School librarian ‘sick with stress’ after headteacher used AI to ban Twilight and 1984

Books include Twilight, 1984 as well as Michelle Obama’s autobiography Becoming

A school has used AI to censor its own library, including George Orwell’s 1984 and even the Twilight series.

A secondary school in Greater Manchester found 200 of its books were ‘inappropriate’ and are set to be removed after asking AI to decide which ones were unsuitable.

Books include Twilight, 1984 as well as Michelle Obama’s autobiography Becoming, according to Index on Censorship.

The school librarian was later put under a ‘safeguarding’ investigation for allowing the books in the first place, prompting her resignation.

She went to the organisation on the condition of anonymity to expose the school’s behaviour.

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In November, the headteacher had demanded the removal of Laura Bates’s Men Who Hate Women, which explores the rise of incel culture.

A secondary school in Greater Manchester found 200 of its books were ‘inappropriate’ and are set to be removed after asking AI to decide which ones were unsuitable

The librarian was placed under investigation and asked to remove any book which was ‘not written for children’.

She said: ‘I was absolutely gobsmacked. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.’

The school sent her a list of 193 books which they deemed were inappropriate. When asked for their reasoning, they said they used AI.

This includes a graphic novel version of 1984, which AI said features ‘themes of torture, violence, sexual coercion’.

Even Twilight, which is marketed towards a teenage audience, was listed due to ‘mature romantic themes, sexual tension, and violence involving vampires and werewolves’.

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks was also named due to being a ‘romantic drama about enduring love and memory loss’.

The school sent her a list of 193 books which they deemed were inappropriate. When asked for their reasoning, they said they used AI (Picture: Little, Brown and Company)

Michelle Obama’s Becoming made the list due to ‘racism and political themes’.

The school told the librarian: ‘Although the categorisation was generated using AI, I consider this classification to be broadly accurate.’

Despite the librarian signing off sick with stress, the complaint hearing went ahead and found she failed to follow safeguarding procedures.

Caroline Roche, chair of the SLG, told Index: ‘This is over the top. It’s ruined her career.

‘The fact it’s gone through safeguarding means [she] will never be able to work in a school again.’

Index said: ‘Index believes this story is of huge public interest. It is an unprecedented attack on the freedom to read and intellectual freedom, where important safeguarding measures have been misused to threaten and target a school librarian. This librarian is no longer able to do her job.’

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