🧩 BND Motif Index · M570
Book burning
Books are removed or banned to control what people may think, and defending them is defending freedom itself.
📜 Plots🗂️ Speech and censorship🗂️ Shadow of the Reich
- 6claims filed under it
- 1right show it came up on
- 5claims retold online
⚠️ A story people tell, not a claim that it's true.
A motif is the shape of a story as its tellers tell it, named the way a folklorist names a tale type, so the same story told about other people, by the other side or in another year lands in the same place. Some of the claims below are true, many are false. Arguing against a story is often a story of its own, its answer (Voter fraud is answered by Voter suppression, Lawfare by No one is above the law), and we file it there; where no answer has a motif yet, the arguments against a story sit with its tellings.
🪜 Its family
what it rests on, what rests on it, and the motifs that answer it
🪜 rests on 🧩 Culture police 🧩 Thoughtcrime
🔗 goes with: 🧩 Forbidden fruit
🎙️ Who it came up with
the shows we follow where its claims came up, by the show's lean
🫏 left 0
🦗 none of our left shows, so far
⚖️ center 0
🦗 none of our center shows, so far
🐘 right 1
"Came up on" means one of its claims was heard on the show: told, reported or argued against. We don't yet mark which. Show leans are our own grouping of the shows we transcribe.
📰 In the news
the stories its claims were told about, the most told first (matched by our tools, so a link can be wrong)
- 📰 School book bans reach record high of nearly 12,000 2026-10-05 to 2026-10-06
🧶 Its claims
what's been told in this shape, newest first, in our words, with where each was heard
- 2026-10-11 “Banned Books Week and Let Freedom Read Day are opportunities to take action against book censorship and defend the freedom to read.” 🧶 people online
- 2026-10-10 “The freedom to read is under threat due to book bans and censorship, and communities are resisting by protecting and sharing banned books.” 🧶 people online
- 2026-10-09 “The freedom to read and access to books is essential for democracy, critical thinking, and personal growth.” 🧶 people online
- 2026-10-09 “An author faces a potential 60-day jail sentence in Germany for a book cover.”
🎙️ Bannon's War Room - 2026-10-07 “Banned Books Week is a time to celebrate books and fight for the freedom to read.” 🧶 people online
- 2026-10-07 “Book banning in U.S. schools has reached a record high of 12,000 removals, with Stephen King being the most banned contemporary author.” 🧶 people online
M570 · first seen 2026-10-07 · last 2026-10-11 · what this is · how the index works