Recently the server staff received an e-mail telling them to moderate the Discord server and the server chat on what they deem to be “appropriate.”
Below is a message from owner of the server.
Free Speech Under Attack
Dear friends, I don’t often post announcements of this sort, but I feel it’s very important for you all to know what’s currently going on.
From the very start, over 15 years ago, one of the key founding principles of MinecraftOnline has been free speech. What started out as an uncontroversal, common sense policy, has proved to be a cornerstone of this increasingly unique community. As time has passed and Western society has wavered back and forth in its political leanings, free speech has repeatedly come under attack for political reasons. It has now become common to see arrests for posts on social media in countries such as Britain and Germany, in the name of political control, which have overtaken the numbers even of traditionally totalitarian countries such as China and Russia - a truly dystopian nightmare for freedom of expression and personal liberty.
Throughout this decade and a half of change, MinecraftOnline has held steadfast to its libertarian principles, and remained an oasis of freedom and openness in an increasingly closed and controlled internet. That is, until now.
Microsoft, through their subsidiary Mojang, have issued an ultimatum to MinecraftOnline. We have been told to do away with our free speech policy (which long pre-dates Microsoft’s acquisition of Mojang), within 7 days, or face a a permanent block. If that happens, nobody will be able to play on MinecraftOnline again, and the 15-year history of this beloved server will come to a sudden and bitter end. The full email we have received today, signed facelessly only as “Mojang Enforcement”, is included below.
The email makes extremely vague claims about “harmful interactions” and “harmful comments”, and we are asking Microsoft to clarify what specific interactions and comments they consider harmful. In the meantime, please spread the word, share this info on social media. Defend free speech.
-SlowRiot
Fuck MinecraftOnline for making fucking Microsoft look like the good guys here.
Aside from my concerns about the kind of shit libertarians think counts as free speech, how the hell would Microsoft implement a ban on a Minecraft server that Microsoft doesn’t host?
Like I assume it’s just connecting to the server by hostname or IP. What are they gonna do, hardcode the server’s known IPs and hostnames and prevent connections??
how the hell would Microsoft implement a ban on a Minecraft server that Microsoft doesn’t host?
if a minecraft server wants to enforce verification of the game license, the server needs to be in contact with the authentication servers of microsoft. the server operator can turn this off, but then moderation becomes much harder, as usernane based banning becomes useless, and the paywall from ban evasion disappears.
other than that, in recent years there’s something with chat message verification that I think involves sending some of the messages to microsoft? I don’t remember exactly
but also the minecraft client could have a built in blacklist of servers. I don’t know if it has but it’s not much work.
a ban from the authentication server is probably easier though.
I hate Microsoft but I also hate self-described “Libertarians” complaining about free speech because it usually means they want to spam slurs and white supremacist bullshit without pushback.
I replied to a comment like this somewhere else, so I’ll just paste this here
Take this with a grain of salt, as I’m a commoner on the server.
While freedom of speech means you can yell whatever racial slurs you want, it doesn’t mean you are free from consequences. When you start saying bigoted stuff on the chat, you will be targeted by players and get /ignore’d.
I would advise you to make your own judgement by reading the chat logs on Discord or IRC, but not everybody has that amount of time. Some people said vile stuff here, but every time someone says some weird stuff, it always gets backlash, and it definitely isn’t a nazi breeding ground.
Also I’ll add this, Most of the server staff and community are queer and from different backgrounds, slurs aren’t taken kindly here.
While freedom of speech means you can yell whatever racial slurs you want, it doesn’t mean you are free from consequences.
This seems to be the MS stance as well, and they seem unwilling to associate with that kind of speech, so they want to cut that connection off as a consequence.
MS isn’t telling them not to speak. MS is telling them to take their speech somewhere else.
Microsoft is also cool with their IPs being used to promote ICE. So I don’t know how much water your argument holds…
Mojang as well? Because MS employs hundreds of thousands of employees making their own decisions and owning their own work. I don’t see how Minecraft has anything to do with the poor decisions made on Azure.
