The Uncensored Library, the Minecraft library

The videogame Minecraft is fighting for the freedom of the press and the expression, by joining the initiative Reporter Without Borders. It’s like that the The Uncensored Library, a virtual library inside the videogame, was born, with the purpose to give voice to all the reporters that were censored in the countries where the press freedom isn’t so obvious: Mexico, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Epypt and Russia.

The world of Minecraft

Minecraft is a free world where the communities are free to create their blocked world, like a digital lego. Currently the digital world of Minecraft is maybe the one that get closer to Oasis, which was described in Ready Player One. It’s less advanced, without the virtual reality that throws us inside it. But which the same basic concepts which allow us to live a different life than the reality, to create the world that we want, block after block.

In the world of Minecraft the videoplayers can freely explore, extract resources, which are represented as little cubes, and with them build. It’s like throw on the floor a digital box of lego.

It was developed by the study Mojong and by its owner Notch, the videogame was bought by Microsoft in the 2014 and, even though the years go on, it remains incredibly on the top.

Minecraft with 180 million of sold copies and 480 million of videoplayers it’s considered the most sold videogame of the history. Furthermore it’s considered one of the most educational videogames, by entering even inside the school and receiving the cooperation of many experts and studiers. The Museum of London, for example, cooperated by realizing incredible maps of London, before, during and after the fire of the 1666.

Reporter Without Borders

Reporter Without Borders is a no profit and no governative organization that decided to give voice to the reportes that, unfortunatelly, still today have to fight for their press freedom. The organization, infact, estimated that only in the 2019 were killed 29 reporters and 10 normal citizens. While there are currently in the jail 228 reporters and 120 simple citizens, accused to told the truth.

To fight who still today hides unspeakable secrets and lashes against who is still looking for the truth Reporter Without Borders decided to go to another world, a world which is invisible to the eyes of the ones that don’t know where to find it: the digital. And it’s like that that it asked for the help of Minecraft

The birth of The Uncensored Library

The censores of the many governments can’t reach the world of Minecraft and it is for this reason that The uncensored library was born. But to be sure that the falsity isn’t really able to find it, the digital library is in the Java Edition version of the videogame, which is playable only with the computer. This isn’t the most used version of the game, but through this platform the project didn’t have to pass for the official shops of microsoft.

No one was able to stop, so, The Uncensored Library, which is now available for all the videogamers of the world. Because even though some countries want to lie, the youth always find a way to arrive to the truth. And what do the guys of the whole world do, even in these countries? They videoplay!

To realize this incredible digital library BlockWorks, MediaMonks and the DDB Germany cooperate with Reporters Without Borders. 24 people worked for 250 hours, by using 12,5 million of digital blocks. Here you have The Uncensored Library.

What is inside The Uncensored Library

Inside The Uncensored Library there are about 200 books, divided in 5 areas, each one dedicated to one of the countries that are affected by censure and each one of them is represented by reporters victim of censure. Jamal Khashoggi for the Saudi Arabia, which was killed in Istanbul in the 2018. Grani.ru for the Russia, which website was blocked in the 2014. Nguyen Van Dai for the Vietnam, from which the reporter was exiled. Javier Valdez for the Mexico, murdered because he investigated about the drug trade. Mada Masr for the Egypt, which blocked the access to the website since the 2017.

“We chosen Minecraft because there are big communitis of users in the countries that we want to reach, and we chosen the people of which put the articles according to our contacts, so that everyone will be safe and agreed”.

The Uncensored Library’s been already downloaded 30 thousand times and viewed on its server 20 thousand times, even by useres that come from the countries for which it was created.

The archive is expanding itself and the digital library is focusing to collect ever more articles, posts on the socials, censored informations.

This post is also available in: Italiano