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It's apparently a minority voice opinion here on HN, but I for one appreciate what Microsoft is trying to do. As a parent of a 6 and 9 year old who have really

It's apparently a minority voice opinion here on HN, but I for one appreciate what Microsoft is trying to do. As a parent of a 6 and 9 year old who have really gotten into Minecraft during COVID, I appreciate them basically deciding "We want Minecraft to be a game for kids and an online community that is nice." I get why people are frustrated, but I also like the idea of a global decision that forces servers open to "the public" to have an enforced global standard of behavior. Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't see anything in their process that suggests that a group of adults playing with their friends are at risk of having their chat audited in the absence of a complaint?

dmix 4y ago
The road to hell is always paved with good intentions and naive ideals. I’m trying to imagine having to explain to a 6yr old why they can’t play Minecraft until Dad creates another account and hope they can afford another license. And hope it doesn’t happen again the next time a troll joins their server. It also seems to be incentivizing people to not have any chat reports at all.
- ckemere 4y ago
  I guess I don't understand - the troll will report your 6 year old for dropping f-bombs? And the chat logs (which MS will now have) will back then up? And why are you inviting trolls to play with your 6 year old? (We're somewhat new to Minecraft, so I may be missing something here.)
  - zbird 4y ago
    > I guess I don't understand - the troll will report your 6 year old for dropping f-bombs? They'll report for no reason, that's the point of trolling. > And the chat logs (which MS will now have) will back then up? I have not played Minecraft, but I'd be surprised if the server admins of any game of such scale acted on logs. Also, I wouldn't want my kids to be logged on a corporate server. > And why are you inviting trolls to play with your 6 year old? Are the rooms invite only? Then what's the point of Microsoft's draconian measures here? I thought the point was to censor public servers, but again, I haven't played this much. In any case, this situation already looks like defeat for an online community.
    - ckemere 4y ago
      We've done limited server play with friends. As far as I understand, anyone can download and run the server software (literally - it's a free download). To log into a server, you need the IP address (and need to understand how to port forward if going outside the home etc etc). P I think my broader point is that I appreciate Microsoft saying they want Minecraft to be a profanity -free zone. There are plenty in the "online community" that seem to be quite happy being G-rated. My 9-yeae old has watched about 100 hours of YouTube from "Pixlriffs" and its been wonderful despite random zombie attacks or whatnot.
      - Cr4shMyCar 4y ago
        From what Microsoft's said, it's less about profanity and more about taking down things like serious threats, doxxing/stalking, etc. I have no issue with moderating that, and I'm glad it's (at least in theory) not being used as a filter to keep everything that happens in Minecraft G-rated since a lot of more mature people play it. I think implementing a game-wide ban on a community that's spread across thousands of individual servers has the potential to cause so much harm if someone makes a mistake or there's a glitch, not to mention trolls gaming the system to get people they don't like banned. Content moderation at scale is impossible, and considering Minecraft's still one of the biggest games in the world, mistakes will be made. As an aside, have you looked into putting a whitelist on your server? It could provide a lot of peace of mind, especially when you're trying to keep it to just your kids and friends.
        zbird 4y ago
        I see, I imagine the server you put on is by default public and joinable by anyone. This kind of stuff typically has some form of whitelisting or password protection to keep the server semi-private.
  - JetAlone 4y ago
    It seems that anyone can report anyone else, on any server, even tiny private ones. They have to say what kind of complaint it is from a list, but a disingenuous actor can find ways to stretch the definitions or just outright lie about the incident. Whichever person or whatever machine is in charge of reviewing these complaints decides the report is valid, that person is banned from all online play. I'm not seeing from this thread any info on what the appeals system is like, but I would be completely unshocked if it were, once again, a system where people who aren't highly invisible on social media will end up SOL. There was a vulnerability in the past that 2B2T users discovered, which enabled them to essentially track any player's activity and find the IPs of private servers, even ones run by family. They used it to grief even a server where only one person was logged in, AFK, at the time. Though unlikely, a hacker with a new vulnerability helping them to discover this kind of information could hypothetically find anyone's private group, drop in, and report. EDIT: The griefing tool is called Project Copenhiemer, and the user named orsond who is a member of the Fifth Column which created Copenhiemer, made a post about it here on this comment section page. Refer to their comment.
    - ckemere 4y ago
      > I'm not seeing from this thread any info on what the appeals system is like, but I would be completely unshocked if it were, once again, a system where people who aren't highly invisible on social media will end up SOL. I totally get this. My support is for the sentiment Microsoft is expressing. As with so many things online without the actual commitment of real people who are culturally connected (e.g. Daniel and Scott for HN), it will likely go south.
  - synicalx 4y ago
    > And why are you inviting trolls to play with your 6 year old? Public servers with hundreds of players and little to no barrier to entry - they'll be full of "trolls". All the 6 y/o has to do is join one, which takes about 5 seconds.
  - nottorp 4y ago
    > I guess I don't understand - the troll will report your 6 year old for dropping f-bombs? Yes. > And the chat logs (which MS will now have) will back then up? Why do you think anyone will check the chat logs? That's too expensive at MS scale, it's an automatic ban. Only admins of private servers actually check the chat logs :) > And why are you inviting trolls to play with your 6 year old? There are thousands of public player run servers. Some are quite fun. Whatever your idea of fun is, there should be at least a hundred that match. > (We're somewhat new to Minecraft, so I may be missing something here.) You're missing all the communities that were built before MS tried to turn it into software as a service to justify their billion spent on Minecraft.
- drak0n1c 4y ago
  Battle.net communities and makers thrived for 15 years with zero moderation and a laissez-faire approach to peer to peer hosting. Entire game genres were invented (MOBA, TD). Imagine if Blizzard had cracked down in its infancy because of a few mostly satirical Nazi maps? Good intentions among corporatized and safety oriented developers will certainly prevent another such golden age and maybe already has - considering the recent state of gaming.
caslon 4y ago
Vaguely reputable source pointing out it applies to private servers: https://www.cbr.com/minecraft-players-outraged-mojang-monitoring-private-servers/ https://www.cbr.com/minecraft-players-outraged-mojang-monito... I don't think it's a bad thing, either. People who buy proprietary software know what the deal is, and anyone who didn't know what the deal was knows now. It's not your game, you've just got a temporary license to it. Kind of the consumer's fault beyond anything.
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago
  How many people bought the game before these draconian policies were implemented? They should offer refunds.
  - caslon 4y ago
    That's not the deal with proprietary software. The deal is that you buy a license to software, the terms of which can be altered at any time. It's fundamental to the model of proprietary software. It's not theirs. It's the company's, and the company can do what they want with it. There's no reason refunds should be offered, as the consumers got what they paid for: A license to software, with certain conditions for termination and conditions allowing the company to alter the terms of the arrangement. It's like saying that a person should be able to get a refund on an ice cream cone that melts: The deterioration is part of the standard deal, and you know it's coming.
    - zbird 4y ago
      Why is this downvoted? This is literally the TOS of much proprietary software out there. People don't read the TOS?
