
The Uncensored Library - sarthakjshetty
https://uncensoredlibrary.com/
======
dreary_dugong
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.

[https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Minecraft_China](https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Minecraft_China)

~~~
patrec
China – always one step ahead!

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qubex
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.

It’s definitely clever, though.

~~~
rbanffy
> it will lead to illiberal regimes banning access to aforementioned MMOs
> remains to be seen

I'm surprised MMOs are not regularly blocked. Most of them can be used as chat
platforms, replacing applications that are already blocked.

~~~
leggomylibro
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.

[https://imdb.com/title/tt1341167/](https://imdb.com/title/tt1341167/)

~~~
pessimizer
Also a major plot element of series two and three of the more recent Norwegian
show _Okkupert._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupied](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupied)

~~~
lozaning
Also I think Homeland, where some online mideival knights game for ps2 was
used.

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trizic
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.

~~~
chc
GitHub respects censorship orders from China: [https://github.com/github/gov-
takedowns/tree/master/China](https://github.com/github/gov-
takedowns/tree/master/China)

------
sneak
This website is totally broken (renders a blank white page) with cookies
disabled.

[https://sneak.berlin/20200211/your-
website/](https://sneak.berlin/20200211/your-website/)

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.

~~~
kstrauser
At that point I'd say that the user's browser is broken around a reasonable
ability for the page to deal with it.

~~~
kragen
JS has `catch`.

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dmitriid
> In many countries

this website would not even open because it weights 20 MB and takes 5 seconds
to oppen on a 100 MBit connection. And it doesn't work with JS disabled.

It's a self-glorifying CV project for a designer. Not a usable or useful site.

I can't even say what the project is, I'm so distracted by scroll hijacking
and endless animations.

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jszymborski
Is this more of a statement than a practical thing? Surely they can just block
the minecraft server.

~~~
frizkie
They do provide a map download, so that could be mirrored, I suppose. Then you
can view everything offline.

~~~
jszymborski
Right, but why not have a zip of .txt/.pdf/.html files? Feels like that might
be easier to view and smaller to download.

~~~
leggomylibro
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"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat)

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.

~~~
jszymborski
Indeed this seems to be more about making a statement, and I'm all about that!

------
mindfulhack
I observe that 'the Film' on their website doesn't work in Chrome, but it does
in Firefox. (I'm on macOS)

It may not mean anything bad on Google, it may not be their fault, but I
wanted to just put that observation on the record.

------
einpoklum
This is a cute gimmick, but - I don't see why it's anything beyond that. So,
another server to censor - library.minecraft.org or whatever.

------
cpr
What form do the books take? That's never shown.

~~~
SL61
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](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.

~~~
pdm55
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.

------
smhenderson
I just got stuck on a "Loading" page with an animation of little squares
falling down to form a larger square.

What exactly is this supposed to be?

~~~
nickthegreek
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"

~~~
smhenderson
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.

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TimSchumann
I think this is an interesting idea, though I question its efficacy.

Also, why does every new website have to have a page weight of 'all written
works before 1900'?

~~~
pmlnr
The website is outrageously unusable. Whoever designed it thinks people have
power plants instead of phones or ordinary laptops. But hey, it's fancy!

~~~
guavaNinja
My internet connection is slow, i couldn't load it, i gave up and still can't
figure out from the comments what it is

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harrier
Entirely off topic, but it would be interesting to see a physical library that
only contains works that have been censored.

~~~
magicsmoke
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".

