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Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by 8jy89hui on Thursday September 08, 2022 @08:29PM (#32773870)
Does anyone have any insight into why Microsoft thought this was necessary? Minecraft has been server-moderated for years now and has been wildly successful. I've never heard of any hate groups or even hateful servers (I'm sure they exist, but they don't make the news in a way that would harm Microsoft).

Is there some legislation that would make it a liability for Microsoft to not moderate all the chat? This move just seems so strange

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by ninth_ant on Thursday September 08, 2022 @08:45PM (#32774003)
You may underestimate how truly horrific some of the online communications are in any non-trivial service. Especially when kids are involved.

Having been exposed to some of the stuff going on at other companies communication systems, I have total sympathy for mojang wanting some people off of all their platforms, forever.

Most any system is built like this from the ground up, it’s rather surprising it took them this long.

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by Georgelemental on Thursday September 08, 2022 @08:50PM (#32774018)
Is it "their" platform if the server is hosted by people who are not them on hardware that is not theirs? They are just selling a license to use their executables, no? Or should be (I don't play Minecraft)
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by lolinder on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:22PM (#32774191)
In the event of abuse, parents won't draw that distinction and neither would a Twitter mob. Microsoft needs to be able to point to something concrete they're doing to keep kids safe or they're risking a scandal.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by tarakat on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:51PM (#32774382)
And who has been the greatest cheerleader of this totalitarian corporate control, where nothing happens on a platform without the blessing of its corporate master? MS have only themselves to blame, for they did everything in their power to erase that distinction.

Maybe in addition to educating users on inclusive language in MS Word [1], they could educate users about the very basics of how computers work. But that would go against MS's interests.

[1] https://www.windowscentral.com/new-microsoft-word-feature-wi...

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by Dylan16807 on Friday September 09, 2022 @12:05AM (#32775170)
For servers that kids are supposed to be on, sure. Not all servers.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by watwut on Friday September 09, 2022 @02:48AM (#32776088)
Doxxing and raids on individuals, targeted sexual harassments, there are all kinds of online actions we keep away from adult oriented internet services too.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by Dylan16807 on Friday September 09, 2022 @02:37PM (#32783208)
Maybe for very extreme things, but that's a very different setup from globally moderating profanity, nudity, alcohol, etc.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by oynqr on Friday September 09, 2022 @03:40AM (#32776458)
Account bans are not sufficient to prevent that. Never have been.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by TobyTheDog123 on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:42PM (#32774326)
A Twitter mob should not have that kind of power and if parents don't understand how Minecraft, the most popular game of the last decade+, works by now, they never will. It's appeasing a crowd that cannot and should not be appeased.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS on Thursday September 08, 2022 @10:25PM (#32774588)
Twitter mobs have gotten people fired, ostracized from society and the cops called on them. Twitter mobs are extremely powerful, but many don't see that because they agree with the mob.

But the mob comes for everyone.

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by colinmhayes on Friday September 09, 2022 @11:08AM (#32780146)
Your opinion on what power twitter mobs should have is pretty irrelevant. The reality is that they do have power, and game developers have to deal with that reality.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by TobyTheDog123 on Friday September 09, 2022 @03:47PM (#32784006)
You seem to be saying that game developers have to keep feeding the beast, so to speak.

Game developers don't have to do anything.

They choose to, and the Twitter mob grows more powerful as a result.

It's my opinion that they should stop doing that, because, as they say, the mob comes for all.

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by NoToP on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:47PM (#32774357)
Yes but these people vote and it counts the same as yours.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by philistine on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:49PM (#32774376)
You are putting a moral limit on what Microsoft should be able to do with Minecraft, not a technical one. Who's to say your morals are better ?
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by TobyTheDog123 on Friday September 09, 2022 @03:56PM (#32784108)
>Who's to say your morals are better?

The vast majority of dedicated players, common sense, and history.

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by ryeights on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:06PM (#32774089)
>They are just selling a license to use their executables, no?

Yes.

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by dodobirdlord on Thursday September 08, 2022 @11:09PM (#32774847)
If it’s entirely self-hosted servers on the user’s own hardware, then how could Microsoft ban them? What would that even mean? Microsoft’s systems must somehow be involved for a ban to have any meaning.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by Dylan16807 on Friday September 09, 2022 @12:06AM (#32775173)
They do authentication. And if you're banned they will refuse to give you your token.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by api on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:01PM (#32774061)
Software that you run that is under your control? How quaint.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by klabb3 on Friday September 09, 2022 @07:04AM (#32777749)
> Having been exposed to some of the stuff going on at other companies communication systems, I have total sympathy for mojang wanting some people off of all their platforms, forever.