      - lmm 4y ago
        TOS are often not legally valid.
      - EMIRELADERO 4y ago
jaarse 4y ago
I think the issue is the ease of getting users banned, and the lack of actual moderating at all that is the problem. It literally is as easy as fill out the form, user is automatically banned, no verification required. Microsoft is not actually enforcing anything. My son is 10 and has been playing Minecraft for most of his life. I would consider him quite good at it. I sometimes watch. Every couple of months one of his friends will get banned for no reason. Usually the reason is profanity in the chat, even though they play with the chat off and are FaceTiming on the side with each other. It turns out that the system is so easy to manipulate that other users (kids) will report them just because they don’t like how the game went. Basically spoiled kids will say if you don’t do what I want then I’m reporting all of you and getting you banned. And they do. Microsoft doesn’t actually verify the claims, just blanket bans all of them. So the kids create a new account, and keep playing. It just seems like something that is perfectly natural to them. It does mean that I would never spend a dollar on anything Minecraft related though.
- ckemere 4y ago
  Super informative! Maybe auditing the chat logs is an easy way for MS to try to fix this???
  - h0l0cube 4y ago
    No large social platform will spend a dime more on moderation than they are compelled to by law.
    - astrange 4y ago
      US platforms aren't required to do any moderation, but they still do it. You wouldn't be able to use a service with no moderation, it'd be all spam.
      - h0l0cube 4y ago
        Do you believe there’d be no legal ramifications if they stopped moderation all together? Civil lawsuits? Class actions?
sidewndr46 4y ago
Wow, this is the most entitled attitude I've seen in a long time. You let your kids play online, where they can communicate with basically anyone. So the solution is to grant a central authority total power to ban anyone who doesn't comply with the standards you want for your children. This is the online equivalent of a homophobe complaining that two men holding hands in the park will turn their children gay.
- codeyperson 4y ago
  Bit of a wild comparison. It's more like the online equivalent of someone getting kicked out of Legoland for swearing around the children.
  - ryukafalz 4y ago
    Sure, if every group of friends had their own tiny version of Legoland and Lego corporate could ban you from all of them.
  - 650REDHAIR 4y ago
    Minecraft wasn’t built as a kids game. It was a neat indie game that let you build stuff. On kid-specific servers that might be an apt analogy, but adult-owned, adult-populated servers shouldn’t have to worry about malicious trolls ruining their experience with a ban.
  - kevinpet 4y ago
    It's more the equivalent of getting banned from driving because someone reported you to Honda, and Honda didn't verify anything.
  - MereInterest 4y ago
    Nope, not at all, because it applies to privately run servers. It's the equivalent of breaking into my house and stealing my Legos, based on somebody's statement that I swore around children who happened to be near Legos. I bought Minecraft in 2011. Every few years since then, I would get friends back together, host a new server, and catch up while playing. I bought the software, I host the server, I ban people if need be, and how dare Microsoft treat it as their walled garden.
babypuncher 4y ago
At first I found it frustrtating, but I've grown to really appreciate Nintendo's approach to this problem. Their multiplayer games (like Splatoon) have no in-game chat or VOIP. It definitely makes it harder to make friends in the games, but it also completely eliminates any and all potential for toxicity and other miscreant behavior. As a result, I'd have no problem letting my hypothetical children play these games online even at a young age. This solution is obviously untenable for a cooperative and creative game like Minecraft, so it seems Microsoft is stuck in a real hard place here.
- donatj 4y ago
  It removes any and all reason to play online. Might as well play bots.
  - djbusby 4y ago
    Rocket League has an option called quick-chat. It's only canned messages. And in QC mode you only see or reply QC messages. Make being real toxic difficult.
    - Auracle 4y ago
      What a save! It’s amazing how from the launch of the game that quick chat has pretty much only been used sarcastically.
      - djbusby 4y ago
        Yes. However, you see it's limited. Can't use the "bad" words.
        Aerroon 4y ago
        But intent matters far more than the actual words used. Somebody that's tilted is going to be annoyed by a message that's mocking them regardless how innocuous the words are in the message.
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
I'm totally on board with creating kid friendly servers. I'm more skeptical of only allowing kid friendly worlds to officially exist.
ShowalkKama 4y ago
servers I'd consider "kid friendly" already have their own chat moderation so it's a non-issue if you restrict your kids to playing only on those servers (if you don't chat reporting solves nothing since anarchy & co will disable chat signing server side).
sbuttgereit 4y ago
I get where you're coming from and I'm in the same boat. I play Minecraft and some of the media I consume are Minecraft SMPs and Let's Plays. My soon-to-be-7-year-old has picked up the game and now regularly plays in my world (not that is issue free, but that's a different article :-) ) I understand why Microsoft is doing it and I even agree in part with Microsoft's measures in some ways. Aside from the direct protection of kids, they're also probably trying to be pre-emptive... forestalling the day or already complying with the day when the government says they have to do this sort of thing. What I disagree with is that it's all or nothing. Public servers that wish to not participate should be allowed to not to. Sure have the client give a warning that you're logging into the wild west, even have it give a warning every time you log into the same server. But don't force all servers to do it. Microsoft also has parent controls which allow me to determine if my kid can use his account on any public server (by default nope)... finesse that a bit to let me choose only Microsoft moderated public servers. Even maybe give me the ability to whitelist servers for my kid's account. And then let everyone else that doesn't want to comply with Microsoft's vision of civility online to enter those servers that don't comply at their discretion, risk, or peril. This would achieve the goals that your after (and me too for my kid) while not forcing society down the path of conformity.
Cr4shMyCar 4y ago
I do support more moderation and controls over chat, because god knows when I played Minecraft as a kid I saw so many conversations that weren't exactly appropriate. Kids on servers that aren't specifically kid-friendly worry me a lot, knowing how my friends and I banter and shit-talk. This is super heavy-handed and centralized moderation though, the consequences for mistakes or errors are huge. As far as I know, getting banned also prevents you from even playing singleplayer on Xbox and there's no appeal process. I understand and support the new chat blocking settings, and maybe even something like an official ban list that applies to Realms and servers that decide to use it, but being able to permanently ban someone from an entire game is too much power.
- Aerroon 4y ago
  >because god knows when I played Minecraft as a kid I saw so many conversations that weren't exactly appropriate. And how much harm did this cause? Because I saw the same, but I don't see it having any real negative effect.
  - ShroudedNight 4y ago
    I also have the same question. In my limited experience as the father of an eleven year old, it has continued to be much more productive to redirect profane or vulgar expressions of frustration away from people and towards problems ("Swear at problems, not people.") than to bubble-wrap their vocabulary.
    - watwut 4y ago
      Very genuinely, if your 11 years old need to redirect swearing to things and is unable to cut it in social situations, then he needs quite a lot of help with impulse control. Because most of them, overwhelming majority actually, are easily able to not swear. They do swear when among peers only, but cutting it off when needed is really not an issue for them.
  - drusepth 4y ago
    Everyone's different and harm/severity here is gonna be a wide range, but there's a lot of stuff I saw online as a kid that, as an adult, I really wish I hadn't.
rndgermandude 4y ago
