Is there such thing as a safe Minecraft server?

[Shelydon]

My 12 yo is a big Mine Craft fan.  He has never been allowed to play with other on any type of server.  He is really wanting to play something called Skyblock on a public server.  The answer for us is a hard no.  But, if there is something out there that is kid friendly, I would be willing to let him do that. 

[MercyA]

Family Friendly Minecraft Servers--hopefully this article will have a good option for you.

My DD thinks your son should be able to create a server that only he and his friends can access. Sorry; not sure how that works but I can ask my husband later or maybe someone here knows. I know that my DD and my DH were once playing Minecraft together when two of her Nintendo friends came into their world and started chatting. 🙂  But no one else ever came in.

Edited August 27, 2021 by MercyA

[TheReader]

There are ways to host your own, and you can whitelist specific players (only allow people onto it that you like). We do ours through Realms, which is a small monthly fee. 

Some of the Minecraft public ones are pretty safe, but I am not familiar these days. It's been a while since my youngest was 12, and even then, he had big brothers on the server with him, so I was never too worried about things. But some of the ones out in public are safe; hopefully the article linked by MercyA will have some good ones. 

[Dmmetler]

Athena's Academy has a highly moderated one for Athena's students. It's an option for some of the class projects, too. 

[kiwik]

My son's have a friend whose father runs a server so that is pretty safe.

[athena1277]

My son plays on a server run by a family I know.  They know all the players, including the real name that goes with each screen name.

For short term playing, I think there’s a way to set something up where the players would all have to be on your WiFi.  This is a good option for play dates.  Don’t ask me how it works.  My son talks about it all the time, but I don’t understand half of it.

[kirstenhill]

1 hour ago, athena1277 said:

My son plays on a server run by a family I know.  They know all the players, including the real name that goes with each screen name.

For short term playing, I think there’s a way to set something up where the players would all have to be on your WiFi.  This is a good option for play dates.  Don’t ask me how it works.  My son talks about it all the time, but I don’t understand half of it.

This is really easy to do - no special server really required.  There's an "open to LAN" button on the options menu, and that opens the world to everyone on the same wi fi network. Easy peasy, but only good if everyone is in the same place.  I think a realms subscription is good if you want to only play with personal friends you've invited to play with you.  My kids play on a couple of fully public servers and honestly have had no problems at all (they ignore the chat), but I get that not everyone is comfortable with that. 

[Spryte]

My DD and her BFF play on a private server. No one else enters. DH set it up, and I think he used MineHut (?). DD has to invite other players. This is where she and BFF have their virtual play dates, it’s pretty cool, they do a video call at the same time.

I have no idea about skyblock. 

[TheReader]

Okay, I asked my kids and they said that of the ones out there, none are specifically totally "safe" b/c of course if they are public, they are open to all ages. 

But they used to play on one called Hypixel, which is mini-game style interactions. They say that the youtuber/dude that runs it does a really good job of moderating it, blocking users who break the rules, there is a way to report people who violate the rules, etc. and that you can turn off chat. They used to go in and do build battles and things -- it's not a "come play Minecraft" server, but a mini-game set-up. 

They said there's another one that's relatively okay also that is a role playing game, inside the world of minecraft, that you can either just go in and do things or get into the story of the game (the story is optional). It's a survival world, but is apparently a friendly one. This one is called Wynncraft. 

 

Now, these are the opinions of my 23, 20, and 16 yr old reporting to me on what they think is probably appropriate for a 12 yr old. My boys do have pretty good standards on that kind of thing, so I feel comfortable sharing this, but just so you know they aren't specifically "mom-vetted." They all said, "Oh, if the one that Grian had was still around, that would be best...." -- it's not, but the Wynncraft one was also started by the same guy, so that's how that came up. 

All of those are still public servers, though, just moderated ones where your 12 yr old would be unlikely to run into too much trouble. 

[Farrar]

Seconding what people are telling you.

Private servers created by yourself, friends, or a trusted organization like a class provider are as safe as anything can be. You're only playing with people who are approved and known. Just like how you could go to the playground with friends and someone could misbehave or do something dumb and hurt your feelings or break your stuff or say bad words, it's not zero risk. Kids you actually know or who are also approved by an organization you trust could still be jerks or could say bad words - just like they could in person. But it's not at risk for things like adults who want to talk to your kids or bots that could share inappropriate content or something.

Public servers sometimes have moderation, are geared toward being family friendly, and can be pretty safe. As safe as any public online thing with moderation can be. The moderation actually means that algorithms are stopping things like sexual content or swear words, but active moderation in many of these means that people who violate rules get banned, so people tend to be on decent behavior. I'll second Hypixel as one of those, but there are others and they change over time. Since my kids aren't little and only play Minecraft with friends on their own server occasionally these days, I'm not up on what's good right now. 

[EKS]

21 hours ago, MercyA said:

My DD thinks your son should be able to create a server that only he and his friends can access.

My son did this.  The problem was that the server was located in our basement and our upload speed was horrible back then.  If you have good internet, it would work well though!

[Farrar]

You can also pay for server hosting. It’s not that expensive - especially not if your kid is going to be able to interact with friends they might not “see.”

[Lecka]

My son’s “friends” turned out to spread to friends of friends, and some of these were not known to his friends in person.  
 

I didn’t like that when I found out about it, but it has been fine.  
 

They can ban people so — i don’t think it has been a problem.

This is with my son playing on a friend’s server.  

[Shelydon]

Thanks all.  I will look at hosting a server.  I am SO not into computers and we *only* allow Minecraft, so I am not sure my brain can handle learning how to do this.  Sigh. 

[TheReader]

13 hours ago, Shelydon said:

Thanks all.  I will look at hosting a server.  I am SO not into computers and we *only* allow Minecraft, so I am not sure my brain can handle learning how to do this.  Sigh. 

The easiest way is to pay for a Realms subscription, as it does all the work for you. I do not recall the fee ($5-$10/month). 

The next best is to "open LAN world" when he has specific friends over to play. That one is also self-explanatory (literally a setting you click when you are starting Minecraft. 

It's very doable. 

[debi21]

I just want to say one of the posters above referenced "Hypixel" used by her adult-aged sons and also Farrar mentioned it. Hypixel's most popular game is Skyblock, originally reference by OP as the one she's saying "hard no" to. I've been on Skyblock and it does censor inappropriate language and has moderators on all the time. I haven't really seen any particularly inappropriate behavior, but users can be reported. Anyway I am sure that I am much less strict with my standards than OP, but I've allowed my 9 and 12 year old boys to be on Skyblock for over a year. I'm much more concerned with the overall likelihood of being "addicted" to hours of daily Minecraft than anything on Skyblock or any of the other Hypixel mini games.

[Shelydon]

3 hours ago, debi21 said:

I just want to say one of the posters above referenced "Hypixel" used by her adult-aged sons and also Farrar mentioned it. Hypixel's most popular game is Skyblock, originally reference by OP as the one she's saying "hard no" to. I've been on Skyblock and it does censor inappropriate language and has moderators on all the time. I haven't really seen any particularly inappropriate behavior, but users can be reported. Anyway I am sure that I am much less strict with my standards than OP, but I've allowed my 9 and 12 year old boys to be on Skyblock for over a year. I'm much more concerned with the overall likelihood of being "addicted" to hours of daily Minecraft than anything on Skyblock or any of the other Hypixel mini games.

Thank you!