Mojang shuts down community-run Minecraft servers

For the past 5-8 years, Mojang, the developers of the title Minecraft, and a subsidiary of Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios publishing brand, have enforced countless server shutdowns citing violations of the Minecraft End User License Agreement (EULA). However, said enforcement has been unfairly biased against operators of smaller Minecraft Java Edition servers, abusing vague and often inaccessible community guidelines to shut down these servers.^[1][2][3]

An example of this occurred in late 2024 involving the Minecraft server 'McWar', wherein Mojang contacted the developer of the server to shut it down.^[1][2][3]

Additionally, MinecraftOnline was threatened by Mojang in late 2025 over their freedom of speech policy (Archived), stating that they need to repeal it, or risk being blacklisted by Mojang, meaning that players would not be able to access the server.^[4]

The server 2b2t originally known for having no rules has fallen victim to Mojang's enforcement with the current server owner Curtis implementing anti free speech rules, chat filters and removing map arts to abide by these restrictions.

Minecraft is a voxel-based sandbox game created by Markus "Notch" Persson, and currently maintained by Mojang Studios, a subsidiary of Xbox Game Studios, owned by Microsoft. The game achieved an estimated 350M sales, marking it as the world's #1 best-selling game.^[5]

Minecraft is split into 2 specific versions of the game: Java Edition (JE) and Bedrock Edition (BE). JE is exclusive to PC platforms, and is traditionally where most 3rd-party multiplayer servers are hosted,^{[citation needed - Check comment]} such as Hypixel, McWar, and DonutSMP. Most of these servers being shut down are on JE as well,^{[citation needed - Check comment]} as BE's multiplayer system is far more compartmentalized and controlled by Microsoft,^{[6][citation needed - Check comment]} leading to fewer servers being determined as "violating the EULA".

Most shutdowns are currently handled via blacklisting the server URL as a hash,^[7] however, its effectiveness has been proven to only work against non-malicious servers, as servers such as Minepot have been jumping domains to circumvent any block from Mojang.^[8]

When Minecraft version 1.9.3 pre-release 2 released in May 2016, the client had an encrypted "server blacklist"^[9][10][7] where if the user attempted to access a server that was on this blacklist, they would only receive a "java.net.SocketException: Network is unreachable" error.^[11] When this list was discovered shortly after the update, the blacklist covered 31 servers/domains.^[9] As of February 2026, Mojang's list includes cryptographic hashes of 2595 server addresses,^[10] almost all of which have been decrypted by community members.^[12] While some of these servers were reasonably determined to be violating the EULA at the time, not all of them received fair punishment, especially as the company refused to transparently communicate with the overall community over these issues.^{[citation needed]}

Notably during this period, the servers known to be blacklisted were primarily ones who were selling cosmetics and "pay to win" content, which violated the EULA at the time, however this enforcement eventually became lenient enough to cause some to question the initial rulings.^[13]

During some period in 2023, Mojang updated their EULA to classify "guns and weapons" as "non-compliant features under our Adult Content requirement." There was no prior notification to the EULA change for server owners to capably comply in-time before enforcement could occur.

Shortly after this change, the Grand Theft Minecart (GTM) server was attempted to be shut down by the Mojang Enforcement Team.^[14] In a response to Mojang's enforcement email, the server owner called out some key details about the unfairness of this enforcement.

Furthermore, please allow me to ask for clarification when you say “guns and weapons” violate the EULA under this new directive. I am genuinely confused by what is meant by “guns and weapons.” What weapons are not considered adult content? Weapons have been a part of Minecraft since its inception. For example, are swords considered adult content? Are crossbows (which under most municipalities are considered “firearms”) regarded as adult content? How about TNT? Surely bombs can’t be more “kid friendly” than “guns”? To us, this measure feels arbitrary and unnecessary

Moreover, Mojang-endorsed items that are on Minecraft’s marketplace right now clearly contain explicit “firearms”

...

What makes it OK for these items to be available to kids but not our server? Are these items, too, going to be removed?

In summary, the email outlined how Mojang chose to focus its enforcement on the GTM server before focusing on moderating content that infringes these same rules on the BE marketplace, as well as how the rules are too vague for server owners to adequately comply.

Prior to October 2025, as part of the free speech policy that was enforced for 15 years, nothing a player could say would result in a ban/official reprimand. After these changes, players are required to receive moderation action on JE servers for violations of the Minecraft Usage Guidelines, Minecraft Community Standards, and Xbox Community Standards. This essentially forces all Minecraft servers to enforce these rules, or risk being blacklisted by Mojang's systems.

Editor's notice: There is a lawsuit being prepped for this incident at the moment, please check in with the community under the Minecraft: Consequences Edition discord server,^[15] or updates within the lawsuit's GoFundMe^[1] for details.