Minecraft’s uncensored library supplies digital haven for press freedom fighters

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a non-profit group devoted to selling press freedom worldwide, has constructed a digital library inside the favored online game Minecraft. The library is known as “The Uncensored Library,” and it homes articles and books banned in international locations like Egypt, Mexico, and Russia. RSF and inventive company DDB created the library to supply younger players in international locations with stringent press censorship guidelines entry to materials that’s in any other case unavailable.

The digital library is positioned inside Minecraft, and blockchain cloud storage is used to stop governments from surveilling its contents. According to senior artwork director Sandro Heierli, “The offline map is then stored on a decentralized blockchain cloud storage – which is impossible to hack.” The library has been downloaded over 200,000 instances, making it troublesome to take down even for RSF.

The articles and books in The Uncensored Library have been rigorously chosen by RSF and DDB primarily based on particular standards. They in contrast international locations with excessive scores on RSF’s World Press Freedom Index in opposition to these with excessive Minecraft utilization, as outlined in Google information. RSF is in shut contact with the journalists or their households to make sure their security.

Users can gather, share, and even write their very own books within the sport. While they will learn the books in The Uncensored Library, they can not change the content material of the books on the server. RSF and DDB collaborated with design studio BlockWorks to construct the library, which is predicated on the design of the New York Public Library and took 24 folks from 16 international locations and 12.5 million “digital Lego blocks” to create.

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This will not be the primary time that Minecraft has been used to supply deprived communities with a platform. The United Nations used the sport to get communities in creating international locations to design their very own public areas, and architect Bjarke Ingels has used the sport as a mannequin for participating communities with city design.