It's worth noting that this project will likely not benefit the people of China. A somewhat obscure fact is that China has its own edition of Minecraft which cannot connect to servers of the mainstream edition.
Basically they’ll be using a massive multiplayer online game as a gateway (proxy, almost) for censored content.
Whether this is a genuine avenue, an in-your-face hack, and/or whether it will lead to illiberal regimes banning access to aforementioned MMOs remains to be seen.
Homeland security did used to watch games like WoW out of concern that terrorists used it to communicate; I dunno if that's still a thing with the rise of encrypted messaging platforms, though.
The same idea came up in the movie Four Lions, where the main characters use Club Penguin to talk about their plans.
I think rather than using an online game as a gateway, using something like GitHub would be more censorship proof. Even if it's just text links only and larger content is hosted elsewhere the government would severely impact software companies by blocking GitHub.
Due to the spec for localStorage requiring that it throw an exception when access is denied (such as when cookies are off), many pages entirely fail to render when they assume that touching window.localStorage won't throw.
Censorship is like whack-a-mole. The format won't prevent you from getting beaten with a pipe when the cops find out, but it can still help to distribute information through a variety of forms.
There's an old resistance method of communication called 'samizdat', where information is duplicated and passed on by loose networks of unaffiliated individuals. Wikipedia has a good quote about it:
"Samizdat: I write it myself, edit it myself, censor it myself, publish it myself, distribute it myself, and spend time in prison for it myself"
Of course, the understanding that you might be imprisoned is a big part of civil disobedience. You have to hope that the capricious and unreasonable nature of the authority or rule that you are protesting causes your community and society to demand change.
Yeah, they spent all this time/funding creating a cool webpage and then the government will probably begin blocking traffic that looks like Minecraft. Why not just host a proxy server and skip the BS?
Because this will have more intrigue and appeal to a wider audience than a proxy server, which only technically savvy people are familiar with. I think entering a virtual library gives it some gravitas and higher sense of importance.
I just downloaded it and booted up Minecraft since I was curious too.
The article are held in books like this: https://i.imgur.com/KZoknDt.png Note the button to turn the page on the bottom right.
There actually don't seem to be a lot of articles. The room with the "TRUTH" art display doesn't have anything to read other than a little blurb explaining what the display means. The bookshelves are non-functional, they are just scenery.
After that I entered the Khashoggi room. As with the previous room, all the bookshelves are decoration. There is a little display in the middle with three of his articles. On one side you can read the articles written in English, and on the other side of the display you can listen to someone (Khashoggi himself?) read them in Arabic (making use of Minecraft's record player function). Really, it's a neat use of Minecraft's features.
Then I entered the Vietnam room, which contains two articles by Nguyen Van Dai, with a similar format (English text, then Vietnamese text rather than audio).
I didn't explore more, because the building is HUGE with a ton of space between rooms. Wherever they're hosting this, they need to keep flying turned on, because it would take forever to navigate by just walking.
Overall, it seems pretty underwhelming. The build itself is beautiful. I could go around exploring this just for the scenery. But my gaming PC gets a little choppy from the sheer scale of this thing, so people with low-end computers would likely have trouble using it at all. It's very inefficient for just 2-3 articles per room. I definitely agree with the people saying a basic proxy server would be more suitable.
It's really impressive, though, if you approach it as a piece of artwork. This is basically a virtual museum with some very well-designed rooms.
I am grateful that I got to the Saudi room and got to read this Khashoggi article:
Saudi Arabia wasn’t always this repressive. Now it’s unbearable.
By Jamal Khashoggi
September 18, 2017
When I speak of the fear, intimidation, arrests and public shaming of intellectuals and religious leaders who dare to speak their minds, and then I tell you that I’m from Saudi Arabia, are you surprised?
With young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s rise to power, he promised an embrace of social and economic reform. He spoke of making our country more open and tolerant and promised that he would address the things that hold back our progress, such as the ban on women driving.
But all I see now is the recent wave of arrests. Last week, about 30 people were reportedly rounded up by authorities, ahead of the crown prince’s ascension to the throne. Some of the arrested are good friends of mine, and the effort represents the public shaming of intellectuals and religious leaders who dare to express opinions contrary to those of my country’s leadership. The scene was quite dramatic as masked security men stormed houses with cameras, filming everything and confiscating papers, books and computers. The arrested are accused of being recipients of Qatari money and part of a grand Qatari-backed conspiracy. Several others, myself included, are in self-exile and could face arrest upon returning home.