The fuck does Azure have to do with Microsoft letting ICE use Halo for recruiting?
ICE is using Halo to recruit?
That aside, the fuck does Halo have to do with Mojang? Unless you’re saying it’s the Xbox people as a whole I guess, which makes a lot more sense to me. I saw a bunch of people talking about Palestine and assumed you were just talking about that somehow.
Anyway, none of this really explains to me why they should not be allowed to limit speech on their own platform, regardless of what speech is limited. People can always pack up and go somewhere else. This isn’t the government coming in and arresting some people for having an opinion they don’t like. This is a company coming in and saying they want that speech somewhere else.
Edit: found the Halo reference, had no idea this was a thing honestly with the dumpster fire that is the US government going on.
While using their resources to support an ACTUAL racist message. Are you being dense on purpose?
And their tools used to assist genocide.
So are we talking rothbardian libertarianism or libertarian socialism?
Ngl, whenever “libertarians” get their hackles up about needing a right to “free speech”, I always suspect they mean bigotry and slurs.
Yup, seems like they want to run a nazi bar. From their wiki (archive):
nothing that a player can type in public chat (aside from the exceptions given below) can result in a ban or any form of official reprimand. You will not be banned for anything you say, aside from spamming. This includes but is not limited to:
- Swearing;
- Personal attacks;
- Racial or cultural insults;
- Asking to be banned.
It’s worded a little confusingly, but there is a list of exceptions further down the page. The server is hosted in Germany so the expected symbols are removed if built in-game, but most of the other exceptions are to keep the game playable.
Made almost the same comment in the cross post that was made of this.
Definitely comes across like an excuse to be racist AF.
From another comment it sounds like there is pushback from users when someone behaves poorly, which is good, but I don’t see why anyone would want that experience to be the norm. Just libertarian things I guess
Everyone is entitled to their opinion about bigotry and slurs, but having soulless American mega-corporations enforcing the current lowest common denominator about what is acceptable is not the win some people might think it is. Sure, they might seem like they’re on your side, and thus the right side, now, but this can change quickly and radically.
I don’t agree. I think shutting down places that promote bigotry and slurs is good.
If they just want to run a minecraft server, they easily can. They just can’t also use that as a place to promote hatred and bigotry.
What you’re making is a slippery slope argument that doesn’t really hold water.
If it’s one of the oldest ones, I assume it’s for Java, which means it’s entirely run by the server operator and not one of those shitty 3rd party hosted servers you can rent out from within Bedrock.
I don’t remember ever seeing anything about how you need to run a server of your own in compliance with Mojang’s rules in the EULA or TOS.
When will Microsoft care about all the P2W servers that get kids addicted to gambling
“free speech” + “libertarian values” = rampant slurs and abuse
If you want to say what you want, go ahead. Nobody is required to host that speech or allow that speech to be hosted on their platform or software.
MS is attacking free speech here in the same way that a moderator attacks free speech blocking a Lemmy server. Nobody’s saying you can’t use a modded client to connect to their server if they self-host it, but they’re defederating on the main client because they want no association with it.
Minecraft servers are a unique case because they are hosted by the owners. Microsoft/Mojang does not host online servers; they just host the authentication server that the client pings to check the connecting account UUID (and pull the skin file). The whole way Mojang “bans” servers is by marking certain IPs to always be told the connecting account is invalid. Either way, server costs are paid by the owner. I recommend you look into Minecraft specifically because the model has its quirks.
Personally I agree with the MC servers here purely because of that fact. Also, Mojang/Microsoft should be seen as an enemy of the common people for many reasons - including their Copilot AI. If the Chat Reports feature (where purchased accounts are neutered because of automated chat reports) isn’t reason enough to dislike Microsoft, consider the following: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I recommend you look into Minecraft specifically because the model has its quirks.
I’m familiar. The first server I hosted was an alpha hmod server for some friends, and I’ve played a lot since then.
What MS is doing doesn’t prevent anyone from connecting to a server. It only puts a wall in the way, saying essentially to both the host and the players that this server violates MS’s terms for hosting, but not preventing them from doing so. Server owners can bypass this restriction in a few minutes with a single restart (assuming they aren’t using a modded server that can apply the change at runtime).