I have no issue with Microsoft setting community standards for the online spaces they run, or anybody else for that matter. But Microsoft is setting community standards for places they do not run here, just because these spaces use their software. This is ridiculous, and sets yet another dangerous precedent. What's next? Maybe Office 360 profanity filter, where your Office 360 account gets banned for writing about the Austrian Village formerly known as Fucking[1] in MS Word? Maybe the Windows 12 won't let you access your perfectly legal porn anymore? Or any files related to Scunthorpe. Or Edge refuses to stream Game of Thrones for you because of nudity and profanity... and then goes on to delete all your data and ban your MS account? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugging,_Upper_Austria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugging,_Upper_Austria
- rightbyte 4y ago
  > I have no issue with Microsoft setting community standards for the online spaces they run That is the problem though. They run it, not the users like it used to be.
  - __david__ 4y ago
    What do you mean? You can still download a dedicated server and run it on your own infra. I would say the users are running that and not Microsoft.
- georgeecollins 4y ago
  >> But Microsoft is setting community standards for places they do not run here, just because these spaces use their software. This is ridiculous, and sets yet another dangerous precedent. I agree with what you are saying but of course somewhere Microsoft is probably hoping to convert Minecraft from a game anyone can host to a game that is always connected to some service of theirs. That way they can collect data or sell ads or maybe subscriptions. I don't like the idea of open source games because you can't crowdsource editorial decisions. But I think gamers are going to be ready for a game that is made by a team, but owned and maintained by the gamers. Probably through a DAO or something like that. How else can you maintain a game for years in the best interest of people who bought it? Just making a game open source isn't enough imo.
hedora 4y ago
I really just want a f---ing password protected "play offline" button. I've been trying to keep the kids off the internet, but Minecraft somehow created some bulls--t backdoor social media account for my kindergartner without prompting (let alone asking for consent before making it public!). On top of that, microsoft can trivially tie it to my github and linkedin. Seriously, WTF were they thinking?!?
- nottorp 4y ago
  > Minecraft somehow created ** Microsoft ** somehow created. No one created any account besides the one required to download Minecraft before the acquisition.
  - hedora 4y ago
    Not that it really matters at this point, but I wonder if Minecraft silently created public-by-default social media profiles before the acquisition. Those are different disaster than tying the profiles to Microsoft accounts.
    - nottorp 4y ago
      I've been playing Minecraft for quite a while. Not from the beginning, but from before Notch even started considering selling. If the old Mojang had created anything but a Mojang account, it would have been news and it wasn't.
ineptech 4y ago
I think "what Microsoft is trying to do" starts and ends with your kids having office.com logins.
StopHammoTime 4y ago
The problem is not that the feature exists - the problem is that you are locked into it, can’t easily opt out, and if it goes wrong you lose access to a product you’ve paid for. A good system would cater for everyone adequately.
asddubs 4y ago
IMO the best way would have been to enforce it for realms, maybe have a way for privately run servers to opt-in, and let parents toggle some switch that only lets their kids play on moderated servers. but microsoft was completely unwilling to make any sort of compromise in that direction. Adults tend to generally prefer to play with other adults, and they might also use profanity on adult-only private servers. Unfortunately adults can also be just as petty as kids and may report other adults just to get back at them for something or other. plus we know any moderation system run by a megacorp will inevitably result in some percentage of completely random bans.
- ouid 4y ago
  I'm going to use profanity wherever the fuck I want. Especially on a fucking videogame. You are not entitled to have the rest of the world stop saying fuck because you don't want your child to hear it. Moreover, Microsoft doesn't have the right to impose this restriction on the "license" I purchased from a different company a billion fucking years ago. Malleable licenses shouldn't exist. We need real consumer protection.
  - tiahura 4y ago
    - ouid 4y ago
      I'm not threatening you. I'm not degrading you. I'm not doing anything to you except making you read the word FUCK. You, on the other hand, are actively trying to insult me. I feel like this undermines your argument.
      - tiahura 4y ago
        There are very few safe online spaces for kids that kids actually want to utilize. If MS wants to make Minecraft into one, good for them. If that impairs angry 13 year olds’ ability to cuss around kids - nobody cares.
  - 4y ago
johnnyApplePRNG 4y ago
Create a child-friendly server setting then and create certain new rules for that section of the game. You don't just start banning adults for typing swear words into a keyboard.
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somenameforme 4y ago
If that was their motivation then why not simply offer an opt-in to heavily moderated servers? And a toggle to make it where that's all you see (if you want). This would not only make their job much easier, since presumably relatively few people want this sort of moderation, but would also increase the overall satisfaction of their entire userbase. People who want moderation for whatever reasons, can have it. Those that don't - don't have to. --- A tangential, but related, issue I've observed is that there seem to be an increasing number of measures being carried out in society that, in effect, drive widespread self censorship. Any interesting conversation, regardless of how otherwise sanitary, may be likely to motivate somebody to want to "report" others. See any thread on, for instance, dark matter. An esoteric scientific concept, yet one where emotions run wild. The only choice, in scenarios where reporting is likely to lead to penalties that are intolerable, is to simply not say anything at all that might cause even a single ripple in the water. And that is, in effect, not especially different than life in all of these unfree societies we were supposed to have learned from. The fact that we now seem to be becoming one of those societies, even if by a more novel path, is becoming increasingly apparent.
strogonoff 4y ago
Since I am not a parent, my opinion doesn’t count for much—but when I imagine myself one, I wish me and my kids could have an open-source sandbox game that is fully owned by us and is playable on our own infrastructure without any further involvement of game publisher. No marketplace with coins, no microtransactions, no mining my child’s PII before you allow to play a game I bought, no online login screen, no platform or “community” of any kind (not even if it’s “for kids”, Roblox is an example of what kind of people it becomes a magnet for), no unknown corporate moderators for my family server, nothing but a fun game. (And because dedicated developers who actually listen to player feedback must be paid appropriately, definitely take my money for every new major update.) Minecraft used to be a great example of such a game, until it got bought by Microsoft.
- nottorp 4y ago
  > Minecraft used to be a great example of such a game, until it got bought by Microsoft. Java edition still qualifies. Not sure for how much longer.
  - strogonoff 4y ago
    It fails on some points. There is a login screen (you must periodically connect to Microsoft’s servers), and accounts are reportedly locked until players provide Microsoft their phone number. The chat reporting feature being discussed here is a further example of restrictions on what you can do with the game you bought. If the free-to-play microtransaction-supported model is more financially appealing than allowing customers own a product, then anything that allows to enjoy and extend the game without Microsoft overseeing it and getting a cut (like open-source Java versions of the client and the server) is a liability. Chat reporting is to me clear evidence of Microsoft trying to justify further lock-up and ongoing subscription model. Next they will say because OSS allows bypassing or cheating the reporting they must close the source and limit mod API. I would be fine if Microsoft continued to release the game as a separate, adult-rated but unlocked product for gamers who care (and charged for major updates, they will absolutely pay), while separately providing a locked platform stuffed with coins, marketplaces, walled garden for mods, corporate moderators, safety guarantees and whatever else for those who want an easy solution safe for children without adult oversight.
mnd999 4y ago
