The Fifth Column is a Minecraft hacking and griefing group. We created Project Copenhiemer which is a Minecraft server scanning tool. Copenhiemer scans the internet every 20 minutes for minecraft servers, logs players, server versions, mods and more.
Originally we had created it to find players and grief their server worlds, highlighting how much information about players is leaked from Mojangs default server configuration. They have put some features into the game to stop this information from being leaked but have made it an opt in system which no one uses or is even aware of.
We have become increasingly worried about the direction of Mojang's safety policies and we believe they are just playing lip service to the actual problems at hand.
Online gaming and gaming coms has a seriously unaddressed problem with child safety.
Mojang's reasoning for chat reporting is to protect children. Chat reporting does absolutely nothing to solve this problem. You can report people for swearing, drug/alcohol references, etc. You cannot report a player for child exploitation unless they use the chat system to do so.
As an example, I know one server admin that disabled chat entirely on his large server only to have pedophiles use in game signs to message and groom children over Skype and Discord.
If Mojang were serious about protecting children, they would stop developing their paternalistic chat surveillance system and split multiplayer children and 18+ play from each other.
For example, children should only be able to join under 18's Mojang hosted servers (realms) where conduct can be heavily monitored and 18+ players join multiplayer servers where children cannot play.
It is clear they have thought about this problem for a total of 5 minutes and have shut down healthy & reasonable debate about their solution to avoid embarrassment and scrutiny.
How do you propose MS/Mojang determine who is and is not an actual child? Require parents to provide legal documents of their children? Photographic confirmation? Time and time again it has been proven that attempts to segregate the internet into adult/child zones will fail.
opt-in "self flagging". Logic is a parent can report the date of birth of the child at time of purchase (maybe set up an email to receive a confirmation in case you want to disable the kid mode).
Anyone who has played anything in the MMO genre over the past couple of decades can tell you that most moderation systems are a joke and as automated as possible, with very very few moderators looking at reports.
If that system can actually be implemented, it would make playing minecraft as a non-groomer adult so much more fun, too. Child players on these public servers tend to beg hard for valuable in-game items, and frustratingly though understandably, they complain a lot about chat posts above their reading level. If Microsoft/Mojang made an adults-only Java version to solve this problem and I had to use my ID to prove who I am, I would buy the game again, at double price. Worth every penny. And they'd save resources by not trying to boil the entire in-game communication ocean.
> For example, children should only be able to join under 18's Mojang hosted servers (realms) where conduct can be heavily monitored and 18+ players join multiplayer servers where children cannot play.
Underappreciated aspect is that quite a lot, most actually, 18+ don't like unmoderated spaces either.
The absolute worst people in the gaming scene (griefers) complaining about this must mean it's a good thing. Why do you enjoy ruining people's servers?
So that analogy makes absolutely no sense considering they grief and ruin active servers, and destroy people's hard work. I don't understand how they can live with themselves. The careless attitude to this fact by the poster, casually mentioning they are part of the group like it's something normal, makes it even more unempathetic.
Kids can be mean to each other too; so I do support some sort of parental control (OS level) which Minecraft, software generally, should interact with. Also servers which provide parents with tools to better monitor the interactions.
I disagree about splitting up families, but do agree that a safety mode where children are in more heavily allow-listed environments should be standard.
The Fifth Column is a Minecraft hacking and griefing group. We created Project Copenhiemer which is a Minecraft server scanning tool. Copenhiemer scans the internet every 20 minutes for minecraft servers, logs players, server versions, mods and more.
Originally we had created it to find players and grief their server worlds, highlighting how much information about players is leaked from Mojangs default server configuration. They have put some features into the game to stop this information from being leaked but have made it an opt in system which no one uses or is even aware of.
We have become increasingly worried about the direction of Mojang's safety policies and we believe they are just playing lip service to the actual problems at hand.
Online gaming and gaming coms has a seriously unaddressed problem with child safety. Mojang's reasoning for chat reporting is to protect children. Chat reporting does absolutely nothing to solve this problem. You can report people for swearing, drug/alcohol references, etc. You cannot report a player for child exploitation unless they use the chat system to do so.
As an example, I know one server admin that disabled chat entirely on his large server only to have pedophiles use in game signs to message and groom children over Skype and Discord.
If Mojang were serious about protecting children, they would stop developing their paternalistic chat surveillance system and split multiplayer children and 18+ play from each other.
For example, children should only be able to join under 18's Mojang hosted servers (realms) where conduct can be heavily monitored and 18+ players join multiplayer servers where children cannot play.
It is clear they have thought about this problem for a total of 5 minutes and have shut down healthy & reasonable debate about their solution to avoid embarrassment and scrutiny.