WASHINGTON — A new report published last week by the Chamber of Progress, a U.S. trade group representing many of the leading technology companies, issued an urgent warning about recent online censorship efforts promoted by conservatives.
Titled “The Rising Red Tide of Digital Censorship,” the report chronicles “how a conservative wave of content bans is moving from schools to online.”
The report cautions that “children and teens’ access to information is under assault by right-wing lawmakers across the country; the movement to censor what students see in schools has moved online; the same elected officials, the same advocacy groups, and the same legislatures pushing curriculum censorship agendas are leading the movement to limit teens’ access to information on the Internet; and for a generation of young people growing up in states with book bans and digital censorship, the combined effects of conservative censorship regimes could prove disastrous.”
The report also details how curriculum censorship laws and local book bans are proliferating in America, how specific states like Texas, Utah, Arkansas and Louisiana are fertile breeding grounds for censorship campaigns, and how the major players in the curriculum censorship movement are also pushing for digital censorship legislation.
Lawmakers in conservative states, the report establishes, “are seeking to prevent children from accessing information and communities online that conflict with right-wing ideology, creating a ‘red-state curtain’ that compounds censorship in states where children’s exposure to LGBTQ+ and racial inclusion content is already limited.”
News site Axios explained that the report highlights how “the crackdown on books aligns with a wider push by Republicans to limit conversations on hot-button issues like race, sexuality and the history of slavery in America.”
"In red states, when there are book bans, online censorship or parental approval laws aren't far behind,” Axios concluded.