It’s a sad world where only children are allowed to have fun.
xdrosenheim 4y ago
You should not let you children play with random 30 year olds, if you do not want them to see/hear profanity. You have the option to install your own chat moderation tools, client-sided, there is not need to force every to "be nice" just because there _might_ be children playing. If this was just for their own Realm Servers, that would be fine, it is their server, they host it. But why does Microsoft suddenly feel the need to moderate MY server? (public, but only used by friends of mine) All the big public servers, such as Hypixel, have had their own moderators and they do a fantastic job. > I don't see anything in their process that suggest that a group of adults playing with their friends are at risk of having their chat audited in the absence of a complaint? The thing is that we have NO IDEA how much it takes to be banned. - Will an actual human look at the reports? Doubtful. - When a ban is to be issued, who will decide when to do that? Some guy who has to follow a script that reads "3 profanities, max" and click the boot button? The Minecraft community is one of the largest gaming communities, and I have seen very little controversial about it. I do not see the need for Microsoft to suddenly step in and decide to moderate it.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  > You should not let you children play with random 30 year olds, if you do not want them to see/hear profanity. Kind of a losing battle anyway. Not quite sure why we care about profanity at 10 years old when we do not care about the same profanity from the same person 10 years later.
mxkopy 4y ago
> I also like the idea of a global decision that forces servers open to "the public" to have an enforced global standard of behavior. A decision made by a bunch of suits; a standard of behavior informed by corporate office spaces, ultimately vetted by the private moral prescriptions of a few HR officers and shareholders. The children need to know that a negative outlook has no place in the world. Have a positive attitude, play by the rules, and you can have a lot of fun. Start trouble and we'll excise you like the cancer you are.
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Arch-TK 4y ago
>Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't see anything in their process that suggests that a group of adults playing with their friends are at risk of having their chat audited in the absence of a complaint? There is nothing letting the group of adults easily opt out of the system. Someone is mischievous and decides to report someone else? Permanently banned. Someone has a falling out and decides to try to piss off their friend by reporting them? Permanently banned. Someone thinks they're funny and report as a joke? Permanently banned. Not to mention that Microsoft has repeatedly failed to actually implement this correctly so far. I wonder if all the people who have gotten banned by this will ever get unbanned. If you want Minecraft to be a game for kids, why don't you parent your kids? Minecraft is not your daycare. Minecraft is a portal to the internet (the world), if you wouldn't trust your kid to go on an international trip on their own without any supervision then stop letting them get on the internet without supervision. Want your kids to play with friends? Pester Microsoft for an easy way to set up a server that YOU can control and manage and they can connect to (I believe realms already did this). I promise you that Microsoft's changes won't keep your kids safe, they won't prevent them from dealing with adults in Minecraft, they won't prevent them from being exposed to ideas which you might see as too adult for them to thoroughly understand. You have fallen into the PR trap that Microsoft created. They WANT you to feel like your kids are safe and WANT you to feel like they're making responsible decisions. This doesn't actually create a safe environment, and more likely is just a way to stimulate more sales by permanently banning accounts for a game which parents just can't help to buy their kids copies of.
imtringued 4y ago
By trying to make Minecraft servers a safer place you have made it worse because people are now trying to "kill" each other through the reporting system.
aaron695 4y ago
nottorp 4y ago
> Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't see anything in their process that suggests that a group of adults playing with their friends are at risk of having their chat audited in the absence of a complaint? That sounds like "why want the right to privacy if you have nothing illegal to hide". Do you guarantee that if your kids end up on an adult server (yes, there are 18+ private servers) you will just get them off there instead of complaining that the chat is full of adult conversation and getting the entire community banned? Considering you want Microsoft to "protect your kids" i strongly doubt it. And yes, the 18+ server I play on is access restricted, but you can get in (but not build) to evaluate if the server suits your play style before applying. You may get in in the middle of a discussion laced with politics and sex because THIS IS AN ADULT SERVER. Also, complaints can be malicious. Do you really think MS is willing to put in the resources to evaluate a complaint properly?
mid-kid 4y ago
The problem arises when one of said adults playing with their friends decides to be a sourpuss and report the chat, in which case microsoft moderators have absolutely no context on the server's group culture nor what was really going on, and they won't bother digging deeper. At the end of the day individual servers are completely separate worlds that you cannot moderate as a whole due to differences in rules, expectations of their members and culture. You cannot moderate all of that by throwing a blanket rule system over it. Even the unofficial global ban system before this, mcbans.com, had a system to allow servers to only honor bans from specific other servers who they aligned with. As for children I recommend keeping a mildly distant eye on what servers they visit, and this doesn't just apply to minecraft. As a kid I had a rule with my dad to consult him first about any terms of service I wanted to accept (for example for forums), so he could make sure it was safe. This worked until I became a teen and specifically started seeking out the bad things about the internet, but at that point no public ban system is going to help.
croak3r 4y ago
Why not just police what servers your kids join and choose ones that are kid friendly? I don't see why those of us that have been playing Minecraft since before your kids were even born should be forced into the same restrictions as kids.
xani_ 4y ago
I dunno, I can just imagine new age of cyber-bullying when a bunch of kids just mass-reports some poor kid (hell, even provoke them on chat so if detached moderator sees that they think it's legit) and sends their account to shadow realm. Having a closed set of realms servers can opt in with more stringent moderation might be a good idea, but forcing it globally is just entirely stupid; there are things inappropriate for kids that are just fine for teenager audience, and adults play the game too. If I was in your spot I'd honestly either set up, or rent them a private minecraft server, then they can invite their friends there and you have full control on what is happening with it. > Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't see anything in their process that suggests that a group of adults playing with their friends are at risk of having their chat audited in the absence of a complaint? Just need one person taking a piss. And it pretty much means no server with strangers is safe as you could be reported by anyone for anything completely benign in context of the server
unglaublich 4y ago
"Think about the children"....
Aeolun 4y ago
If I set up a server I should be allowed to disable any form of MS moderation. By all means, set up a kind of method where public servers that are child safe/friendly (e.g. opt in to MS moderation) are advertised as such. But do not mess with my stuff without my permission.
theknocker 4y ago
fennecfoxy 4y ago
I feel ya, but at the same time access to an online game is almost equivalent to unfettered access to the Internet these days. Even with Microsoft's watchful eye, it still won't solve all the problems. Roblox was already poorly moderated. Club Penguin was meant to be well moderated with all sorts of mechanisms to ensure child safety but it was still used as a hangout for all sorts of adults as well. Realistically there's no solution that will 100% solve the stranger danger that comes with access to the Internet. The only way is for parents to take on the responsibility - have children play on a server that only them and their friends have access to. Any Internet server that randoms can join will always come with a risk and it's up to parents to quantify that risk.

