- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.ml
cross-posted from: https://ttrpg.network/post/27970929
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
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MinecraftOnline has held steadfast to its libertarian principles, and remained an oasis of freedom and openness in an increasingly closed and controlled internet.
Huh, can’t imagine what sort of harmful content was being shared!
Rainbows.
Given the reference to people being arrested in the UK (and M$'s participation in Israel’s genocide), likely Palestinian flags.
I’m confused - how can Microsoft enforce this? Aren’t individually hosted Minecraft servers outside of Microsoft’s direct control?
If this server is hosted on azure or something they would have control over, then yeah, I suppose they have to comply with Microsoft’s rules.
Several actions on a server ping Microsoft’s servers for authentication, I couldn’t login to my self hosted server because of the azure outages yesterday
Interesting, I gotta look into that more.
I’d prefer if my server for my friends didn’t phone home
That’s called offline mode. It’s a setting you can choose in the server configuration. The drawback is that there is no official account validation (because of course there can’t be, since it’s not reaching out to the authentication servers), meaning you have to basically “bring your own security”, installing a client whitelist or some other authentication method otherwise it’s open season to trolls, and that’s why it’s not as common as you might imagine it would be.
There’s an “online mode” setting you can set to false, but you also won’t have skins, and if your server was online, your inventory will be reset, and so will your spawn point
“you also won’t have skins” is fucking wild if true given those are just tiny, local assets.
Yup
They’re not tiny local assets, they’re tiny assets tied to your account and downloaded on demand from official servers, including if you don’t even join a server and just have your player head/skull spawned in in some way.
It would be nice to be able to officially have skins in offline mode, but that’s not how the game is meant to be run, and a minor enough thing I don’t really see it as an issue.
Every Minecraft server uses Mojang’s authentication servers, so every login attempt has to go through Mojang. That’s how they can enforce these things.
I’d imagine disabling authentication prevents this - but also makes a whitelist probably impossible
You’re technically bound by the Minecraft/Microsoft EULA. As others have noted, the game phones home for authentication, so Microsoft can control that.
That said, if they’re hosting the Java edition it is absolutely trivial to defeat the authentication. This is technically a license violation, but if I were these guys I would just become a pirate server and build Microsoft a nice 128 block tall obsidian and sea lantern middle finger.
How is it a liscence violation if its already coded in and you just have to change from block to allow?
It sounds like this might be similar to delisting - MinecraftOnline won’t be allowed to authenticate users against the server,
and presumably won’t be discoverable through whatever server discovery Minecraft uses. I assume Microsoft controls those.They don’t have server searches, it sounds like it’s all about authentication - without this, they need to set up their own whitelists, and custom skins won’t transfer.I’m a little shocked “Thank you for your attention to this matter” is used seriously…
Really goes to show how much a headline can sway the narrative.
Oh no, the oldest minecraft server? How could Microsoft do this? Microshit bad!
I didn’t even need to read anything from Mojang or Microsoft. As soon as I saw the Owners statement I knew this was bigots complaining about not being allowed to be shit humans wherever they like.
“Free speech under attack”, “ultimatum”, “libertarian principles”. “Oasis of Freedom and openness”? Really? These guys are sad that Microsoft won’t let them use official channels to say the n-word anymore.
Looks like they are allowed to continue being bigots, they just can’t use Microsoft’s official systems to do it.
The malignment of anyone supportive of free-speech with ‘obviously they’re bigots’ is a really dumb take that plays into the hands of oppressive governments.
Considering their examples of ‘free speech under attack’ being the UK and Germany - places that have absolutely stomped on Palestine-support protesters over the last few years, I think your assumptions could be completely off base.
They are not using Microsoft’s official systems at all - this is an expensive self-hosted services that they run, so maybe, instead of jumping to comment and saying “I don’t even need to read Mojangs statement” you probably should next time.
Free speech doesnt mean you can selfishly say anything you feel like. Humans are social creatures, words are real and have meaning and impact. Clearly the admins of this server can’t tell the nuance of that, and are just petulant children upset someone told them they were hurting other people and should stop.
Clearly the admins of this server can’t tell the nuance of that, and are just petulant children upset someone told them they were hurting other people and should stop.I didn’t even need to read anything from Mojang or MicrosoftAhh the nuance is killing me!Edit: wrong person
Not sure where your second quote comes from, but I’m sure you really showed me or something.
His first comment
That was my guess but I didnt say that so it seems odd paired with something I did say. Doesnt matter much either way though, have a nice day!
Fuck I thought you were him. Sorry
Free speech doesnt mean you can selfishly say anything you feel like.
It pretty much does, actually. I doubt your understanding of free speech.
Expression that merely offends isn’t harm.
Good straw man! Try again!
So, you don’t understand straw man fallacy either and felt like letting everyone know.
Really felt like you attacked a point I didnt make, but surely I’m just an idiot. Have a nice day!
