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thewayneThis is insanely clever, and I can't imagine the amount of work required to do it!
For those not in the know, there's a truly MASSIVE online shooter game called Counter Strike. Hugely popular, and you can play it on probably any console or PC. People run around shooting each other with abandon and have fun. One of the cool things about it is that you can build custom maps that people can download and play in different terrain than what the game provides.
We thought about doing this in Quake to model the basement of the police department that I worked at, but never got around to it.
ANYWAY, the newspaper creates a map. Names the city Voyna, Russian for War. Inside the city somewhere is a room, and in the room, the newspaper has direct news feeds of unfiltered information about the war in Ukraine! There are posters on the wall, apparently books or something on tables, and a voice reading out the news in Russian!
Currently Russia is not filtering computer games and preventing them from being played. It'll be interesting to see if they can block this source.
The Slashdot summary: "A Finnish newspaper is circumventing Russian media restrictions by hiding news reports about the war in Ukraine in an online game popular among Russian gamers. "While Helsingin Sanomat and other foreign independent media are blocked in Russia, online games have not been banned so far," said Antero Mukka, the editor-in-chief of Helsingin Sanomat. The newspaper was bypassing Russia's censorship through the first-person shooter game Counter-Strike, where gamers battle against each other as terrorists and counter-terrorists in timed matches. While the majority of matches are played on about a dozen official levels or maps released by the publisher Valve, players can also create custom maps that anyone can download and use. The newspaper's initiative was unveiled on World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday. "To underline press freedom, [in the game] we have now built a Slavic city, called Voyna, meaning war in Russian," Mukka said.
In the basement of one of the apartment buildings that make up the Soviet-inspired cityscape, Helsingin Sanomat hid a room where players can find Russian-language reporting by the newspaper's war correspondents in Ukraine. "In the room, you will find our documentation of what the reality of the war in Ukraine is," Mukka said. The walls of the digital room, lit up by red lights, are plastered with news articles and pictures reporting on events such as the massacres in the Ukrainian towns of Bucha and Irpin. On one of the walls, players can find a map of Ukraine that details reported attacks on the civilian population, while a Russian-language recording reading Helsingin Sanomat articles aloud plays in the background. This was "information that is not available from Russian state propaganda sources", Mukka said.
The map has been downloaded more than 2,000 times since its release on Monday. According to Mukka, an estimated 4 million Russians have played Counter-Strike."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/03/finnish-newspaper-hides-news-reports-for-russians-in-online-game
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/23/05/03/216218/finnish-newspaper-uses-secret-room-in-counter-strike-to-bypass-russian-censorship
For those not in the know, there's a truly MASSIVE online shooter game called Counter Strike. Hugely popular, and you can play it on probably any console or PC. People run around shooting each other with abandon and have fun. One of the cool things about it is that you can build custom maps that people can download and play in different terrain than what the game provides.
We thought about doing this in Quake to model the basement of the police department that I worked at, but never got around to it.
ANYWAY, the newspaper creates a map. Names the city Voyna, Russian for War. Inside the city somewhere is a room, and in the room, the newspaper has direct news feeds of unfiltered information about the war in Ukraine! There are posters on the wall, apparently books or something on tables, and a voice reading out the news in Russian!
Currently Russia is not filtering computer games and preventing them from being played. It'll be interesting to see if they can block this source.
The Slashdot summary: "A Finnish newspaper is circumventing Russian media restrictions by hiding news reports about the war in Ukraine in an online game popular among Russian gamers. "While Helsingin Sanomat and other foreign independent media are blocked in Russia, online games have not been banned so far," said Antero Mukka, the editor-in-chief of Helsingin Sanomat. The newspaper was bypassing Russia's censorship through the first-person shooter game Counter-Strike, where gamers battle against each other as terrorists and counter-terrorists in timed matches. While the majority of matches are played on about a dozen official levels or maps released by the publisher Valve, players can also create custom maps that anyone can download and use. The newspaper's initiative was unveiled on World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday. "To underline press freedom, [in the game] we have now built a Slavic city, called Voyna, meaning war in Russian," Mukka said.
In the basement of one of the apartment buildings that make up the Soviet-inspired cityscape, Helsingin Sanomat hid a room where players can find Russian-language reporting by the newspaper's war correspondents in Ukraine. "In the room, you will find our documentation of what the reality of the war in Ukraine is," Mukka said. The walls of the digital room, lit up by red lights, are plastered with news articles and pictures reporting on events such as the massacres in the Ukrainian towns of Bucha and Irpin. On one of the walls, players can find a map of Ukraine that details reported attacks on the civilian population, while a Russian-language recording reading Helsingin Sanomat articles aloud plays in the background. This was "information that is not available from Russian state propaganda sources", Mukka said.
The map has been downloaded more than 2,000 times since its release on Monday. According to Mukka, an estimated 4 million Russians have played Counter-Strike."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/03/finnish-newspaper-hides-news-reports-for-russians-in-online-game
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/23/05/03/216218/finnish-newspaper-uses-secret-room-in-counter-strike-to-bypass-russian-censorship
no subject
Date: 2023-05-04 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-04 11:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-05 12:50 am (UTC)While they do know, it's going to be very hard to block. And they know they can't block 100% of foreign news getting into the country.
no subject
Date: 2023-05-05 07:38 am (UTC)That is so cool. :)
Hugs, Jon
no subject
Date: 2023-05-05 08:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-08 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-10 12:29 am (UTC)I also thought so. :-) I love clever subversion.