

It's always strange to me when the concern is "sexually explicit material" and not "violently explicit material".

[6510]

1984

[tastyfreeze]

Not sure what your point is. 1984 is available at my middle school, high school and public libraries and every book store. Not available at elementary schools because it is generally above grade level.

[6510]

The purpose of the ministry of truth was to redact and rewrite history. Shape peoples thoughts, their vocabulary and show them how good they have it compared to their primitive ancestors. (Those naked bare foot people who build all those megalithic structures, castles and cathedrals) History should of course have a carefully engineered list of banned books.

The work is never done, after removing the books with practical tutorials, blue prints and historical revisionism you always continue to have a candidate at the top of the list. The work that remains now are all fictional books that portray an uncomfortable reality.

After those are all gone the new reality will again have a most terrible book. The work is never done.

[beardyw]

I don't know what the poster's intention was but perhaps "Fahrenheit 451" would have made the point more clearly?

[tastyfreeze]

Nobody is going around hunting for banned books in all formats and destroying them let alone a government agency for that purpose.

[burkaman]

Why would the Bible meet that definition? It is generally available for children in school libraries.

[legitster]

I think OP is over-generalizing. The Bible is the most banned book around the world, but definitely not in the US.

[hylaride]

Separation of church and state, especially when schools don’t allow alternative books (eg in some Bible Belt areas). Also, the bible does have violence, sex (including rape and incest), etc.

[burkaman]

I understand there are reasons it could be banned, but I'm saying that in reality it is not. It is widely available in elementary and middle school libraries.

[hylaride]

There have been many attempts to ban it, but a backlash usually results in its reinstatement. IIRC there are often cases where questionable verses are blotted out or it's only the new testament (which is in general less "graphic"), but it really depends on the jurisdiction.

[stvltvs]

Except for one case in Texas that made a splash in the news last year, I didn't find other cases of the Bible being banned from school libraries. Did I miss something?

If not, it would make sense that Texas made the news because it's out of the ordinary.

[bjourne]

> Filtering content for children is not 'banning books'.

If "filtering content for children" is not banning books, then why is "filtering content for adults" banning books?

> By this definition, The Bible is the most "banned book" across the country

According to the source the high score is 147. Has the Bible been banned 148 times or more in the US?

[slillibri]

I expect the bible is in virtually every public and school library in the US. It’s hardly a banned book by any measure.

[chasd00]

Yeah this is a strange way to define "banned books". I would think Hustler has to be universally "banned" in all US schools, it has to be in the top 10 most banned books. Or maybe because it's a magazine Hustler doesn't count so the author left it out...

The only books I can think of that are actually banned, as in it's against the law to obtain, in the US would be like a B2 bomber capability manual or some other classified documentation.

[btilly]

Given the First Amendment, the only thing that I can think of as banned is copyright violations.

The Pentagon Papers case says that, once revealed, classified information can be published.

How about dangerous information. Want to know how to make a fusion bomb? Start at https://www.atomicarchive.com/science/fusion/index.html. More detailed schematics are easy to find.

All that said, I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.

[drcongo]

Do most school libraries carry Hustler? Wow.

[btilly]

No.

But carrying it is unlikely to be against the law either.

[drcongo]

But if they don't carry it, it can't have been removed from the libraries, and therefore couldn't qualify for this list. Weird insight into someone's mind that they would bring up Hustler in a discussion about school libraries.

[jfindper]

>Yeah this is a strange way to define "banned books".

Pen clearly defines what they consider a ban. Hustler would not meet the definition (hint: it's not because its a magazine).

[forzerpendulum]

Well, you chose to completely ignore the part about "in U.S. schools." I immediately knew what the title meant. Do you lack the form of common sense that allows understanding implication?

[gizzlon]

The title is .. "in US schools" . So in this context, yes it is.

You can argue banning or filtering some books for kids is the right thing to do, but the obvious question is then: what books and why?

Seems like you are fighting a strawman.

[_vqpz]

ban

to forbid (= refuse to allow) something, especially officially

[m00x]

If you look at their definition, it's when the book is "missing" from the book selection, so it's essentially filtered out from a curated list, not an outright ban.

The school won't kick you out for having the book, but they won't buy it.

[cycomanic]

Your quotes around the missing do a lot of work here. From the FAQ:

> PEN America defines a school book ban as any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by lawmakers or other governmental officials, that leads to a book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished. Diminished access is a form of censorship and has educational implications that extend beyond a title’s removal. Accessibility forms the core of PEN America’s definition of a school book ban and emphasizes the multiple ways book bans infringe on the rights of students, professional educators, and authors. It is important to recognize that books available in schools, whether in a school or classroom library, or as part of a curriculum, were selected by librarians and educators as part of the educational offerings to students. Book bans occur when those choices are overridden by school boards, administrators, teachers, or politicians, on the basis of a particular book’s content.

In particular it's when the decisions of the professionals are being overruled for political purposes.

It is particularly clear when reading the list, many of these books are children/young adults books which have won highest national and international awards, but somehow they are "age inappropriate"?

[jfindper]

>The school won't kick you out for having the book, but they won't buy it.

You keep saying this all over this thread, can you please tell me how you are reaching this conclusion?

I have linked you to at least one entire state (covering 40+ school districts) where what you are saying is completely false.

Typically, if a school bans something, it also means that the children are not allowed to bring the banned thing onto the school premises.

[ofconsequence]

> The Bible ... it's probably the most consequential piece of literature ever written.

Even if you really dial in your definition of "consequential", ie. the amount of stagnated technological and societal progress and murder as a result of the Bible's adherents' efforts, this seems an absurd claim.

Most consequential piece of literature is likely the Plimpton 322 or Euclid's Elements or The Epic Of Gilgamesh. The Bible is an embarrassing footnote.