Be my damn guest, as long as it's operated by Microsoft (their public vetted list of servers, realms and so on). However, Minecraft has a jar server that you can download and run yourself, which Microsoft has no business interfering with. If I want to i can setup a "Minecraft against humanity" server and invite my friends, nobody should give two shits. Just monitoring speech at all on a private server makes no sense, and should 100% be opt in.

More generally, the solution to moderation is often private or semi-private groups. There's no one size fits all moderation rules, so as far as possible let people moderate their own spaces. Otherwise you're just renting you speech permissions from a corporation.

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by thrown_22 on Thursday September 08, 2022 @10:46PM (#32774717)
> You may underestimate how truly horrific some of the online communications are in any non-trivial service. Especially when kids are involved.

Then parents should take care of their kids.

This is like dropping them off on a random street corner and then complaining someone is fucking in an adjacent alley. The world isn't kid safe and it shouldn't be.

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by dodobirdlord on Thursday September 08, 2022 @11:10PM (#32774856)
Yes, but Minecraft isn’t real life, it’s a fake world made for kids.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by thrown_22 on Thursday September 08, 2022 @11:30PM (#32774978)
It's a fake world made for everyone. Or Microsoft should add a "0-12 only" tag to the game.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by jstarfish on Thursday September 08, 2022 @08:42PM (#32773974)
I don't know The Reason (probably child exploitation), but it's telling that within the first few comments people are discussing how to abuse the system to get Minecraft YouTubers deplatformed.

The haters are in plain sight.

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by OrangeMonkey on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:21PM (#32774183)
The culture of our timeline is based around disliking someone online and bringing real world consequences to them. Whether that is by getting them fired or getting them banned from services its the flavor du jour.

To quote the big short - "They arn't confessing, they are bragging."

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by evr1isnxprt on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:40PM (#32774318)
Some people dislike what Microsoft did with Minecraft online and want to make it so the service is shut down and perhaps costs jobs!

How the turn tables.

I guess people who like to use language that’s “bad” by traditional standards will have to build something new.

I see a difference between bad acts and bad language alone; people are trained to hate certain words but are powerless to prevent certain acts so low hanging fruit is over policed. It’s an outcome of human memory which is a feature of reality we can’t do much about to soothe those who fee oppressed by loss of a bit of figurative self (Minecraft no longer being “for them”).

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by philippejara on Friday September 09, 2022 @06:49AM (#32777681)
I can kind of see their point however, those youtubers are the ones that made the game popular with kids and got the game as massive as it is today in that demographic, get them banned and suddenly you have pressure on the direct connection to those people, at least in theory.

Granted, that's probably being too charitable for probably 90% of them are most likely driven by trolling/hurting the influencer I dislike, but there certainly is some space there to abuse the feature to make a stand. Unsure if there is any value to accounts now, last I played was over a decade ago, but I assume there are special account bound things now right? otherwise said influencers would just make another account and would be pointless.

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by rawling on Saturday September 10, 2022 @06:16AM (#32789297)
> haters

...in the context of "the only way to get Microsoft to roll this back is to show how abusable it is".

> Actually, fun project. The sooner it's done, the more likely it will result in this getting pulled back:

> 1) Identify a popular Minecraft YouTuber's UUID > 2) Make a report JSON object absolutely filled with gamer words > 3) Be sure to mention multiple times that "I have the no reports plugin so you can't report me" > 4) Join as many accounts as you have to a private server > 5) Sign and submit the report JSON as each of those accounts

> Famous people losing their accounts will work.

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS on Thursday September 08, 2022 @10:28PM (#32774600)
Just like red flag laws for firearms. Reporting systems will be abused, thus the importance of backend processes to sort it out.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by lolinder on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:04PM (#32774081)
Roblox has been mired in controversy for years for failing to keep their platform safe enough for the kids they target. I'm not familiar enough to comment on the details of that controversy, but I would be surprised if that didn't feature prominently in Microsoft's decision here.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by technion on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:47PM (#32774359)
I'm fairly convinced that some of the Roblox controversy is a witch hunt. I have no knowledge of whether there have been legitimate issues, but the outcry I've seen on social media discussing Roblox and child safety often looks like a concocted story, and last month my social feeds were flooded with parents encouraging you to spread the word that Momo[0] is now spreading through Roblox and causing large groups of kids to kill themselves.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/02/momo-...

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by philistine on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:52PM (#32774393)
Watch both People Make Games video about Roblox and try to argue that the company should not deserve all the public controversy it is getting. They are actively stalling any moderation and protection because their profit margin would be severely diminished. Children's safety versus money, the choice is oh so simple.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTMF6xEiAaY

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by tomgp on Friday September 09, 2022 @02:38AM (#32776030)
Yes, highly recommend these videos. If anything the heat on Roblox is not turned up nearly high enough.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by TakeBlaster16 on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:25PM (#32774212)
What if they ran official Microsoft servers with moderated chat, but also let you join custom servers after showing a scary warning message (and maybe checked your account birthday or something too). Would that not be enough to free them of liability?
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by RUN12 on Friday September 09, 2022 @12:59AM (#32775483)
Why the assumption that they care only about liability? Minecraft is now a multi-decade game and they want to keep it as the #1 king of it's domain to sell copies for many more decades.

That will be hard if parents see headlines about "Minecraft" (no, the specific server host won't matter) being used to exploit or otherwise prey upon children and stop buying it.

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by throwaway290 on Friday September 09, 2022 @08:53AM (#32778538)
> if parents see headlines about "Minecraft" (no, the specific server host won't matter) being used to exploit or otherwise prey upon children and stop buying it

You make it sound like it's an alien concept that only us techies understand, but it is actually quite a mainstream understanding that once you legally buy a thing then whatever illegal stuff you do with it is a responsibility of law enforcement and not whoever made and sold you that thing. What is alien here is this belief that intentional remote crippling of a product with no court order or anything is somehow even legal

Anyway. If you follow the money real threat to MS bottom line is not losing a 30 bucks one time per household but having people prefer the more moddable, unlockable OG version that the cool kids are playing (JE) over recurring revenue cash cow (bedrock).

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by tarakat on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:53PM (#32774398)
Liability? Has a game developer ever been held legally liable for not policing their community hard enough?
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by kuschku on Friday September 09, 2022 @05:38AM (#32777256)
That's already what they did before this update.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by nightpool on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:26PM (#32774220)
They tried that in 2020, but it didn't seem to work effectively enough.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by watwut on Friday September 09, 2022 @02:54AM (#32776119)
That controversy is kept only inside certain circles. I think that "mired in controversy" is too strong expression for what is going on there. And also, roblox is actually banning people right and left too.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by joshspankit on Thursday September 08, 2022 @10:04PM (#32774445)
This has been coming ever since they bought Minecraft.

On one end is control, and on the other end is freedom from responsibility.

Since MS wants to continuously increase control (for example: by providing a version of Minecraft with a marketplace that they take a cut of), they must also take on increasing amounts of responsibility. Continuing far enough down this path means that every safety and security concern becomes theirs to deal with.

In contrast, Notch originally did almost nothing to control what players did and only trivial amounts of responsibility were placed on him.

The same piling on of responsibilities happened to Apple when they started selling Music.

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by ceeplusplus on Thursday September 08, 2022 @08:40PM (#32773961)
1. Minecraft has a lot of kids playing it, particularly kids whose parents blame Microsoft for poor behavior rather than learning to parent.

2. California recently passed a bill which would fine companies which fail to prevent kids from accessing features which are "detrimental" to children's health [1]. Naturally, Microsoft doesn't want to get fined for what edgy gamers say online.

3. (speculation) The censorship police that have infected every other major online platform have now reached gaming.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/30/californoa-childrens-onlin...

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by garciasn on Thursday September 08, 2022 @08:59PM (#32774058)
My 12 year old has been bombarded with the message this is coming and will be the end of HyPixel/SkyBlock from many of the prominent Minecraft YouTubers he watches.

Let me tell you: if my money is down the drain because some little jackwagon mass-reports some random server and my kids’ accounts are locked, I’m gonna be fucking furious.

If the hoopla around this is true, Microsoft is going to relive its 1990s level hatred from the nerd community—just as parents instead of dorky teens and twenty-somethings running Linux.

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by bisby on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:29PM (#32774250)
Microsoft profits off Bedrock ("Minecraft for WIndows") because they can charge for basically everything, because there are no mods (addons). Java edition is where the mods are. Which is why hypixel/skyblock are on java edition. Ive seen speculation that Microsoft is adding this to have a process for banning java edition players. And then they just... stop selling java edition. Then there are no new java players ever again, and the existing player pool slowly dwindles because they either get banned, or their friends get banned and they don't want to play java alone, and the only option is to go to the microtransaction-fest that is bedrock. And now you live in their walled garden.

I would say that this is pure conspiracy level stuff, but that would be literally the final step of a EEE plan. Microsoft has done this before and there would be no surprise if they actually did that. Will they? I dunno, but it's overall a heavy handed bad move. Everything I've heard about the system is that it's not a great idea.

