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
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 are custom ways of validating account
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.
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.
They are tied to your
MojangMicrosoft account, though.Yup