You were directly quoted & added
words are real and have meaning and impact
someone told them they were hurting other people
What impact? Hurting with words means offend. The only credible objection is harm or you’re rejecting free speech for even lesser reasons.
So, point acknowledged as written. This doesn’t bode well with your implication:
Really felt like you attacked a point I didnt make, but surely I’m just an idiot.
Sense when did Microsoft become the “speach police”, I’m all for them shutting down problem accounts when they’re reported, but their place isn’t to patrol the chat like a physco mother reading all her kid’s texts.
No one is forced to play on a Minecraft server, if you don’t like the people there, you can leave and find somewhere else.
Corporations are only after profits, they’ll moderate based on whatever’s popular at the time and doesnt hurt their profits. Look at all the gambling/pay to win servers they don’t shit about.
Isn’t this just terminating their official partner status? I’m pretty sure they can still run their server, just not be an official partner.
The emails statement threatens IP/Domain blacklist.
Is this even doable on Microsoft/Mojang’s side, given that the server runs a rather old version? Does the game client not directly connect to the server, or does it phone home to check against a blacklist first? Did that feature exist on the older server/client version?
It was added to the game in 1.9.3r2 then moved it to their Netty library. It’s speculated that it could affect older versions but I haven’t seen anything concrete.
I’m not really sure, but I assume “if there’s a will, there’s a way”.
Connecting to private servers has to connect somehow on Microsoft/mojang’s side at least for skins.
the top comment has further emails where MConline clarifies that they do not have partner server status
Didn’t even need to read anything from Microsoft
These guys are sad that Microsoft won’t let them use official channels to say the n-word anymore.
Looks like they are allowed to continue being bigots
You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain [of free speech].
Man, lemmy really hates free speech.
I’ve been playing on this server for several years and have posted about it on here before. They have no claims system but do have a strong anti-griefing policy that allows builds from more than a decade ago to remain untouched (map). You can go exploring, and you will find builds from 2010 and new builds from a couple of months ago. It’s pretty cool seeing how building styles developed from back in Minecraft Alpha to now.
The “free speech” chat policy isn’t entirely unrestricted. The servers are hosted at Hetzner in Germany and are therefore bound to their laws. This means things such as swastikas are not allowed (neither as builds nor in chat). There have been cases where people use the n- or f-word, but it’s not common, and will not be appreciated by most players.
The owner (SlowRiot) is an interesting character. He runs a game studio and is a former director of Mensa UK with whom he had a legal fight a couple years back. He is not that active but checks on the server every so often. (SlowRiot’s MCO wiki page)
The server has been having several technical issues for a while. It is still stuck on version 1.12.2. It has various custom Sponge plugins which are still being ported over. Furthermore, it also has issues with lag, comparable to a heavily modded minecraft server.
EDIT: This is the mail in question
And the followup mails
/ignore is a pretty damn good feature if you ask me. Sad this is dismissed as “Failure to act”
teeny, unreadable images of text
Can we try accessibility?
You can click on it to zoom in. I don’t think I can change the size it renders as by default.
Accessibility means text: some people can’t read images of text. Text is a better technology for text content: reflowable to varied screen sizes, adaptable to different renderings & sizes for those with dyslexia or vision issues, multimodal (can be read by computer, rendered in braille, etc), searchable & indexable by semantic content. An image of text does none of that.
I would’ve shared it as text if I had the original email, but I don’t.
Doing a Nintendo.
deleted by creator
What’s the best way to play Minecraft on Linux these days?
PrismLauncher by far
Luanti (formely Minetest) began as a Minecraft clone but they are slowly getting away from the original with their own ideas. It is FOSS.
You can try that. Otherwise, Mojang has official release for debian based distro, arch based distro and a generic package for linux.
I tried MultIMC and like it fine
I recommend going with the PrismLauncher fork, it allows you to download everything right inside the launcher.
I use the technic launcher still - works fine.
Prism is a good all around because you can use offline accounts. I like ATlauncher for setting up servers quick though. They both work well but ATlauncher doesnt allow offline accounts.
So as far as I can tell, I’d need to buy the Java and Bedrock version from their website, then Prism launcher allows me to play it?
My main goal is I want my son to be able to play with his friends.
Yes exactly, mojang handles authentication and you get the game files from them directly. I believe java and bedrock are sold together now so if you bought bedrock on the microsoft store you might already own java.
I don’t know if it’s the best way, but I just download and install it as Linux is officially supported.
Does Minecraft have a client side server blacklist?
I thought they only did this for BE servers because of the way they have the multiplayer tab setup, but I don’t see how Mojang would be able to successfully enforce a server ban outside of litigation.
As someone else mentioned, these seems more like its because MO has “Minecraft” in their server name more than anything because afaik the server definitely isn’t as huge and popular as it used to be.
Microsoft is coming back just like good ol’ days…
