Will Bahr, The New York Times; Where Censored Words Find a Safe Haven: Inside Minecraft
"I’m standing in the middle of a cavernous hall, watching the Statue of Liberty drown in a pool of her own tears. Twin blue streams run from her emerald eyes, collecting in a reservoir that submerges the statue up to her waist.
A series of lecterns line an observation deck beneath this tableau. Each displays a divisive text: Stephen Colbert’s interview with a Senate candidate that he said CBS barred from television; a report on sea-level rise that was scrubbed from government websites in President Trump’s second term; a two-volume interactive timeline of the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the Capitol.
On the far wall, flanked by torches, is a mural of Ann Telnaes’s rejected cartoon for The Washington Post, featuring tech moguls like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg bending the knee to Trump, offering up bags of cash. Hanging just above is an enormous American flag, stars and stripes rendered in pixel.
Welcome to the new United States wing of the Uncensored Library, an unlikely stronghold of online press freedom within Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time."
