Online safety playing Minecraft?
October 12, 2020 4:49 AM Subscribe
I have a 10YO and 7YO obsessed with Minecraft. They want to 1) download mods and 2) play on servers with other people. Is this safe?
I am extremely not tech-savvy. My sons play on an old Mac laptop that I still occasionally use, my personal Mac desktop that I use daily, and a new iPad.
Two questions:
1) Is it safe--meaning will our information be stolen, or will they inadvertently download a virus--for them to download mods? Someone once told me there were places from which to download mods that are safer than others--can you comment on that?
2) Is it safe for them to play on servers with other people? Perhaps if we disable chat? Are there servers that are safer than others? (A friend told me her kids play on "the big gamers'" servers, but I don't know who or what those are.)
Thanks for your advice. I don't mind them playing Minecraft, as it seems to be a passion, but I don't want my ignorance of Internet gaming safety protocols to cause problems.
I am extremely not tech-savvy. My sons play on an old Mac laptop that I still occasionally use, my personal Mac desktop that I use daily, and a new iPad.
Two questions:
1) Is it safe--meaning will our information be stolen, or will they inadvertently download a virus--for them to download mods? Someone once told me there were places from which to download mods that are safer than others--can you comment on that?
2) Is it safe for them to play on servers with other people? Perhaps if we disable chat? Are there servers that are safer than others? (A friend told me her kids play on "the big gamers'" servers, but I don't know who or what those are.)
Thanks for your advice. I don't mind them playing Minecraft, as it seems to be a passion, but I don't want my ignorance of Internet gaming safety protocols to cause problems.
I see minecraft as a very healthy activity if they are building things. It is at lot like Lego. There are many worse things out there.
Although not a huge thing, pedophiles always lurk in places kids are at. Educate your kids about not keeping secrets, about never meeting someone in the real world. Not to disclose where they live beyond a state or a city. What topics are not to be talked about and how it is important to tell you if someone is crossing that line.
I would also encourage yourself to get involved in what ever the kids are doing from time to time. Also, "not tech-savie" is a limiting belief, consider changing it and embracing tech. Not like tech is going anywhere, just getting bigger and more pervasive. It is amazing what a "can do" attitude can do for you.
Best of luck.
posted by Airos at 8:57 AM on October 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
Although not a huge thing, pedophiles always lurk in places kids are at. Educate your kids about not keeping secrets, about never meeting someone in the real world. Not to disclose where they live beyond a state or a city. What topics are not to be talked about and how it is important to tell you if someone is crossing that line.
I would also encourage yourself to get involved in what ever the kids are doing from time to time. Also, "not tech-savie" is a limiting belief, consider changing it and embracing tech. Not like tech is going anywhere, just getting bigger and more pervasive. It is amazing what a "can do" attitude can do for you.
Best of luck.
posted by Airos at 8:57 AM on October 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
I don't think there are any safety controls at all on private servers. There isn't a human in the loop, the players can do anything they want: profanity, griefing, grooming. I wouldn't let a young child play on one unless I could be there looking over their shoulder the whole time. It's easy to set up a private world and invite trusted people to play. For $8 a month you can have a "Realm" (bedrock only, no traditional "mods") that you control and stays up even when you're not playing. I know some kids love the mods of Java edition, but I would be very careful about it and only go on a server that's vetted.
posted by wnissen at 12:28 PM on October 12, 2020
posted by wnissen at 12:28 PM on October 12, 2020
As long as you are vetting the mods and the servers, I think it will be OK. There are tons of servers out there, some even run by schools and kid-friendly organizations, and if you wanted to make your own so the kids can invite only their friends, the cost isn't that high.
I have a nephew that age who loves Minecraft. If he were going online a lot I would probably want to log in with him once or twice to see what the server and mods amount to, but Microsoft has done a fair amount of work to make it at least reasonably safe.
FYI "big gamers servers" likely refers to Twitch or YouTube-famous players who stream their Minecraft worlds. I'm not familiar with them, but they would have an interest in limiting chaos and scamming.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:59 PM on October 12, 2020
I have a nephew that age who loves Minecraft. If he were going online a lot I would probably want to log in with him once or twice to see what the server and mods amount to, but Microsoft has done a fair amount of work to make it at least reasonably safe.
FYI "big gamers servers" likely refers to Twitch or YouTube-famous players who stream their Minecraft worlds. I'm not familiar with them, but they would have an interest in limiting chaos and scamming.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:59 PM on October 12, 2020
The safest form of playing on servers with other people is playing on servers with other people they know already.
(To be clear, the "risk" we're talking about is far far faaaaar more likely to be "some jerk dumped a bucket of lava in my base" than "lurking pedophiles".)