dmix 4y ago

The road to hell is always paved with good intentions and naive ideals. I’m trying to imagine having to explain to a 6yr old why they can’t play Minecraft until Dad creates another account and hope they can afford another license. And hope it doesn’t happen again the next time a troll joins their server. It also seems to be incentivizing people to not have any chat reports at all.

ckemere 4y ago
I guess I don't understand - the troll will report your 6 year old for dropping f-bombs? And the chat logs (which MS will now have) will back then up? And why are you inviting trolls to play with your 6 year old? (We're somewhat new to Minecraft, so I may be missing something here.)
- zbird 4y ago
  > I guess I don't understand - the troll will report your 6 year old for dropping f-bombs? They'll report for no reason, that's the point of trolling. > And the chat logs (which MS will now have) will back then up? I have not played Minecraft, but I'd be surprised if the server admins of any game of such scale acted on logs. Also, I wouldn't want my kids to be logged on a corporate server. > And why are you inviting trolls to play with your 6 year old? Are the rooms invite only? Then what's the point of Microsoft's draconian measures here? I thought the point was to censor public servers, but again, I haven't played this much. In any case, this situation already looks like defeat for an online community.
  - ckemere 4y ago
    We've done limited server play with friends. As far as I understand, anyone can download and run the server software (literally - it's a free download). To log into a server, you need the IP address (and need to understand how to port forward if going outside the home etc etc). P I think my broader point is that I appreciate Microsoft saying they want Minecraft to be a profanity -free zone. There are plenty in the "online community" that seem to be quite happy being G-rated. My 9-yeae old has watched about 100 hours of YouTube from "Pixlriffs" and its been wonderful despite random zombie attacks or whatnot.
    - Cr4shMyCar 4y ago
      From what Microsoft's said, it's less about profanity and more about taking down things like serious threats, doxxing/stalking, etc. I have no issue with moderating that, and I'm glad it's (at least in theory) not being used as a filter to keep everything that happens in Minecraft G-rated since a lot of more mature people play it. I think implementing a game-wide ban on a community that's spread across thousands of individual servers has the potential to cause so much harm if someone makes a mistake or there's a glitch, not to mention trolls gaming the system to get people they don't like banned. Content moderation at scale is impossible, and considering Minecraft's still one of the biggest games in the world, mistakes will be made. As an aside, have you looked into putting a whitelist on your server? It could provide a lot of peace of mind, especially when you're trying to keep it to just your kids and friends.
      - zbird 4y ago
        I see, I imagine the server you put on is by default public and joinable by anyone. This kind of stuff typically has some form of whitelisting or password protection to keep the server semi-private.
- JetAlone 4y ago
  It seems that anyone can report anyone else, on any server, even tiny private ones. They have to say what kind of complaint it is from a list, but a disingenuous actor can find ways to stretch the definitions or just outright lie about the incident. Whichever person or whatever machine is in charge of reviewing these complaints decides the report is valid, that person is banned from all online play. I'm not seeing from this thread any info on what the appeals system is like, but I would be completely unshocked if it were, once again, a system where people who aren't highly invisible on social media will end up SOL. There was a vulnerability in the past that 2B2T users discovered, which enabled them to essentially track any player's activity and find the IPs of private servers, even ones run by family. They used it to grief even a server where only one person was logged in, AFK, at the time. Though unlikely, a hacker with a new vulnerability helping them to discover this kind of information could hypothetically find anyone's private group, drop in, and report. EDIT: The griefing tool is called Project Copenhiemer, and the user named orsond who is a member of the Fifth Column which created Copenhiemer, made a post about it here on this comment section page. Refer to their comment.
  - ckemere 4y ago
    > I'm not seeing from this thread any info on what the appeals system is like, but I would be completely unshocked if it were, once again, a system where people who aren't highly invisible on social media will end up SOL. I totally get this. My support is for the sentiment Microsoft is expressing. As with so many things online without the actual commitment of real people who are culturally connected (e.g. Daniel and Scott for HN), it will likely go south.
- synicalx 4y ago
  > And why are you inviting trolls to play with your 6 year old? Public servers with hundreds of players and little to no barrier to entry - they'll be full of "trolls". All the 6 y/o has to do is join one, which takes about 5 seconds.
- nottorp 4y ago
  > I guess I don't understand - the troll will report your 6 year old for dropping f-bombs? Yes. > And the chat logs (which MS will now have) will back then up? Why do you think anyone will check the chat logs? That's too expensive at MS scale, it's an automatic ban. Only admins of private servers actually check the chat logs :) > And why are you inviting trolls to play with your 6 year old? There are thousands of public player run servers. Some are quite fun. Whatever your idea of fun is, there should be at least a hundred that match. > (We're somewhat new to Minecraft, so I may be missing something here.) You're missing all the communities that were built before MS tried to turn it into software as a service to justify their billion spent on Minecraft.
drak0n1c 4y ago
Battle.net communities and makers thrived for 15 years with zero moderation and a laissez-faire approach to peer to peer hosting. Entire game genres were invented (MOBA, TD). Imagine if Blizzard had cracked down in its infancy because of a few mostly satirical Nazi maps? Good intentions among corporatized and safety oriented developers will certainly prevent another such golden age and maybe already has - considering the recent state of gaming.

caslon 4y ago

Vaguely reputable source pointing out it applies to private servers: https://www.cbr.com/minecraft-players-outraged-mojang-monitoring-private-servers/ https://www.cbr.com/minecraft-players-outraged-mojang-monito... I don't think it's a bad thing, either. People who buy proprietary software know what the deal is, and anyone who didn't know what the deal was knows now. It's not your game, you've just got a temporary license to it. Kind of the consumer's fault beyond anything.