This isn’t unique to Minecraft. Games have supported custom servers for as long as I’ve been alive, and more recently as software became more and more internet-connected, restrictions on those servers have also been enforced. Being self-hosted or a custom lobby on a game doesn’t change this - the server software is still owned by MS and licensed to the users.
If anything, that it is so easy to bypass this shows that it’s nothing more than signaling. I would be much more concerned if the solution weren’t simply to change online mode to false. Sure moderation is another story, but there are alternative solutions, like IP banning.
Also, Mojang/Microsoft should be seen as an enemy of the common people for many reasons - including their Copilot AI. If the Chat Reports feature (where purchased accounts are neutered because of automated chat reports) isn’t reason enough to dislike Microsoft, consider the following: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
There are many, many reasons to dislike Microsoft. They have made many terrible decisions in the past, ethically speaking. This does not implicitly mean that every decision they make is bad or harmful. It only raises the question of intent behind decisions, and here the intent seems clear to me: they do not want their brand associated with the kind of speech allowed on that server.
This is more like if a Reddit mod came over here to Lemmy and tried to delete this comment.
Not exactly. This would be like Reddit blocking links to Lemmy on Reddit.
MS owns Minecraft and the client. They can’t stop them from running the server software, but they don’t need to connect to it from the client.
TL;DR: Fascists fucking over (mostly) fascists. How about we sit back, watch, learn and switch to alternatives (Luanti), or at least offline/cracked Minecraft?
(Severe sarcasm warning. Look away if you’re allergic.)
I like that they effectively compared themselves getting an email to people getting arrested for totally innocent social media posts about nothing in particular, which we can all assume is the case without looking into at all. I also like that they’re asking for widespread outrage against this, and want a person’s name to
attackconverse sincerely with in the Free Marketplace of Ideas™. Such a good, honest person we can definitely trust implicitly, trying to protect Freeze Peach™ from Woke™ Left-Wing™ tyrants like Microsoft.Maybe “like” is the wrong word. Hmmm.
[Not sarcasm] Right, we know what’s going on here. Gross, cruel, hateful people just wanna have endless “rights” over everyone else and I’m so sick of their games I can hardly even type a non-sarcastic sentence. Ugh. Bleh. Et cetera. 🙄
Self-hosted private server, just like a lemmy instance, one joins out of their own will. Imagine mega corporations being able to decide what is acceptable on your lemmy instance and take it down if they don’t like it?
If you were in violation of lemmy’s terms of use, yeah…
They aren’t using their own software here.
"if you were in violation of lemmy’s terms of use, yeah…” wait, is there a central lemmy that can nuke other instances? I thought the whole point of the Fediverse was that if you don’t like an instance, you just defederate from it, and that there was no central power.
Yeah, we used to own the software we bought and could do whatever we wanted with it on our private storage, but now capitalism has realized it’s more lucrative to only sell licenses. Imagine Microsoft/Apple/Google erasing your privately stored documents tomorrow because they contained stuff against their policies. Very dangerous when you have governments banning abortion, trans rights, and even labeling antifascism as terrorism.
I can’t believe the number of people thinking trillion dollar mega corporations overreach is good just because it’s happening to others. Tomorrow, it’s you - that’s why we need more consumer rights and privacy protection, but the thing about rights is that they are for everyone and not just for the people you pick.
is there a central lemmy that can nuke other instances?
There is a legal process. Violating the AGPL that Lemmy is released under, for example.
Edited to add “Not letting me use slurs is a slippery slope to blocking positive lgbtqia statements” is an insane take, BTW.
The answer is simple - dont use their shit or abide by their terms. No, the intolerant do not gain any advantage with me by trying to cover with “freedom of speech” or “but what if they do it to trans folks?!?”
These are the people denigrating others, and while using a licensed piece of software too. Guess what - its under their licensing, thats their mistake. They can also stop being cool with having a Nazi bar.
I don’t think AGPLv3 license would prevent someone from opening a nazi bar lemmy though…
It would not.
