Minecraft adds a 'Player Chat Reporting' feature in Snapshot 22w24a

    Well, the update is delayed as I'm sure we've all noticed. I have a hunch the system wasn't ready and they still need to test it or iron out the issues. Maybe they're going to try to take a different approach to make it harder to bypass? I'll bet good money they're not going to change their mind and it's gonna ship

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    ↩  Telesphoreo I’ll bet good money they’re not going to change their mind and it’s gonna ship

    its defo shipping. i doubt they're back peddling at this point.

    also they've released a new blog post and FAQ relating to this

    https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/…-reporting-tool

    https://help.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/articles/7317376541197

    assrix, assryx, asterisk, *

    awesomeist tf blokey

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    What technical measures are there to prevent messages being forged?

    1.19 introduced cryptographically signed chat, which prevents the forging and/or rearranging of player messages. Any message that has been forged will be flagged for our moderators.

    This seriously implies that even unsigned chat messages can be reported.

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    ↩  videogamesm12 It's a very vague statement. I don't think it's really fair to make any sort of assumption from it... but from what I can guess from that vague statement, it means that the moderators will know that the message has been forged. That doesn't imply they're going to ban anyone for it.

    I think a large majority of the criticism waged towards the chat reporting system is unfounded and purely fearmongering

    Here's my post debunking and offering my thoughts on most of these things.

    Chat Forging & Fradulent Reports

    No, 1337 hackers cannot haxx into the Big Mojang mainframe and file billions of reports against your account, doing so would most likely get THEM permanently banned from Minecraft instead. And also, I imagine the endpoint would be heavily limited.

    False banning

    This is happens with every sort of moderation/report system that's ever been invented. Of course, Mojang have an appeals section, in-case you truly were falsebanned.

    Anarchy servers

    Seeing as the biggest anarchy server as of the moment (2b2t of course) is running on 1.12.2, which entirely lacks any sort of chat signature system (the thing that allows chat reporting to be feasible in the first place), it's not going to affect it. At all.

    I'd like to bring attention to this section of the Minecraft Eula (which every server has to agree to):

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    If you are going to make something available on or through our Game, it must not be offensive to people or illegal, it must be honest, and it must be your own creation. Some examples of the types of things you must not make available using our Game include: posts that include racist or homophobic language; posts that are bullying or trolling; posts that are offensive or that damage our or another person's reputation; posts that include porn or someone else's creation or image; or posts that impersonate a moderator or try to trick or exploit people.

    Any content you make available on our Game must also be your creation or you must have permission or the legal right to do it. You must not and you agree that you will not make any content available, using the Game that infringes the rights of others.

    We reserve the right to take down any content in our discretion.

    tl;dr This means Mojang are allowed to moderate (or take down) anything that occurs on the server, for any reason.

    Anarchy servers may have no rules, but Minecraft does and it has since 2014 (when the EULA was introduced). It's just that now, Mojang have allocated more resources towards enforcing it. By agreeing to the eula in eula=true, you're agreeing to Mojang being able to moderate your server for you, even if you don't like that.

    Spigot

    The chat reports don't work on Spigot anyways, as said by kennytv here (a maintainer of Paper).

    In Conclusion

    This won't affect the end player in any way. Unless you're spamming racial slurs or making bomb threats on Minecraft, you aren't going to get banned from the entirety of Minecraft. And also, if you're going to do that, I'd recommend choosing a better place than a block game...

    The time is upon us. Microsoft has initiated the Pissening (they piss all over their own game.)

    We must peemain strong and unite to overcome this peediculous chat moderation "peeature." Vote now on the Minecraft Peedback pissues in the following link:

    https://feedback.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/search?query=chat+report

    Also, while I'm at it:

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    ↩  Allink No, 1337 hackers cannot haxx into the Big Mojang mainframe and file billions of reports against your account, doing so would most likely get THEM permanently banned from Minecraft instead. And also, I imagine the endpoint would be heavily limited.

    Yeah, but they can just forge the "reportable content" on their end. What happens when someone clicks a click event that makes them send a message that violates the guidelines?

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    ↩  Panther Yeah, but they can just forge the “reportable content” on their end. What happens when someone clicks a click event that makes them send a message that violates the guidelines?

    If Mojang has half a brain, they won't let the client sign chat messages sent by click events. But honestly, it's Mojang, predicting what they're going to do is like trying to predict an earthquake...

    This is probably by far the most controversial action to take place. Mojang Microsoft doesn't own third-party servers, and the servers are usually moderated very well even in the standards Microsoft has in their EULA. This just sounds like a waste of time for something already handled by their own community, and probably better than even Microsoft's effort.