StanislavPetrov 4y ago
How many people bought the game before these draconian policies were implemented? They should offer refunds.
- caslon 4y ago
  That's not the deal with proprietary software. The deal is that you buy a license to software, the terms of which can be altered at any time. It's fundamental to the model of proprietary software. It's not theirs. It's the company's, and the company can do what they want with it. There's no reason refunds should be offered, as the consumers got what they paid for: A license to software, with certain conditions for termination and conditions allowing the company to alter the terms of the arrangement. It's like saying that a person should be able to get a refund on an ice cream cone that melts: The deterioration is part of the standard deal, and you know it's coming.
  - zbird 4y ago
    Why is this downvoted? This is literally the TOS of much proprietary software out there. People don't read the TOS?
    - lmm 4y ago
      TOS are often not legally valid.
    - EMIRELADERO 4y ago

jaarse 4y ago

I think the issue is the ease of getting users banned, and the lack of actual moderating at all that is the problem. It literally is as easy as fill out the form, user is automatically banned, no verification required. Microsoft is not actually enforcing anything. My son is 10 and has been playing Minecraft for most of his life. I would consider him quite good at it. I sometimes watch. Every couple of months one of his friends will get banned for no reason. Usually the reason is profanity in the chat, even though they play with the chat off and are FaceTiming on the side with each other. It turns out that the system is so easy to manipulate that other users (kids) will report them just because they don’t like how the game went. Basically spoiled kids will say if you don’t do what I want then I’m reporting all of you and getting you banned. And they do. Microsoft doesn’t actually verify the claims, just blanket bans all of them. So the kids create a new account, and keep playing. It just seems like something that is perfectly natural to them. It does mean that I would never spend a dollar on anything Minecraft related though.

ckemere 4y ago
Super informative! Maybe auditing the chat logs is an easy way for MS to try to fix this???
- h0l0cube 4y ago
  No large social platform will spend a dime more on moderation than they are compelled to by law.
  - astrange 4y ago
    US platforms aren't required to do any moderation, but they still do it. You wouldn't be able to use a service with no moderation, it'd be all spam.
    - h0l0cube 4y ago
      Do you believe there’d be no legal ramifications if they stopped moderation all together? Civil lawsuits? Class actions?

sidewndr46 4y ago

Wow, this is the most entitled attitude I've seen in a long time. You let your kids play online, where they can communicate with basically anyone. So the solution is to grant a central authority total power to ban anyone who doesn't comply with the standards you want for your children. This is the online equivalent of a homophobe complaining that two men holding hands in the park will turn their children gay.

codeyperson 4y ago
Bit of a wild comparison. It's more like the online equivalent of someone getting kicked out of Legoland for swearing around the children.
- ryukafalz 4y ago
  Sure, if every group of friends had their own tiny version of Legoland and Lego corporate could ban you from all of them.
- 650REDHAIR 4y ago
  Minecraft wasn’t built as a kids game. It was a neat indie game that let you build stuff. On kid-specific servers that might be an apt analogy, but adult-owned, adult-populated servers shouldn’t have to worry about malicious trolls ruining their experience with a ban.
- kevinpet 4y ago
  It's more the equivalent of getting banned from driving because someone reported you to Honda, and Honda didn't verify anything.
- MereInterest 4y ago
  Nope, not at all, because it applies to privately run servers. It's the equivalent of breaking into my house and stealing my Legos, based on somebody's statement that I swore around children who happened to be near Legos. I bought Minecraft in 2011. Every few years since then, I would get friends back together, host a new server, and catch up while playing. I bought the software, I host the server, I ban people if need be, and how dare Microsoft treat it as their walled garden.

babypuncher 4y ago

At first I found it frustrtating, but I've grown to really appreciate Nintendo's approach to this problem. Their multiplayer games (like Splatoon) have no in-game chat or VOIP. It definitely makes it harder to make friends in the games, but it also completely eliminates any and all potential for toxicity and other miscreant behavior. As a result, I'd have no problem letting my hypothetical children play these games online even at a young age. This solution is obviously untenable for a cooperative and creative game like Minecraft, so it seems Microsoft is stuck in a real hard place here.

donatj 4y ago
It removes any and all reason to play online. Might as well play bots.
- djbusby 4y ago
  Rocket League has an option called quick-chat. It's only canned messages. And in QC mode you only see or reply QC messages. Make being real toxic difficult.
  - Auracle 4y ago
    What a save! It’s amazing how from the launch of the game that quick chat has pretty much only been used sarcastically.
    - djbusby 4y ago
      Yes. However, you see it's limited. Can't use the "bad" words.
      - Aerroon 4y ago
        But intent matters far more than the actual words used. Somebody that's tilted is going to be annoyed by a message that's mocking them regardless how innocuous the words are in the message.

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago

I'm totally on board with creating kid friendly servers. I'm more skeptical of only allowing kid friendly worlds to officially exist.

ShowalkKama 4y ago

servers I'd consider "kid friendly" already have their own chat moderation so it's a non-issue if you restrict your kids to playing only on those servers (if you don't chat reporting solves nothing since anarchy & co will disable chat signing server side).

sbuttgereit 4y ago

I get where you're coming from and I'm in the same boat. I play Minecraft and some of the media I consume are Minecraft SMPs and Let's Plays. My soon-to-be-7-year-old has picked up the game and now regularly plays in my world (not that is issue free, but that's a different article :-) ) I understand why Microsoft is doing it and I even agree in part with Microsoft's measures in some ways. Aside from the direct protection of kids, they're also probably trying to be pre-emptive... forestalling the day or already complying with the day when the government says they have to do this sort of thing. What I disagree with is that it's all or nothing. Public servers that wish to not participate should be allowed to not to. Sure have the client give a warning that you're logging into the wild west, even have it give a warning every time you log into the same server. But don't force all servers to do it. Microsoft also has parent controls which allow me to determine if my kid can use his account on any public server (by default nope)... finesse that a bit to let me choose only Microsoft moderated public servers. Even maybe give me the ability to whitelist servers for my kid's account. And then let everyone else that doesn't want to comply with Microsoft's vision of civility online to enter those servers that don't comply at their discretion, risk, or peril. This would achieve the goals that your after (and me too for my kid) while not forcing society down the path of conformity.

Cr4shMyCar 4y ago

I do support more moderation and controls over chat, because god knows when I played Minecraft as a kid I saw so many conversations that weren't exactly appropriate. Kids on servers that aren't specifically kid-friendly worry me a lot, knowing how my friends and I banter and shit-talk. This is super heavy-handed and centralized moderation though, the consequences for mistakes or errors are huge. As far as I know, getting banned also prevents you from even playing singleplayer on Xbox and there's no appeal process. I understand and support the new chat blocking settings, and maybe even something like an official ban list that applies to Realms and servers that decide to use it, but being able to permanently ban someone from an entire game is too much power.

