There Will Be An Appeals Process
Mojang's community manager stated that the company will not reverse its controversial player reporting feature and demanded an end to harassment of Mojang employees.
MojangMeesh clarified via Reddit that the company values feedback from players, but it won't necessarily alter the design principles Mojang Studios abides to-this also includes the upcoming reports system. They asked players to stop "following Mojang employees here on Reddit" and harass them in unrelated threads. Nearly 2000 people have downvoted the comment at the time of writing.
Minecraft players have been up in arms about the new player reporting system since it was announced a month ago, but it was finally implemented as part of yesterday's 1.19.1 update. It allows players on both private and Mojang-hosted multiplayer servers to flag inappropriate messages in chat for review by Mojang investigators, potentially resulting in suspensions and bans for players that violate Minecraft's community guidelines even on self-hosted servers. Fans are concerned that the system could result in player bans for messages that have been taken out of context and, more generally, that it gives Microsoft too many power to dictate the content on its platform.
I don’t think their argument lacks merit, even though some players are acting terribly about it. It's difficult to imagine a world where the system doesn't ban someone simply because a joke was misinterpreted. Although there will be appeals, it is also true that there are many misconceptions about how the system works. If you look through any discussion on the topic, you'll quickly find someone complaining about the monitoring of their chat by Microsoft or fearing that they will be banned from cursing. According to Mojang’s FAQ on reporting system, neither of these are possible.
Mojang is in a bit of a bind on this one. A thread from Stuart Duncan-who runs a Minecraft server for children with autism-shows just how much awful stuff Minecraft plays host to on a regular basis. Duncan shares reports and studies from the BBC and the ADL that show how the game is used by racists and predators. It seems important to provide tools to combat this behavior. While it's true that 'think of the children' scare stories get used to justify reactionary policies in real life, a tool that lets players report dodgy chat messages in Minecraft doesn't really seem like the thin end of a draconian wedge.
Stop trying to speak for everyone by saying "noone asked for this" or that "the entire community hates the idea" or that "noone needs this." "If you're worried about exploits, that's great. You can too. I get it. minecraft But real people can be saved. July 27, 2022
In other Minecraft news, Mojang recently announced that the game won't be featuring NFTs, as they're at odds with its "values of creative inclusion". At least that move only seemed to garner enthusiastic support from the playerbase, although there's been no word yet on what that AI they trained to play Minecraft thinks about it.
