Notes

Minecraft 'loophole' Library Of Banned Journalism

Minecraft 'loophole' library of banned journalism Tom Gerken BBC News, Washington DC



13 March 2020



It started as a project in an online forum and turned into the best-selling video game ever however, today Minecraft is being used for something its creator would not have imagined.



The cult game that revolves on the placement of Lego-like blocks and more than 145 million players each month has been turned into a center for free speech.



A virtual library was meticulously created to host journalistic articles that were censored online.



Work of Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist who was murdered by Saudi agents in the year 2018 is available among the myriad of books in the library.
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Minecraft has not yet made a comment.



Reporters Without Borders, a non-profit organisation that aims to safeguard the freedom of information throughout the world The project was created by the non-profit organization. Blockworks, the design studio that is responsible for the Minecraft library, developed it.



Christian Mihr, the executive director of Reporters Without Borders Germany, said that Minecraft was a great project since he doesn't think it poses a threat to governments that restrict their media.



He said that Minecraft was chosen due to its accessibility. "It is accessible in every country. The game is not subject to censorship like other games believed to be political.



"There are large communities in every country featured, that's why the idea was born as an opportunity to bypass censorship."



He stated that the authors were selected to represent countries in which press freedom was restricted, so that these communities could be able to access their work.



However, he explained that permissions were sought prior to publishing the book in the library.



"We did not put any information into the library without the consent of the respective authors - if they're still alive.



"In the case of Jamal Khashoggi, we spoke to family members - in regard of people who have died and the safety of their families."



Nick Feamster, Neubauer Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago Nick Feamster, Neubauer Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago, told BBC that the library could be successful in beating censors, but he was worried about how governments may respond.



"It's an interesting idea," he said, "But I think there are some problems to be addressed. Governments will know about this - the articles are going across the internet. It won't be foolproof against a determined enemy.



He said that the strength of the library was due to the use of Entanglement, which is the mixing of the censored material and the video game in the censors' eyes.



"By entangling these two things you force them to share content," he said. "You can't censor one without the other."



Meanwhile Helmi Noman, a Research Affiliate of the Berkman Klein Centre for Internet & Society said that he believed that the library would be likely to have an audience that is limited.



"The censored content is dynamic, diverse and distributed," he said, saying that in his study "the users prefer approaches that don't pre-select or categorize content in specific spaces online.



"Any method that doesn't provide an unhindered and secure browsing experience of the entire web as well as social media, direct messaging applications will probably be ineffective."



The server, which holds 100 concurrent users, was regularly inaccessible due to how many players were trying to log on at the same time. Despite this cap on concurrent users, the server has been visited by 3,889 people from 75 different countries and has been downloaded more than 7,000 times.



After two hours of trying, BBC finally visited the virtual library and asked users what they thought.



SoulfulGenie said they thought "it needs more books and a brand new section on North Korea" and another user described it as "ingenious in many ways", adding that since the library can be downloaded and reuploaded by other users, "it is easy to replicate and therefore hard to kill".



ReduxPL stated that the library "looks amazing indeed".



The design of the library by Blockworks was no easy task that took a team of 24 people from 16 different countries for 250 hours to build.



James Delaney, the company's managing director, told the BBC that the goal was to create a classic design that was "on the edge of imagination".



"It is kind of plausible as a real-world building," he said, "but is pushing the limits of what is feasible.



"We chose to design it that was in the neoclassical style. It's akin to the British Museum and public libraries in New York."



In spite of these influences, he stated that Minecraft was improvisational at its core So the builders were not restricted to set patterns.



"With many people working on the same project," he said, "people observe each other's work and have to react in real time. It's a reactive way of working, and that changes the look.



"The style is chosen to symbolize power and authority We wanted to turn that on its head.



"Instead of representing the power of the government or regime, it's representing the free press."



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