It anguishes me to speak with other Saudi friends in Istanbul and London who are also in self-exile. There are at least seven of us — are we going to be the core of a Saudi diaspora? We spend endless hours on the phone trying to understand this wave of arrests that have included my friend, businessman and thoughtful Twitter personality Essam Al-Zamil. It was just last Tuesday that he returned home from the United States, having been part of an official Saudi delegation. That is how breathtakingly fast you can fall out of favor with Saudi Arabia. It is all quite shocking. But this has not been business as usual in my country.
In 2003 and again in 2010, I was fired from my job as editor in chief of a “progressive” paper, Al-Watan. During the years in between, I served as media adviser to Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to Britain and then the United States. Perhaps it seems odd to be fired by the government and then serve it abroad. Yet that is truly the Saudi paradox. In the starkest terms, Saudi Arabia is trying to moderate the extreme viewpoints of both liberal reformers and conservative clerics. And the arrests span that spectrum.
Why would this climate of fear and intimidation be so prevalent when a young, charismatic leader is promising long-awaited reforms to spur economic growth and diversify our economy? The crown prince is popular, and his reform plan was supported by most of the 30 clerics, writers and social media superstars who were rounded up in the middle of the night.
In recent months, Saudi Arabia has instituted several new and extreme policies, from full-throated opposition of Islamists to encouraging citizens to name others to a government blacklist. Those arrested were on that list. Columnists close to the Saudi leadership repeatedly demanded that Islamists be “eradicated.” It’s no secret that the crown prince despises the Muslim Brotherhood, yet it is actually a strange contradiction to identify a person as a Muslim Brotherhood activist. I always found it ironic when a Saudi official bashes Islamists, given that Saudi Arabia is the mother of all political Islam — and even describes itself as an Islamic state in its “ Higher Law.” (We avoid the term “constitution” because of its secular interpretation and often say that the Koran is our constitution.)
Regardless of who is being targeted, this is not what Saudi Arabia needs right now. We are going through a major economic transformation that is supported by the people, a transformation that will free us from total dependence on oil and restore a culture of work and production.
This is a very painful process. Mohammed bin Salman is best served by encouraging constructive, diverse opinions from public figures such as Essam and other economists, clerics, intellectuals and business people who have instead been swept up in these arrests.
My friends and I living abroad feel helpless. We want our country to thrive and to see the 2030 vision realized. We are not opposed to our government and care deeply about Saudi Arabia. It is the only home we know or want. Yet we are the enemy. Under pressure from my government, the publisher of one of the most widely read Arabic dailies, Al-Hayat, canceled my column. The government banned me from Twitter when I cautioned against an overly enthusiastic embrace of then-President-elect Donald Trump. So I spent six months silent, reflecting on the state of my country and the stark choices before me.
It was painful for me several years ago when several friends were arrested. I said nothing. I didn’t want to lose my job or my freedom. I worried about my family.
I have made a different choice now. I have left my home, my family and my job, and I am raising my voice. To do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison. I can speak when so many cannot. I want you to know that Saudi Arabia has not always been as it is now. We Saudis deserve better.
After it loaded, I was able to grab this blurb incase others have the same issue:
"Providing access to independent information to young people around the world through a medium they can playfully interact with. Journalists from five different countries now have a place to make their voices heard again, despite having been banned, jailed, exiled and even killed.
Their forbidden articles were republished in books within Minecraft, giving readers the chance to inform themselves about the real political situation in their countries and learn the importance of press freedom.
Let’s empower the next generation to stand up for their right to information and give them a powerful tool to fight oppressive leaders: knowledge. Together with the ever-expanding gaming community, we will show the world that the truth will never be silenced!
Visit The Uncensored Library:
On our Minecraft Server: visit.uncensoredlibrary.com"
Thank you, I appreciate you taking the time to respond.
Sounds interesting but as others have pointed out I don't see how this will be able to go undetected and eventually blocked.
But if nothing else it's a good tool to raise awareness and if, given enough critical mass, could be replicated by others in a way that it eventually routes around any attempt to censor it.
If it's made up of every work that was ever censored, chances are most of it would be pornography. Far bigger demand and market for pornography than political commentary, and most countries have laws for "public morals".
https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Minecraft_China