Aerroon 4y ago
>because god knows when I played Minecraft as a kid I saw so many conversations that weren't exactly appropriate. And how much harm did this cause? Because I saw the same, but I don't see it having any real negative effect.
- ShroudedNight 4y ago
  I also have the same question. In my limited experience as the father of an eleven year old, it has continued to be much more productive to redirect profane or vulgar expressions of frustration away from people and towards problems ("Swear at problems, not people.") than to bubble-wrap their vocabulary.
  - watwut 4y ago
    Very genuinely, if your 11 years old need to redirect swearing to things and is unable to cut it in social situations, then he needs quite a lot of help with impulse control. Because most of them, overwhelming majority actually, are easily able to not swear. They do swear when among peers only, but cutting it off when needed is really not an issue for them.
- drusepth 4y ago
  Everyone's different and harm/severity here is gonna be a wide range, but there's a lot of stuff I saw online as a kid that, as an adult, I really wish I hadn't.

rndgermandude 4y ago

I have no issue with Microsoft setting community standards for the online spaces they run, or anybody else for that matter. But Microsoft is setting community standards for places they do not run here, just because these spaces use their software. This is ridiculous, and sets yet another dangerous precedent. What's next? Maybe Office 360 profanity filter, where your Office 360 account gets banned for writing about the Austrian Village formerly known as Fucking[1] in MS Word? Maybe the Windows 12 won't let you access your perfectly legal porn anymore? Or any files related to Scunthorpe. Or Edge refuses to stream Game of Thrones for you because of nudity and profanity... and then goes on to delete all your data and ban your MS account? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugging,_Upper_Austria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugging,_Upper_Austria

rightbyte 4y ago
> I have no issue with Microsoft setting community standards for the online spaces they run That is the problem though. They run it, not the users like it used to be.
- __david__ 4y ago
  What do you mean? You can still download a dedicated server and run it on your own infra. I would say the users are running that and not Microsoft.
georgeecollins 4y ago
>> But Microsoft is setting community standards for places they do not run here, just because these spaces use their software. This is ridiculous, and sets yet another dangerous precedent. I agree with what you are saying but of course somewhere Microsoft is probably hoping to convert Minecraft from a game anyone can host to a game that is always connected to some service of theirs. That way they can collect data or sell ads or maybe subscriptions. I don't like the idea of open source games because you can't crowdsource editorial decisions. But I think gamers are going to be ready for a game that is made by a team, but owned and maintained by the gamers. Probably through a DAO or something like that. How else can you maintain a game for years in the best interest of people who bought it? Just making a game open source isn't enough imo.

hedora 4y ago

I really just want a f---ing password protected "play offline" button. I've been trying to keep the kids off the internet, but Minecraft somehow created some bulls--t backdoor social media account for my kindergartner without prompting (let alone asking for consent before making it public!). On top of that, microsoft can trivially tie it to my github and linkedin. Seriously, WTF were they thinking?!?

nottorp 4y ago
> Minecraft somehow created ** Microsoft ** somehow created. No one created any account besides the one required to download Minecraft before the acquisition.
- hedora 4y ago
  Not that it really matters at this point, but I wonder if Minecraft silently created public-by-default social media profiles before the acquisition. Those are different disaster than tying the profiles to Microsoft accounts.
  - nottorp 4y ago
    I've been playing Minecraft for quite a while. Not from the beginning, but from before Notch even started considering selling. If the old Mojang had created anything but a Mojang account, it would have been news and it wasn't.

ineptech 4y ago

I think "what Microsoft is trying to do" starts and ends with your kids having office.com logins.

StopHammoTime 4y ago

The problem is not that the feature exists - the problem is that you are locked into it, can’t easily opt out, and if it goes wrong you lose access to a product you’ve paid for. A good system would cater for everyone adequately.

asddubs 4y ago

IMO the best way would have been to enforce it for realms, maybe have a way for privately run servers to opt-in, and let parents toggle some switch that only lets their kids play on moderated servers. but microsoft was completely unwilling to make any sort of compromise in that direction. Adults tend to generally prefer to play with other adults, and they might also use profanity on adult-only private servers. Unfortunately adults can also be just as petty as kids and may report other adults just to get back at them for something or other. plus we know any moderation system run by a megacorp will inevitably result in some percentage of completely random bans.

ouid 4y ago
I'm going to use profanity wherever the fuck I want. Especially on a fucking videogame. You are not entitled to have the rest of the world stop saying fuck because you don't want your child to hear it. Moreover, Microsoft doesn't have the right to impose this restriction on the "license" I purchased from a different company a billion fucking years ago. Malleable licenses shouldn't exist. We need real consumer protection.
- tiahura 4y ago
  - ouid 4y ago
    I'm not threatening you. I'm not degrading you. I'm not doing anything to you except making you read the word FUCK. You, on the other hand, are actively trying to insult me. I feel like this undermines your argument.
    - tiahura 4y ago
      There are very few safe online spaces for kids that kids actually want to utilize. If MS wants to make Minecraft into one, good for them. If that impairs angry 13 year olds’ ability to cuss around kids - nobody cares.
- 4y ago

johnnyApplePRNG 4y ago

Create a child-friendly server setting then and create certain new rules for that section of the game. You don't just start banning adults for typing swear words into a keyboard.

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somenameforme 4y ago

If that was their motivation then why not simply offer an opt-in to heavily moderated servers? And a toggle to make it where that's all you see (if you want). This would not only make their job much easier, since presumably relatively few people want this sort of moderation, but would also increase the overall satisfaction of their entire userbase. People who want moderation for whatever reasons, can have it. Those that don't - don't have to. --- A tangential, but related, issue I've observed is that there seem to be an increasing number of measures being carried out in society that, in effect, drive widespread self censorship. Any interesting conversation, regardless of how otherwise sanitary, may be likely to motivate somebody to want to "report" others. See any thread on, for instance, dark matter. An esoteric scientific concept, yet one where emotions run wild. The only choice, in scenarios where reporting is likely to lead to penalties that are intolerable, is to simply not say anything at all that might cause even a single ripple in the water. And that is, in effect, not especially different than life in all of these unfree societies we were supposed to have learned from. The fact that we now seem to be becoming one of those societies, even if by a more novel path, is becoming increasingly apparent.

strogonoff 4y ago

Since I am not a parent, my opinion doesn’t count for much—but when I imagine myself one, I wish me and my kids could have an open-source sandbox game that is fully owned by us and is playable on our own infrastructure without any further involvement of game publisher. No marketplace with coins, no microtransactions, no mining my child’s PII before you allow to play a game I bought, no online login screen, no platform or “community” of any kind (not even if it’s “for kids”, Roblox is an example of what kind of people it becomes a magnet for), no unknown corporate moderators for my family server, nothing but a fun game. (And because dedicated developers who actually listen to player feedback must be paid appropriately, definitely take my money for every new major update.) Minecraft used to be a great example of such a game, until it got bought by Microsoft.

nottorp 4y ago
> Minecraft used to be a great example of such a game, until it got bought by Microsoft. Java edition still qualifies. Not sure for how much longer.
- strogonoff 4y ago
  It fails on some points. There is a login screen (you must periodically connect to Microsoft’s servers), and accounts are reportedly locked until players provide Microsoft their phone number. The chat reporting feature being discussed here is a further example of restrictions on what you can do with the game you bought. If the free-to-play microtransaction-supported model is more financially appealing than allowing customers own a product, then anything that allows to enjoy and extend the game without Microsoft overseeing it and getting a cut (like open-source Java versions of the client and the server) is a liability. Chat reporting is to me clear evidence of Microsoft trying to justify further lock-up and ongoing subscription model. Next they will say because OSS allows bypassing or cheating the reporting they must close the source and limit mod API. I would be fine if Microsoft continued to release the game as a separate, adult-rated but unlocked product for gamers who care (and charged for major updates, they will absolutely pay), while separately providing a locked platform stuffed with coins, marketplaces, walled garden for mods, corporate moderators, safety guarantees and whatever else for those who want an easy solution safe for children without adult oversight.

