June 3rd 2026
What do Minecraft and the free press have in common? More than most people think. In countries where journalists are heavily reprimanded, websites are blocked and independent newspapers banned, autocratic governments have long held an advantage where they had in their control the information landscape. In 2020, press freedom NGO Reporters Without Borders found an unlikely loophole to counter those closed societies: it was hiding in Minecraft. Recently RSF just opened a new room in its uncensored library and this new country it focuses on is not Russia or Saudi Arabia, but the United States of America.
Backdoor Inside Minecraft
In March 2020, RSF launched the Uncensored Library inside Minecraft which is one of the world’s best selling video games of all time with a monthly average of 145 millions active players. The concept was both simple and imaginative. Social media and independent news platforms are often blocked or surveilled inside repressive states, leaving Minecraft under the radar of governments censorship almost everywhere. In countries where websites and independent press are strictly silenced, Minecraft remained
accessible to all.
RSF collaborated with the specialist Minecraft design studio BlockWorks to construct a vast library inside
the game. Built over 3 months and constructed from over 12 millions blocks, it took 24 builders to
complete the library.
Inside the Uncensored Library
The library houses more than 300 books distributed across 12 wings, each representing a country where access to information is limited. Visitors can download the map, walk around freely and pick up any books that contain censored information written by real journalists who were banned, jailed, exiled or even killed for their journalism.
Egypt’s room features articles from Mada Masr, the last independent news website in the country which was blocked in 2017. Russia’s wing carries work from grani.ru, banned by the Kremlin in 2014. Vietnam’s section holds the work of Nguyen Van Dai, sentenced to 15 years in prison in Vietnam before being exiled to Germany.
The Saudi Arabia wing hosts the work of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist brutally murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Mexico’s room shows the story of Javier Valdez, the founder of the newspaper Riodoce. He was assassinated by gunmen in 2017. His work now is preserved in a game his murderers never thought to check.
“The only real way of fighting censorship is sharing and spreading what has been censored”
Yulia Berezovskaia, editor in chief at grani.ru
A Warning to Democracies – The Uncensored Library Newest Room
Since 2020, new rooms have been added to the uncensored library for Belarus, Iran, Brazil and Eritrea. But recently, RSF has opened a room dedicated to the United States. The United States is not usually associated with systematic press oppression, but the current political climate is raising some serious alarms.
The United States room documents a more subtle kind of press censorship. Under the Trump administration, journalists have been arrested, their homes raided, public information has been restricted or redacted, and some government webpages deleted. Donald Trump and his administration constantly undermine journalists and news outlets by verbally attacking them or undermining their work, often calling more liberal newspapers “fake news”. The room displays a political cartoon by Ann Telnaes showing Jeff Bezos kneeling before Donald Trump that the Washington Post refused to print. It now raises questions about editorial independence and self-censorship.
Why Does the Uncensored Library Matters?
Reporters Without Borders is the world’s largest NGO specialising in the defense of free information and press freedom. The right to be informed or inform others is a basic human right and the very foundation upon which all other freedoms depend. Reporters Without Borders estimates that nearly half of the world’s population still does not have access to free information. They are either manipulated by state propaganda and disinformation, prevented from participating in political systems searching for truths. The
library has been visited over a million times and its articles read 10 million times and boosted donations towards RSF.
The journalists showcased in this library are a reminder that the risks of this profession are real, and that truth always finds a way. The uncensored library exploits the gap that authoritarian regimes left open.
Find the backdoor that hasn’t been closed yet and flood it with truth.
The medium changes. The mission doesn’t.
Written by Martin Pallu De Beaupuy
Access the Uncensored Library
Visit in-game: visit.uncensoredlibrary.com
Download the map: uncensoredlibrary.com
