Anti-vaxx books at the library
Two Radio-Canada writers set up a dichotomy here with the lede that Youtube has banned anti-vaccination material but our libraries have not. They then rummage through the catalogues of local libraries in the city and beyond, as well as the Grande bibliothèque, and find a lot of books against vaccination, both from before Covid and since, as well as other quack medical titles.
But the item doesn’t suggest removing them. The writers talk to an authority at the BAnQ and a law professor, neither of whom is in favour of chucking the bad books out. Maybe people will need them in future if they’re studying the antivaxx movement? Maybe “presenting different points of view” is of value? But a line has been drawn, with no books on the shelves likely to incite hatred or violence. Last year the BAnQ banished the works of Gabriel Matzneff – surely someone in the future will want to study him?
Blork 14:51 on 2021-10-09 Permalink
This is an illustration of how the internet has changed things. Pre-internet, it was easy enough to argue against banning books (even ones that really were “dangerous” in how they could lead to dis- or misinformation, etc.) because of the usual discourse about free speech and the right to be wrong and all that. Bullshit books generally have low circulation, so hardly anyone sees them, and therefore they do not pose much of a threat. You might get small underground groups of followers, but nothing very overt or threatening to the general order.
But in the age of the internet — and in particular, social media — the threat is different. Bad/false/stupid ideas can catch fire and spread rapidly, and with the various psychological trappings of social media that we are just beginning to explore, those ideas can develop large cult-like followings very quickly.
There is no question that digital media is different from non-digital media in terms of its potential to explode/go viral, etc., and to “capture” people in ways that traditional media rarely could. So banning something from YouTube and banning something from a library are very different things.
Side note: the Matzneff banishment is also a different thing. AFAIK his books are banished because of the writer, not because of the content of his books. IOW, it’s the writer who is banished, not specifically his books.
Kevin 23:37 on 2021-10-09 Permalink
20, 25 years ago nutcases who made threats had their landlines taken away and they were cut off from society. I know, because as a target of frequent threats I was able to get the courts and the phone company to do this.
Now our society doesn’t even try because police lack the skills to track down the cranks, the communication companies involved have no connection to Canada (let alone staff who deal with threats), and the cranks have been scooped up into multinational Groups to target anyone who thinks rationally.