Tracking Censorship in National Parks: An Update from the Save Our Signs team
As censorship of NPS materials continues, the Save Our Signs team has released new resources and a key update to the existing infrastructure to make it easier to understand what has changed.
SOS Censorship Tracker
Through both news reports and before-and-after photos, the SOS team is documenting reported changes to NPS materials. This information can be viewed and interacted with through a map (z.umn.edu/CensorshipTracker) or a detailed spreadsheet(z.umn.edu/removedNPSsigns). We will continue to update the SOS Censorship Tracker as additional news and updated photos are submitted to the SOS Archive.
Updates to the SOS Archive
We have color-coded the SOS Archive in order to visually classify types of photo submissions.
Our archive includes four types of photo submissions:
- Regular: A sign not altered in response to the Executive and Secretarial Orders; this may be an earlier version of a sign that was later altered..
- Altered or Removed version: A sign that has been censored; this might be a photograph of blank space that used to host a sign, or this may be a photograph of a new sign that replaces a removed sign
- Artistic response or protest: Community responses to censorship of signs.
- Other: Other types of photos that don’t fit the categories above. Typically these are so-called “snitch signs.”
Now, when you search the archive by NPS site, all photos will be color-coded and in chronological order, with the latest submissions first. A white border indicates a regular sign, a dark green border indicates a sign that has been removed or altered, a light green border indicates an artistic response or protest, and a dotted line border indicates “other.”
For folks new to the project, check out our past blog posts about Save Our Signs:
