A trip to the library showed me how quiet the public square has become

I was at the main branch of the public library in Springfield last Tuesday, looking at their community board. I wanted to see if any local clubs were meeting. The board used to be packed with flyers for all sorts of things, from political rallies to book clubs. Now, it's mostly just official city notices and ads for yoga classes. I asked the librarian about it, and she said quietly that a new policy was put in place about six months ago. Any flyer for a group that could be seen as 'divisive' needs approval from the city manager's office first. She pointed to one empty corner and said, 'That's where the debate team flyers used to be.' It made me think about how many small ways we're being pushed out of shared spaces before a ban even happens. Has anyone else seen rules like this shrink what gets posted in your town?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_ruby19d ago

It’s like they’re slowly taking down all the town’s bulletin boards, isn’t it?

angela_king3919d ago

Yeah @the_ruby, it's like they're scared of free talk.