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
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):
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
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
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.
Is it though? Like, really, is it? In the US the government is possibly doing shit like labeling transgender people as nihilistic violent extremists. The Project 2025 shit is coming fast. I really don’t like people using racial slurs either. But the idea that it could be very soon that things like speaking about some LGBTQ topics gets policed more and corporations go along with it is not as far fetched as it seems. A year ago I’d probably have a different opinion.
And I wanna be clear, I’m not defending people using slurs. I think it’s fine for Microsoft to not host that server on a public list of servers, I guess. I’m really just saying the slope is more slippery than previously thanks to the MAGA crowd. I’m not really sure how I feel about it all, I’m still in the cognitive dissonance phase as my mind works out where I really stand. I’ve been lucky enough that speech I consider acceptable has been what speech others considered acceptable for my whole life, but the idea that queer topics come under fire isn’t crazy.
I’m of two minds on this. I agree that fewer safe spaces for bigots is fantastic and pushes back against the normalization of some really vile things as “just an opinion”, “just joking”, “voicing all sides”, “making up funny stories about famous people”, “just boys being boys”, or other means of “criticizing” those in power.
However, we are ACTIVELY sliding down the slippery slope that people have been calling a fallacy for over a decade, and watching the same arguments used to create spaces free from the most hateful people on the internet get twisted and co-opted by those same people to ban and punish genuine criticism of atrocities and voices against abuses of power.
There are sacrifices with either choice more akin to a check in chess than an opportunity to choose a truly better outcome. Seeing all the good other Minecraft communities have done in making libraries and humanitarian resources available in creative ways gives me hope, but watching a government bedbuddy of a company like Microsoft start with the easy win of banning Nazis and bigots makes me really hope that thats truly their focus and not an opening to take out some of the amazing and creative workarounds people have done to combat censorship and human rights abuses in their own Minecraft way.