Minecraft loophole Library Of Banned Journalism

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

13 March 2020

It began as an online forum project , and has since grown into the most played video game ever. However, now Minecraft is being played in ways that its creator could never have imagined. Thecobra

The center of free speech has taken the infamous game of putting Lego-like blocks together with more than 145,000,000 players each month, and turned it into an icon.

A virtual library has been carefully designed to host the journalistic articles that were later censored online.

Work by Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist killed by Saudi agents in the year 2018 can be found among the myriad of books available in the library.

Minecraft has refused to comment.

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

Christian Mihr, executive director of Reporters Without Borders Germany, told the BBC that Minecraft was a good choice for the project as he believes it's not considered to be an issue by governments that censor their media.

"We chose Minecraft due to its accessibility," he said. "It is available in every country. The game is not subject to censorship like some other games which are suspected of being political.

"There are large communities in every country included, which is the reason why it was suggested that it's a way to circumvent the censorship."

He explained that the authors were chosen to represent the countries where press was restricted, so that people from those communities would be able to access their work.

He also said that permissions were sought prior publishing in the library.

"We have not uploaded any information into the library without the consent of the author - if they're still alive.

"In the case of Jamal Khashoggi we spoke with family members - to express our respect of people who have been killed and for 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 effective in getting past the censors, however, Feamster was concerned about how governments may respond.

"It's an interesting concept," he said, "But I think there are some issues to be resolved. The government will be aware of this and the articles are being circulated all over the internet. It won't be foolproof against an armed adversary.

He said that the strength of the library was in its use of entanglement mixing the censored content with the video game in the eyes of censors.

He added, "By entangling the two things you force them all to share content." "You cannot censor one without the other."

Helmi Noman who is a Research Associate at the Berkman Klein Centre for Internet & Society, stated that he believed that the library would only have a small audience.

He added that "censored content is dynamic and diverse" and that users prefer to use approaches that don't preselect or separate content into specific spaces online.

"Any approach that doesn’t create an effortless secure, safe browsing experience across entire web, social media, and direct messaging apps will likely fail."

The server, which can host up to 100 users at a time, was frequently unavailable due to the sheer number of players were trying to log in simultaneously. Despite the limitation on simultaneous users, it has been visited by 3,889 players from 75 different countries and has been downloaded more than 7,000 times.

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

SoulfulGenie stated that they felt it needed more books and one on North Korea. Another user said it was "ingenious" and stated that the library could be downloaded and reuploaded again by other users. "It is simple to replicate and thus difficult to kill."

ReduxPL stated that the library "looks amazing indeed".

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

James Delaney, Managing Director of the design company, told the BBC that the goal was to create a classical design that was "on the border of fantasy".

He said it was a plausible construction, but it is pushing the limits of possible.

"We decided to design the library that is in the neoclassical style. It's similar to the British Museum and public libraries in New York."

He stated that Minecraft was improvisational at its fundamentals, which means that creators weren't confined to following a specific design.

"With many people working on the same project," he said, "people see each others' work and have to respond in real-time. So it is a very reactive way of working, and it can alter the appearance of the project.

"The style is meant to represent authority and power. We wanted to turn that around.

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

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