The Uncensored Library hides banned journalism inside a Minecraft world so readers in restricted countries can access it. A new 2026 wing calls out press freedom problems in the United States itself.
Minecraft has always been a sandbox for whatever players want to build. One group used it to build a library that smuggles journalism past censors. The Uncensored Library, launched in 2020 by Reporters Without Borders and the design collective BlockWorks, turns suppressed news into readable books inside a giant Minecraft world.
New US Wing Lands in 2026
This year the project added an entire wing focused on press censorship inside the United States. The addition arrives as debates over journalism, platform rules, and government pressure intensify in America. It joins existing sections on Mexico, Russia, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Brazil, Belarus, Iran, Eritrea and a COVID-era room covering ten more countries.
The library contains over a million blocks arranged like a neoclassical building. At the center sits a hall with the global Press Freedom Index. Each national wing holds dozens of banned or censored articles formatted as books that players can open and read in full.
How Players Actually Read It
You can join the public Minecraft server or download the map from uncensoredlibrary.com. Once inside you walk through the wings, click on books, and read the full text of articles that would be inaccessible or dangerous to access directly in certain countries. The server stays online and the map remains freely available.
- Contains banned reporting from more than a dozen countries
- New 2026 US wing highlights domestic press freedom cases
- Accessible via public server or single-player download
- Built to scale: over 12 million blocks and hundreds of books
- Won a Peabody Award in 2022 for creative activism
The project does not claim to solve censorship. It simply makes sure the information still reaches people who want it. In countries with heavy internet controls the Minecraft route can be one of the few remaining paths. Adding the United States wing this year signals that even established democracies are sliding on the index.
A digital haven for independent information.
That is how the official Minecraft site described the original launch. Three years later the library keeps growing and the need has not gone away. If anything the new US section suggests the list of problem spots is getting longer, not shorter.
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