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by ohgodplsno on Friday September 09, 2022 @05:35AM (#32777245)
Ah, yes. Slowly ban the 30 million Minecraft Java owners by... letting users report them ? Goes right in line with removing all cars by increasing wind speed by 5% to increase gas consumption and frying every electronics by outputting 231v instead of 230v. Should only take about 50 years.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by bisby on Friday September 09, 2022 @12:34PM (#32781405)
They aren't targeting all 30 million java owners. They are targetting the ones who are most likely to make microtransaction purchases, ie the people who are playing on heavily populated multiplayer servers (single players don't use chat so it wouldn't matter, etc). And from what I've seen, the report function is pretty easy to manipulate, so if you can't renew your account (granted, right now you can, but with microsoft, you never know), a large portion of that player base might wind up off java quickly.

Find the whales, force the whales to move to walled garden.

Granted that's still a dumb idea, because those people want to be playing Hypixel, which isn't on bedrock. So maybe this is just microsoft's move to say "See, no one is playing Java as much" so they can just stop doing java dev.

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS on Thursday September 08, 2022 @10:30PM (#32774617)
Point of order - there are plenty of mods for Bedrock. Foxynotail has some great ones.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by kuschku on Friday September 09, 2022 @05:39AM (#32777268)
No, there are glorified command blocks for Bedrock. No actual mods exist anymore. At the beginning, MCPE had a handful of proper mods, but Microsoft after the acquisition did everything they could to kill those.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS on Friday September 09, 2022 @07:28PM (#32786106)
Semantics. They still modify the gameplay from vanilla, ergo they fit the definition if a "mod".
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by Dylan16807 on Friday September 09, 2022 @12:10AM (#32775202)
They just gave java edition to every bedrock owner, so I'm not very concerned about the "stopping sales" idea.

But this sure is a walled garden extension I don't like.

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by kimmeld on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:48PM (#32774361)
Sounds like they learned from Apple pretty well.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by dane-pgp on Thursday September 08, 2022 @10:14PM (#32774512)
Speaking of Apple, this reminds me of the story that when Microsoft bought Bungie Studios in 2000, they got an angry phone call from Steve Jobs, since Bungie were the last big game studio that made games for Mac computers.

https://www.macrumors.com/2010/10/26/apple-history-jobs-rage...

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by dijit27 on Friday September 09, 2022 @01:51AM (#32775751)
What did Microsoft learn from Apple here?
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by RUN12 on Friday September 09, 2022 @12:56AM (#32775463)
Because Microsoft sees what's happening to Roblox and what has happened to countless children-oriented online game platforms and wants to make absolutely certain they don't have headlines about adults abusing children, exploiting children, taking children off-site, or so on from "Minecraft". Because you can be damn sure the parents won't read the nuances of what server it was.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by Spooky23 on Thursday September 08, 2022 @10:27PM (#32774593)
Game chats have been used for all sorts of criminal activity.

I’d guess that Microsoft gets subpoenas for that stuff and felt it was a risk to be unable to respond.

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by ShowalkKama on Thursday September 08, 2022 @11:06PM (#32774825)
no they don't. Microsoft doesn't have access to chat logs of 3rd party servers (read: all multiplayer non-realm servers)
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by synicalx on Friday September 09, 2022 @12:06AM (#32775174)
I'd say this is to appeal to parents, who buy Minecraft and authorise associated micro-transactions for their Minecraft-playing children. It's a much easier sell if MS can "guarantee" that little Timmy won't hear bad words.

At the end of the day it's a big market, one to which Minecraft is heavily targeted, and parental paranoia is very profitable.

Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by Kiro on Friday September 09, 2022 @02:38AM (#32776036)
What? Minecraft is notorious for being one of the worst platforms in this regard. Imagine unmoderated Roblox.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by sudosysgen on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:52PM (#32774390)
There has been increasing abuse with gambling and predatory Minecraft servers marketed towards kids.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by pbhjpbhj on Friday September 09, 2022 @08:12AM (#32778175)
And Microsoft doesn't want others getting in on its financial predation. /snark
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by weberer on Friday September 09, 2022 @06:24AM (#32777524)
Because a new Minecraft account costs $30, and they know people will just make a new one if permabanned. It's an extremely scummy way to squeeze out more money from existing customers.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by decremental on Thursday September 08, 2022 @08:45PM (#32773997)
You staff a company with the kind of people who think this sort of crap is a great idea and that's what you get. Clamping down on people just saying whatever they want, good or bad, true or false, is going on literally everywhere. This is just yet another instance of it. The majority of it comes from tech companies. This should come as very little surprise.
Re:It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play ar... by fnordpiglet on Thursday September 08, 2022 @09:49PM (#32774373)
Because the tears of online asshats are super tasty.