mnd999 4y ago

It’s a sad world where only children are allowed to have fun.

xdrosenheim 4y ago

You should not let you children play with random 30 year olds, if you do not want them to see/hear profanity. You have the option to install your own chat moderation tools, client-sided, there is not need to force every to "be nice" just because there _might_ be children playing. If this was just for their own Realm Servers, that would be fine, it is their server, they host it. But why does Microsoft suddenly feel the need to moderate MY server? (public, but only used by friends of mine) All the big public servers, such as Hypixel, have had their own moderators and they do a fantastic job. > I don't see anything in their process that suggest that a group of adults playing with their friends are at risk of having their chat audited in the absence of a complaint? The thing is that we have NO IDEA how much it takes to be banned. - Will an actual human look at the reports? Doubtful. - When a ban is to be issued, who will decide when to do that? Some guy who has to follow a script that reads "3 profanities, max" and click the boot button? The Minecraft community is one of the largest gaming communities, and I have seen very little controversial about it. I do not see the need for Microsoft to suddenly step in and decide to moderate it.

Aeolun 4y ago
> You should not let you children play with random 30 year olds, if you do not want them to see/hear profanity. Kind of a losing battle anyway. Not quite sure why we care about profanity at 10 years old when we do not care about the same profanity from the same person 10 years later.

mxkopy 4y ago

> I also like the idea of a global decision that forces servers open to "the public" to have an enforced global standard of behavior. A decision made by a bunch of suits; a standard of behavior informed by corporate office spaces, ultimately vetted by the private moral prescriptions of a few HR officers and shareholders. The children need to know that a negative outlook has no place in the world. Have a positive attitude, play by the rules, and you can have a lot of fun. Start trouble and we'll excise you like the cancer you are.

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Arch-TK 4y ago

>Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't see anything in their process that suggests that a group of adults playing with their friends are at risk of having their chat audited in the absence of a complaint? There is nothing letting the group of adults easily opt out of the system. Someone is mischievous and decides to report someone else? Permanently banned. Someone has a falling out and decides to try to piss off their friend by reporting them? Permanently banned. Someone thinks they're funny and report as a joke? Permanently banned. Not to mention that Microsoft has repeatedly failed to actually implement this correctly so far. I wonder if all the people who have gotten banned by this will ever get unbanned. If you want Minecraft to be a game for kids, why don't you parent your kids? Minecraft is not your daycare. Minecraft is a portal to the internet (the world), if you wouldn't trust your kid to go on an international trip on their own without any supervision then stop letting them get on the internet without supervision. Want your kids to play with friends? Pester Microsoft for an easy way to set up a server that YOU can control and manage and they can connect to (I believe realms already did this). I promise you that Microsoft's changes won't keep your kids safe, they won't prevent them from dealing with adults in Minecraft, they won't prevent them from being exposed to ideas which you might see as too adult for them to thoroughly understand. You have fallen into the PR trap that Microsoft created. They WANT you to feel like your kids are safe and WANT you to feel like they're making responsible decisions. This doesn't actually create a safe environment, and more likely is just a way to stimulate more sales by permanently banning accounts for a game which parents just can't help to buy their kids copies of.

imtringued 4y ago

By trying to make Minecraft servers a safer place you have made it worse because people are now trying to "kill" each other through the reporting system.

aaron695 4y ago

nottorp 4y ago

> Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't see anything in their process that suggests that a group of adults playing with their friends are at risk of having their chat audited in the absence of a complaint? That sounds like "why want the right to privacy if you have nothing illegal to hide". Do you guarantee that if your kids end up on an adult server (yes, there are 18+ private servers) you will just get them off there instead of complaining that the chat is full of adult conversation and getting the entire community banned? Considering you want Microsoft to "protect your kids" i strongly doubt it. And yes, the 18+ server I play on is access restricted, but you can get in (but not build) to evaluate if the server suits your play style before applying. You may get in in the middle of a discussion laced with politics and sex because THIS IS AN ADULT SERVER. Also, complaints can be malicious. Do you really think MS is willing to put in the resources to evaluate a complaint properly?

mid-kid 4y ago

The problem arises when one of said adults playing with their friends decides to be a sourpuss and report the chat, in which case microsoft moderators have absolutely no context on the server's group culture nor what was really going on, and they won't bother digging deeper. At the end of the day individual servers are completely separate worlds that you cannot moderate as a whole due to differences in rules, expectations of their members and culture. You cannot moderate all of that by throwing a blanket rule system over it. Even the unofficial global ban system before this, mcbans.com, had a system to allow servers to only honor bans from specific other servers who they aligned with. As for children I recommend keeping a mildly distant eye on what servers they visit, and this doesn't just apply to minecraft. As a kid I had a rule with my dad to consult him first about any terms of service I wanted to accept (for example for forums), so he could make sure it was safe. This worked until I became a teen and specifically started seeking out the bad things about the internet, but at that point no public ban system is going to help.

croak3r 4y ago

Why not just police what servers your kids join and choose ones that are kid friendly? I don't see why those of us that have been playing Minecraft since before your kids were even born should be forced into the same restrictions as kids.

xani_ 4y ago

I dunno, I can just imagine new age of cyber-bullying when a bunch of kids just mass-reports some poor kid (hell, even provoke them on chat so if detached moderator sees that they think it's legit) and sends their account to shadow realm. Having a closed set of realms servers can opt in with more stringent moderation might be a good idea, but forcing it globally is just entirely stupid; there are things inappropriate for kids that are just fine for teenager audience, and adults play the game too. If I was in your spot I'd honestly either set up, or rent them a private minecraft server, then they can invite their friends there and you have full control on what is happening with it. > Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't see anything in their process that suggests that a group of adults playing with their friends are at risk of having their chat audited in the absence of a complaint? Just need one person taking a piss. And it pretty much means no server with strangers is safe as you could be reported by anyone for anything completely benign in context of the server

unglaublich 4y ago

"Think about the children"....

Aeolun 4y ago

If I set up a server I should be allowed to disable any form of MS moderation. By all means, set up a kind of method where public servers that are child safe/friendly (e.g. opt in to MS moderation) are advertised as such. But do not mess with my stuff without my permission.

theknocker 4y ago

fennecfoxy 4y ago

I feel ya, but at the same time access to an online game is almost equivalent to unfettered access to the Internet these days. Even with Microsoft's watchful eye, it still won't solve all the problems. Roblox was already poorly moderated. Club Penguin was meant to be well moderated with all sorts of mechanisms to ensure child safety but it was still used as a hangout for all sorts of adults as well. Realistically there's no solution that will 100% solve the stranger danger that comes with access to the Internet. The only way is for parents to take on the responsibility - have children play on a server that only them and their friends have access to. Any Internet server that randoms can join will always come with a risk and it's up to parents to quantify that risk.