Minecraft chat reporting and restriction

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Ever since the release of Minecraft version 1.19.1 in July 2022, Minecraft players can be reported for chat messages that were purportedly sent by them. It has been alleged that as of June 20, 2026, players can be arbitrarily banned from all online worlds (private or otherwise) for fake messages they did not send. Additionally, in February 2026, chat is restricted by default in the UK to comply with the UK Online Safety Act.

Background

Minecraft is a block-based multiplayer sandbox game made by Mojang Studios. The game received criticism following Mojang's acquisition by Microsoft.

Chat restrictions

Chat restriction and reporting

A mechanism for chat restriction was implemented in 1.16.3 for use in parental controls, allowing certain "user flags" to be placed on an account to block it from accessing certain features. However, as this is connected to the player's Microsoft account, parents are not the only ones who can change user flags: Microsoft can also alter them under its own discretion, without the user's consent (or the parents' consent if parental control is enabled).

Introduced in Minecraft version 1.19.1, users can be reported for inappropriate chat messages. When a player is reported, they could be temporarily or permanently banned from all multiplayer gameplay, including private servers and local area network (LAN) games. A mod for Java Edition called "No Chat Reports" was created to prevent players to be able to report others. On official Minecraft Realms servers, chat messages are automatically scanned and player can be banned even if their massages haven't been reported by anyone else.

Being banned for chat messages removes the user's access to Minecraft Realms, a paid service which is advertised as "always-online" (despite frequent downtime). It is the only way for a user to play on the same world across different devices, and users are banned from it regardless of whether they play on it alone. Mojang continues to bill users for the service while their access is revoked.

Age verification in the UK

In January 2026, Microsoft announced that in February 2026, Minecraft players from the UK region are blocked from chatting (Java Edition) or restricted to friend-only chat (Pocket Edition, Xbox and Bedrock Edition) unless the client's Xbox account is age-verified. Microsoft is planning to expand the restriction to other regions.^{[citation needed]}

Ban wave

As of July 19, 2026, numerous players are being banned since the weekend of June 20. Among those banned are YouTubers, some of whom have millions of subscribers. Many of them have reported that they have not sent any messages in chat, some saying they haven't played the game for weeks, or that they haven't sent any chat messages or played with other users. Users have hypothesized that Mojang reviews "hate speech and discrimination" bans with AI as they purportedly do not work over the weekend. A Discord user alleged they made a spoof user which they attached to the player ID and were responsible for some of the bans, as well as claiming responsibility for bans that had not at that time occurred.

Microsoft's response

In response to questions about the Player Reporting feature, Mojang says that they do not "monitor traffic or chat on private Java servers" and that all bans come from reports from players and not bots. They say "We need to provide safeguards that will help keep all of our players safe and welcome in the online environments where they play Minecraft" and hope the feature reduces toxicity.

During the initial ban wave in June, Mojang Studios said in a PR statement sent to content creators: "We're actively looking into what happened. Our support team worked quickly over the weekend to help restore access to those who were impacted, and they're keeping a close eye on the situation." Access was restored for several content creators after the weekend.

Consumer response

The restrictions are implemented on the Minecraft client rather than the server, so there are user-generated mods to bypass these restrictions.

Removing cryptographic signatures

"No Chat Reports" removes cryptographic signatures from chat messages, making them unreportable. It also disables telemetry. For servers running Spigot, "NoEncryption" is another alternative.

Removing client-side restrictions

The mod "No Chat Restrictions" removes the client-side restrictions that prevent the use of multiplayer features, in particular in-game chat. It was created by the user Aizistral after the chat restrictions announcement.

Encryption mods

The "SecureChat" mod adds encrypts the user's chat messages, making all chat messages unable to be read by any user without decrypting it.