Authoritarian regimes have lots of infrastructure in place to censor http(s) traffic, and at least China is getting quite good at restricting tor usage. Meanwhile they probably don't have much in place to ban specific minecraft servers, and their deep packet inspection might not cover Minecraft books. There's value in using obscure technologies.

Highly relevant hackernews comment from 2020:

> 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://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22569178

> In-game text content is heavily censored, including but not limited to chat, Book and Quills, Written Books, Signs, Command Blocks, renamed items (via Anvils) and mobs (via renamed Spawn Eggs or Name Tags)

> Censorship also applies to any text in the launcher, such as community posts, comments on contents, and private messages. Rental servers and virtual LAN games are not allowed to have names altogether, instead being referred to by a numerical ID

I guess you don't need any obscure packet inspection if you can just censor the clients and servers directly instead. This feels like the censorship equivalent of the wrench XKCD.

Java edition still seems to allow connecting to arbitrary servers:

'Different from rental server, the owner has full permission Usually adopt third-party server application'

So there is a way around?

Edit: and tbh in China they're more likely to play a pirated java edition.

This website/server courts mainstream publicity, so it's not trying to fly under the radar. Blocking it would be trivial to any country that cares to, a DNS block would be effective at preventing most people from visiting either the site or the server.

It seems to me more of an artistic/social statement rather than an actual practical resource. And it is an effective one: interesting enough to become somewhat viral, and the architecture itself conveys a strong message.

You're not wrong but what is it about hackernews comments which focus on debunking the utility of something. I feel like the top comment on most articles I see are observing the ways in which something is useless. It's pretty staggering.

Again, you're not wrong, and I'm not even saying these comments are bad or anything. I'm guessing hackernews commentors tend to be skeptics and are tuned to poke holes? But clearly it was posted based on some apparent merit. Other reactions would be totally normal too, like "oh wow, that's really impressive. I didn't know this existed." Or how so much of the real world has been modeled in minecraft (archival libraries, computers using redstone, etc.). Or noting what works they consider worthy of entry in the library.

There's a tendency on the Internet to default to negativity, skepticism, and cynicism. It seems worse amongst programmers and tech people. I think it's just a way of demonstrating how clever the commenter is: I can see through this! And, less charitably, there's maybe a tendency to tear down the work of others as a way of feeling better about one's own lack of accomplishments: sure, I haven't done much, but at least I didn't do something stupid like this!

Is this project useful as a way of circumventing censorship? Nah, almost certainly not. So consider it a thought experiment. An art piece. A way of illustrating the importance of free speech to a younger generation that maybe hasn't thought that hard about it yet. A browsable museum of censorship, the likes of which no government would build. Maybe an inspiration for people to build better tools.

Or just a neat project for people to spend some time working on, that's more interesting than making a copy of Big Ben in Minecraft.

It seems to be trendy these days to be a "doomer."

It's a mindset where nothing good happens in the world, and no cloud has a silver lining. Skepticism is a default, and earnestness or cleverness makes you naive or a sucker who will get their deserved reality check soon enough.

It must be a horrendous headspace to constantly be in.

I think a comment like the one you are replying to is much more useful than “oh wow that’s really impressive”. It provides a place for other people to explain why the thing actually makes sense.

I too never understood how is this project better than a website and thanks to the dismissive comment and the subthread it spawned I now had a chance to read some reasonable explanations.

How do you know? What if you "kill, kill, kill" truths and let lies live?

I do my best with honest intentions and open mind. If some make it through, so be it.

Right, good ideas have nothing to fear from anonymous online commenters giving overzealous criticism. On the other hand, if there's no time or place for criticism of bad ideas, we're all in trouble.

It is, or rather was (sadly it's been deliberately suppressed by the mods of late), the HN culture. It's a part of what makes this place what it is, and was why this used to be a high-quality site.

Most intelligence agencies probably aren't set up to crawl and index the book content on a minecraft server.

If the server operators wanted to make that even more of a challenge they could render the books as maps.

I see it more as an art piece. And I think instead of stupid, it's better described as superfluous.

Second thought: since it's Minecraft, a secondary purpose can be that it signals the values not just the supposed target demography, but to all people interested in Minecraft.

Cause random kids and other people have an easier and more fun time hosting Minecraft servers. Makes it go viral more easily and also adds one more way to access it.

No oppressive government has gone through the lengths of blocking access to a Minecraft server. That's why. Many oppressive governments will actively block access to pages that post narrative countering their reality.

You can walkt through the (virtual) halls of forbidden knowledge and hiding text on textures visible in complex game engines can be an effective to bypass censorship using inconspicuous tools.

FTA:

> “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.”

ISIS and neo-nazis have the backing of powerful friends and allies with lots of money and power.

Example: the bank of international settlements (BIS) or: "the central bank of central banks" (confirmed nazi's likely/possibly neo-nazi's).

Governments are more likely to censor threats against themselves over people.