Meet The Uncensored Library
Yes, it looks like a Minecraft world because it is. This is a Minecraft server made by a team 24 builders from 16 countries dedicated to the importance and freedom of the press.
Easily one of the most ambitious Minecraft projects to date, design studio blockworks worked with Reporters Without Borders, MediaMonks and DDB to create a Minecraft experience exposing press censorship and making journalism available to everyone.
“We were asked to build a giant library inside Minecraft which contains censored journals and articles, banned in several countries, thus bypassing press censorship in oppressive regimes.”
– blockworks
The project is immeasurably large and important.
Every country is represented, within the library, every country’s flag on the circular, virtual wall. At this time when more than ever are online, in virtual environments, and augmented realities, exploring what it means to be digital, The Uncensored Library project has converged News Media, Video Games, and Virtual Worlds, to ensure an archive and access exist to the first hand reports of what’s going on throughout the world.
Articles and published journals can be uploaded to the library; a library in a game known for surviving with a pick axe and seeds.
Ranging over a million blocks, the library hosts special exhibition halls on 5 countries notorious for their press censorship: Russia, Vietnam, Mexico, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Minecraft is a bit of a loophole, and this entire experience might help us all appreciate how the internet forces us all into a world that is more recognizing of free speech and knowledge transfer: while local laws might prohibit, something as ubiquitous and seemingly irrelevant as Minecraft can be used to overcome hurdles. The library is hosted on a server that enables anyone from around the world to visit – regardless of press censorship in their countries.
The digital home of press freedom
blockworks, founded in early 2013, consists of over 30 designers, animators, artists and developers from around the world, with an expertise Minecraft in marketing, media and education. And this, the world’s most successful computer game is something accessible; a loophole to bypass internet censorship to bring forth the truth.