I don’t believe it said it would not either.
I said if it was in violation of the established terms.
What Microsoft is doing with Minecraft should be illegal. After they purchased Minecraft from Mojang, they started changing the rules so instead of being a game you have purchased and you play with your friends how you want to play it, it’s a game that you have a temporary license to use in a way that Microsoft thinks is appropriate for small children, even if you are hosting your own private server like these people are doing. Microsoft doesn’t like the way that these people are playing the game and talking outside the game, so they are taking the game away. You may not like these people because they sound like the kind of people that use “free speech” as an excuse for hate speech, but would it be the same if Microsoft were taking away the game from servers that allowed people to specify their pronouns or use different color combinations associated with LGBTQ representation, which they may soon be pressured to do by the government of the country they are headquartered in?
While I would normally agree with this argument, this also comes right after they announced that they will stop obfuscating the code to make the game easier to mod. Most other software? Sure, changing the terms after the sale and all is shit. This? Write a mod. It doesn’t take that long if you know some Java. Or play on an earlier version I guess, or put the server in offline mode, etc.
Ah, of course it’s about the serious violations on free speech in *checks notes* the brutal dictatorships of Britain and Germany. The dictatorship of common sense dictating you how not to be an asshole.
That’s so terrible!
Britain marked Palestinian Action as a terrorist group and Germany has also cracked down on pro-Palestinian content.
These are not the bastions of freedom that you seem to think they are.
You maybe know that it’s not these cases they’re referring to when they talk about the lack of free speech.
but do we? Microsoft is absolutely a mega-corp and would not hesitate to screw over people for money. If you’re anti-bigoty, don’t assume they’re your friend. Maybe someone “insulted” Charlie Kirk, or said that ICE are Nazis. Remember Jimmy Kimmel? I get your sarcasm in your original post, but I think you’re making an assumption that corporations are in the right when they take down speech, when they’d just as quickly shut down a trans-supportive group as they would a transphobic group.
This seems entirely tangential to the thread. At least from what I’m reading, they’re discussing whether Britain and Germany allow freedom of speech. Nobody in the thread seems to be talking about MS’s stance.
I think the statement that Microsoft is not your friend is noncontroversial, a given, and applies to every large corporation on the planet.
eh, the exaggeration aside…the trend lately IS extremely worrying.
especially the treatment of protesters.
that said I’m pretty sure that’s got little to do with this situation…tend to agree with the others ITT: “libertarian” and “free speech” is seldom a good combination of words…
I can’t deny there were some cases where the authorities have exaggerated. Especially recently. But you know where these people are actually coming from.
Tomorrow, to conform to the new regime, Microsoft starts to shut down private servers with mentions to LGBT and Antifa.
If you don’t stand up for free speech when its idiots using slurs, there will be no one left to stand up for you tomorrow when its your speech under attack.I’m glad someone else sees it. I’m very unsettled by the widespread support for corporation-determined censorship on servers Microsoft doesn’t even pay for. Did we forget Jimmy Kimmel? Do you not know of the “Chat Reports” feature??
the ability for nazis to be nazis is not the same as queer people being persecuted for existing
No, but, we’re not in control of the standards here. This is how every censorship process goes. It’s “For the Children” or it’s about stopping Nazis, and then when the system’s established and normalized, they creep it towards oppression and suppression. How people are supporting this with everything else we see in 2025 is beyond me. Palestine Action. Kimmel. Kirk.
Reminder: The UK implemented Real ID-verification as a requirement to see porn. On Day 2, it was blocking the Russian-Ukraine war and Israeli genocide in Palestine – two topics I’d say UK leadership is on the wrong side of. Just last September, Microsoft figurehead Bill Gates was singing praises to Donald Trump and Gates owns stake in companies executing Trump’s deportations.
Minecraft is actually a spiritual successor to a mid 1940s board game entitled MeineCraft.
The original Minecraft creator, Notch, has long looked up to the author of the original and particularly idolizes the 34th Revision of the popular game.
For more information google Notch Hitler R34
