Position Paper 3- Authoritarian Media

 Authoritarian Regimes and The Uncensored Library

The past several years have brought an insurmountable amount of authoritarian approaches when it comes to accessible media. Rising numbers in banned or challenged media have occurred all over the globe, especially in areas with a high amount of conflict. The last five years in particular have seen a decrease in press freedom around the world despite the perseverance of national and independent media sources. 

Russia

Russia is one of the nations with the most recent loss of an independent new outlet. At the end of October, 2026, Novaya Gazeta announced that it would be shutting down after decades of operating in the nation. The ever-increasing conflict between the Russian government and free press caused one of the last reliable resources in the region to be forced to end the efforts of everyone involved in supporting Russian citizens. 

This is not the first time that the Russian government has attacked access to reliable media. In 2022, Russian officials made it mandatory to refer to the conflict as a "military operation" instead of "war," which completely reframes how citizens will understand what is going on between the two countries. Several newspapers were also extremely limited, challenged, or shut down due to accusations of spreading misinformation that did not align with Russian propaganda. Instead, many citizens were "encouraged" to look at state-approved media. 

This shift in media policy began the process of Novaya Gazeta's eventual shutdown, with the organization ending physical production and shifting to online-only. Now, the only way to access the media created by the source is online through archives like GitHub. 

Throughout the past few years, there have been many accusations of Russia utilizing media to try and sway American elections. According to The Japan Times, Russia has been running social media bots online for years in order to dissuade voters from supporting candidates that are likely to introduce strong support for Ukraine. Many American celebrities, such as Julia Roberts, have had deepfakes created of them either committing crimes or producing content that claims that harm has been done by a particular party or candidate. One such attack stated that James Talarico, a candidate for the 2026 Texas senate race, had made contributions to OnlyFans as an attempt to spread misinformation on his character. During the 2024 presidential election, false claims were made that Kamala Harris had shot and killed a rhino during an expedition. MIT AI Risk Initiative conducted a study on how Russian AI influence could have caused the hoax and other similar claims to spread so rampantly throughout the internet leading up to the election. 

Russia is by far not the only country to implement harmful AI and challenges against reliable access to media. However, the struggle for true press freedom has not discouraged every citizen. People who are passionate about free media have created methods for accessing it under the nose of authoritarian governments. 

The Uncensored Library

Despite several forms of reliable English-based media being banned in many authoritarian countries, determined groups constantly work hard to find loopholes in the internet to ensure that banned or challenged media is still accessible for people who want to read it. One resource that surfaced this decade is the Uncensored Library. For people who do not play video games, this method of relaying information will likely be unfamiliar. However, for younger demographics, this resource is revolutionary. 

The Uncensored Library is a downloadable world that was created in Minecraft, one of the most popular video games in the entire world. Upon downloading the map, players can load their digital avatar into the game and traverse a crafted museum filled with in-game books that have entire works of literature in them. The game world was created by Reporters Without Borders and was released to the public on March 12, 2020, which was also deemed "World Day Against Cyber Censorship."

"In many countries, websites, social media and blogs are controlled by oppressive leaders. Young people, in particular, are forced to grow up in systems where their opinion is heavily manipulated by governmental disinformation campaigns. But even where almost all media is blocked or controlled, the world’s most successful computer game is still accessible. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) uses this loophole to bypass internet censorship to bring back the truth – within Minecraft."

Minecraft in particular is a difficult form of media to ban due to its gameplay structure. While it does have the ability to connect to online servers in order to play with other characters around the world, basic gameplay revolves around individual players playing in their own worlds on their individual devices without the use of the internet. Once the game has been downloaded onto a device, it does not need the internet aside from updates. Therefore, if individuals are able to download The Uncensored Library map discreetly onto their platform of choice, they can access all of the media contained inside the in-game books. Additionally, the game file can also be shared from peer-to-peer. In order for a government to completely remove the map from the public's access, there would have to be a way to manually delete the game and files from each user's individual device.  

Player viewing a banned book in a foreign language. 

Media from several foreign languages is included in the library, with many representing countries from the Middle East, parts of Asia, and South America. However, literature from the United States is also present. Although the US is not as authoritarian as many other countries, the last five years have set records for banned or challenged literature in the nation, with 2025 being the second-highest ranked year for those actions with 4,235 titles affected. 

The amount of challenged literature in The Uncensored Library is so large that certain nations have entire sections of the library dedicated to them. Players can access a full directory on the library's website. Certain authors, such as Nguyen Van Dai from Vietnam, have been highlighted on the site for their exemplary actions regarding the preservation of literature. 

The Uncensored Library and similar sources have become invaluable methods of relaying information to people who no longer have access to free media. As long as there are people who want to continue the fight for free reliable media, then new opportunities will keep emerging.