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
Hahahaha, they violated that well over a decade ago. It was supposed to give acceas to all future releases at one point, which died the moment it released on consoles. iirc people were pretty upset about it way back when.
Unfortunately the actual text of the alpha license terms appear to be lost to time, but you can find a number of posts online claiming the same thing, that it was worded in a way to indicate the license covered all future versions (across all systems), not just all future updates of java (and bedrock if you converted your account early enough).
While that may be true, that fact is immaterial. Microsoft can control which servers can exist, and thus they can and will do anything they want. The only way around them is to mod the game so that it’s more like a Terraria model, where anyone can run a server and anyone can connect to it.
this is already how it works for the most part, they just have Microsoft acting as a middle-man for player accounts as a form of DRM. you can remove microsoft from the equation entirely by using “offline mode” which also allowed cracked players to join.
Wait seriously? I’ve never played Minecraft, but the only control Microsoft has is an optional(?) account? Without that you can use any version of minecraft you want to connect to any server you want? That can’t be right, otherwise I can’t understand why this thread exists.
neither can I honestly, without mojang’s servers as a middleman there would be no account security and no skins, but both of those problems are easily fixed through server side mods/plugins made for that purpose.
this actually pisses me off a whole lot because i’ve hosted minecraft servers for over 10 years, and until recently Mojang had a completely hand’s off approach. the way I see it: if I’m hosting it on my own hardware then Mojang can get their filthy hands off it, only i decide what goes on my own god damn server.
Right, so it sounds like there needs to be a Mod that allows Minecraft clients to bypass central auth, I suspect a mod like that would look very similar to piracy as far as Microsoft is concerned.
no, the official server client has a setting called “offline mode” which bypasses the central auth without any mods what so ever, mods are only required to get back custom skins and security features
players could continue playing on their accounts like normal, they just need to do an extra “login” once they enter the server, to verify they aren’t spoofing as someone else
But in that “offline” mode, can you join a server or is it local only?