Mine spends most of his time playing on a shared realm with four or five other kids from the neighborhood, which seems much more rewarding than jumping into a server full of strangers. It's a near certainty that your kids have friends who also play Minecraft and either already have a realm set up or would be thrilled to join yours.
(You might also consider getting an extra Minecraft account so you can play with them now and then -- gives them a chance to be better at something than mom or dad, which is always a welcome experience for kids of that age ;)
posted by ook at 10:36 AM on October 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
(To be clear, the "risk" we're talking about is far far faaaaar more likely to be "some jerk dumped a bucket of lava in my base" than "lurking pedophiles".)
Mine spends most of his time playing on a shared realm with four or five other kids from the neighborhood, which seems much more rewarding than jumping into a server full of strangers. It's a near certainty that your kids have friends who also play Minecraft and either already have a realm set up or would be thrilled to join yours.
(You might also consider getting an extra Minecraft account so you can play with them now and then -- gives them a chance to be better at something than mom or dad, which is always a welcome experience for kids of that age ;)
posted by ook at 10:36 AM on October 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
The above advice is great. Adding on to it, you can also set up a Minecraft Realms account for him. Then he (or his friends also on MR) can create a small server just for them. They can play co-operatively. and MR can't (to the best of my knowledge) be modded. So there's nothing to download and nothing to install, except for the Minecraft java application.
Start him out in a small pond, and then let him jump to bigger ones as he gets older. Even well moderated servers can sometimes slip into adult conversation, and any server open to the public is going to have griefers who like to tear things up just for the sake of tearing things up. That's upsetting to me as a grown up; I can't imagine it would be less upsetting to a 10 year old.
posted by headspace at 3:01 PM on October 13, 2020
Start him out in a small pond, and then let him jump to bigger ones as he gets older. Even well moderated servers can sometimes slip into adult conversation, and any server open to the public is going to have griefers who like to tear things up just for the sake of tearing things up. That's upsetting to me as a grown up; I can't imagine it would be less upsetting to a 10 year old.
posted by headspace at 3:01 PM on October 13, 2020
This is all good advice, but I do want to put in a small comment more strongly favoring modding. It makes the game a lot more fun and can be done safely as suggested by Airos at Forge. It's also a hook into developing technological sophistication and a lot of summer camps for coding. I taught myself how to host a server so my kids could have their own sandbox, then as they got older I taught them how to do it. If this isn't your cup of tea, maybe one of the parents of their friends who are also playing can do it for the group. It's worth asking. Minecraft will not be "cool" for the 10 yr old too much longer and if you can keep him in this relatively more wholesome game with his younger sibling as long as possible it's worth it.
posted by diva_esq at 10:19 AM on October 22, 2020
posted by diva_esq at 10:19 AM on October 22, 2020
This thread is closed to new comments.
More likely, the mods they want to use are for Minecraft Java version, only on mac/pc. If they don't have that version, they'd need to buy 2 new licenses (usually). I mean, maybe they have both licenses. It could be complicated though.
Modding minecraft java is pretty safe - there's some fake websites out there with viruses, just like any download you can do online. A safe site to download mods is https://files.minecraftforge.net/ minecraft forge. Just have the rule "all mods have to come from minecraft forge!" and you should be fine. If they find another modding site, just search online "is (minecraftmoddingsite) safe" on google - it should give you some good insights to the site.
2) Safety on servers with other people: In general, you'll need to talk to your kids about what is acceptable online with other people, and what isn't. They probably watch youtube or twitch of people playing minecraft, and will most likely be influenced by those around them. Some servers are very family friendly, with no swearing or rudeness permitted, with good moderation. Other servers are frequently joined by 10 year olds, but they are allowed to be rude to each other and swear at each other. The best thing you can do is to empower your kids to behave independently in both environments, and teach them to be upstanding digital participants. That means, for the first while, sitting with them and coaching them on how to respond to people.
I believe games are a great way for kids to learn cooperation, teamwork, leadership, and an excellent activity. But at the same time, just like there could be someone toxic at the park, or on your sports team, it's important to stay engaged and help them handle those situations. There are sometimes chat filters on swear words, but kids quickly learn to use other words or symbols to say representation of those concepts.
Really, a big part of playing online is the chat and communication. If not text, then audio as well. Your kids are about the age where they will want audio chat with friends while they play. I don't personally think that parental controls are the best solution for this, however, they do exist for minecraft. Here is a good site that lists resources on this topic: https://internetsafety101.org/gamingsafety
posted by bbqturtle at 8:19 AM on October 12, 2020 [3 favorites]