    Even if the servers aren't moderated as Microsoft wishes, WE are in control of OUR servers. I wouldn't be surprised if someone started making a patch as a way to protect their players from the report system, so… what's the point in making a built-in report system, Microsoft?

    To be completely honest, I ended up not caring about what Minecraft has been dishing out since 1.16\~. The fact that I can't even remember what each version gave beyond 1.14 should really be a telltale sign that Microsoft is just pulling updates out of whatever dumpster they find. Staying at 1.17.1 is the best we can go for, since that version doesn't have the report system, thus no bullcrap. If this bleeds into older versions too… I dunno.

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    ↩  Allink Seeing as the biggest anarchy server as of the moment (2b2t of course) is running on 1.12.2, which entirely lacks any sort of chat signature system (the thing that allows chat reporting to be feasible in the first place), it’s not going to affect it. At all.

    You do know there's anarchy servers in newer versions, right? And 2b2t is probably gonna update soon.

    Quote from SuperRyn

    You do know there's anarchy servers in newer versions, right?

    Yes. Either they have to remove the chat signatures with a plugin, or probably with PaperBin which is now alot of them or their community has to stop saying easily relatable things. Also, try to be a little more subtle in attempting to insult someone's intelligence ;)

    Quote from SuperRyn

    And 2b2t is probably gonna update soon.

    After 5 years of staying on 1.12.2, sure. It would be very easy for Hausemaster to update to 1.19 and develop a plugin in the background that removes the 1.19.1 chat signatures himself which I believe is what he usually does.

    Quote from IxGamerXL

    Mojang Microsoft doesn't own third-party servers

    No. Of course they don't. However, they own the Minecraft Client and Bukkit (although Bukkit is stagnant), so they're free to do whatever the hell they want to within the boundaries of law.

    Quote from IxGamerXL

    and the servers are usually moderated very well

    Yes, most of them are. However, in my time I've seen some absolutely deplorable people on Mojang and the most that's ever happened to them is being banned from a few servers. There's nothing preventing someone from Doxxing someone, getting banned and doing it all over again. This system has been put in place to prevent heinous people like that from affecting as many people.

    Quote from IxGamerXL

    Even if the servers aren't moderated as Microsoft wishes, WE are in control of OUR servers.

    No. You absolutely are not. If you do what most people who run a server do which is to download Paper, install a few plugins and change a few settings, you're entirely at the whim of who develops the server and the plugins not introducing some backdoor or equally stupid shit you don't want.

    If you want to truly be in control of your server, you need to either develop your own server software from scratch or rely on a maintained open-source (so you know what the hell they're actually doing, unlike Minecraft + you can fork it freely) project.

    Quote from IxGamerXL

    To be completely honest, I ended up not caring about what Minecraft has been dishing out since 1.16\~. The fact that I can't even remember what each version gave beyond 1.14 should really be a telltale sign that Microsoft is just pulling updates out of whatever dumpster they find. Staying at 1.17.1 is the best we can go for, since that version doesn't have the report system, thus no bullcrap. If this bleeds into older versions too… I dunno.

    The game has argubaly decreased in quality since 1.12.2 or maybe even 1.7.10. Both performance and feature wise.

    However, the drawback with using older versions of the game is that they're often vulnerable to security issues (i.e. Log4Shell although this is sorta mitigated but not really in most launchers), crash exploits and general bugs that were patched in later versions.

    Thus, that's why I choose to always use the latest version of Minecraft with a few mods to improve performance and maybe even ViaFabric/multiconnect (depending on if EarthComputer had updated in time for the new release).

    I would also like to state that most of the anti-chat reporting content on YouTube and other platforms like Discord seem to mostly be FUD or just not understanding the topic at hand. For example, I saw some mod developer who doesn't seem to know what he's talking about falsely claim you could be impersonated, which is quite literally impossible unless you zip up your profilekeys folder and send it to the attacker (or install something that allows the attacker to do that themselves).

    The only good chat reporting related video I've found is the one by KennyTV, a Paper (the server software Scissors is forked from) maintainer.

    Your chat reporting is only as secure as your system and as such it's entirely your fault if someone gets ahold of your private key.

    I'd like to address the claim that this somehow invades your server privacy, which is entirely untrue. Reporting is only executed at the behest of a player, Microsoft/Mojang will have absolutely no access to the chat messages you send unless a player decides, of their own volition, to report them to Microsoft/Mojang. As such, it's akin to the player screenshotting your chat messages or reporting them through a server-controlled moderation system.

    Lots of people seem to think the system is entirely broken and I don't think that's entirely the truth. Making the client sign chat messages is quite literally the absolute best way you could prove the authenticity of messages. You know what would happen if a company implemented literally anything else? You'd get a situation akin to the recent false-banning of ROBLOX players who joined specific games which pretended to receive chat messages from the client (which are unsigned fyi).