The Brief

One of our most ambitious projects to date, we worked with Reporters Without Borders, MediaMonks and DDB to create a Minecraft experience dedicated to the freedom of the press, and exposing press censorship. We were asked to build a giant library inside Minecraft which contains censored journals and articles, banned in several countries, thus bypassing press censorship in oppressive regimes.

The Build

24 builders from 16 countries collaborated to create a huge virtual library, which houses information on all 180 countries in the press freedom index, as well as special exhibition halls on 5 countries notorious for their press censorship: Russia, Vietnam, Mexico, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The library is hosted on a server, allowing anyone from around the world to visit - regardless of press censorship in their countries. The library is also free to download and play in single player.

The Results

The Uncensored Library has won several of the world’s top marketing awards - including 3 Cannes Gold Lions and a Clio Grand Prix. It has generated over 760 news stories internationally. The project gained over 47.3 million impressions across social media, over 25 million visits to the library and resulted in a 62% increase in donations for our client, Reporters Without Borders.

Visit our Minecraft server at: visit.uncensoredlibrary.com

Click here to download the map from the uncensored library website.