In the past few days, me and a few other users conducted an experiment to test how strong anti-islamic views are in the minecraft community. We have had backing from some British Muslims, and deem our methods to be ethical. Inspired by documentaries such as 'being a Jew in Paris' and 'being a woman in New York', we followed the same style and said that we were Muslims on different minecraft servers. Here is what happened on EMC: Event 1: A user (we will term this user x) said that they wanted friends. We teleported to their res and immediately, they shut all the doors on their res. We spoke to user x for a short amount of time, and then we asked for a camel. User x then proceeded to ask town chat for help and the most active member of town chat at the time (we will term this user y but REDACTED by Staff) teleported to the res. We discussed religion, and we did not make any accusations, and only stated facts which contradicted the statements of user y. User y stated the following three things in res chat: "One day you will be on your knees begging my god for mercy" "At least I wouldn't kill a member of my family if they were Christian" "The crusades were done by the Romans 50 years after Jesus ascended to Heaven" Event 2: We put a harmless message ("hello, how are you") in town chat in Arabic. User y then replied with "Don't use that odd language". We asked what was odd about it (in English) and two other members in town chat stated comments containing only the word ISIS. Event 3: User y claimed in town chat that they are mature and capable of being a moderator. We stated what user y stated in Event 1, informing town chat for the first time. User y claimed to have no knowledge of making the statements, and we were private messaged by another user, who we will term user z, who claimed that user y would never say something of that kind. We told him that user y stated that we would kill our own family, and we got the following reply: "You probably would because you're a Muslim" User z then went on to claim that we're lucky that we're not in a warzone "because most of the Middle East is at war" We informed a moderator of this, and they refused to examine the complaints. After two of us had requested moderator review multiple times that the comments were reviewed and user z (as to my knowledge) was banned. User y claimed that the comments made in Event 1 were because he went to the toilet and he let his friend use his account. He explains the fact that the comments that were made across 30 mins because of chillis. We did not report him (it is a human right to be innocent until proven guilty), but we blocked him from our residences because he didn't review any of his friend's action. EMC has been a part of my life for most of the past 3 years, and I have always trusted that the server would be the last place I'd find religious prejudices, but I guess my findings show how strongly anti-islamic views are in so many western peoples, which makes me ashamed to be part of the "first world". EDIT: We understand that a large amount of bias may have been introduced as well as the fact that I wasn't there for a large amount of the comments in event 1, I joined the server to see the three comments be made, and my friends reported that. Please take these findings with a large pinch of salt.
I have many Muslim friends, and I have nothing against them. I do however, have things against the groups people belong to such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS (please note I didn't state just Muslims are in these groups and that isn't the case because ISIS was recruiting White Americans). Another BIG problem is anti-religion/religion prejudice. I have had an issue with this my whole life. How one religion has to attack another either verbally or physically. People aren't accepting of religion more than race in my opinion. For example, I used to follow Christianity and then I realised that I was raised into a religion I do not believe in, once I announce I didnt believe it people in my household and family stated, "hah you dont believe in God, so you are going to Hell." It is an issue when people are intolerant. /EndRant
I understand your point here, but any further 'experimentation' on the EMC servers needs to follow all rules set forth by Empire Minecraft Staff. Players told you to not post Arabic in town chat, not because of some bias, but because you were breaking the rules of speaking anything other than English in Town chat. Also removed any indication of the player name. Calling them player y, then explaining their username doesn't fix the issue.
I read, then re-read, and yet again re-re-reread your post. My comment would be this: Nobody should judge an entire community based on the chat/actions of a few players... Should they?
I understand completely, this will not be repeated. The Arabic text in chat was part of our methodology, and as we test multiple servers across the whole of minecraft, and we wished to keep a fair test.
To OP, seek and you shall find. If you go out looking for trouble you aren't going to be disappointed... or maybe you will because thats what you want? Either way this is silly just like the documentaries you mentioned. Rabble rousing if you will.
I entirely agree. This was a test devised by multiple people to see how people view Muslims. I view myself as part of the EMC community (I first joined over three years ago). EMC was nowhere near as bad as some the other servers tested, but it is still a surprise that people hold such prejudices.
This doesn't show how people view muslims though. It just shows that fox news exists and some peoples parents watch it and tell their kids that those stories are real.
In my opinion, when you go to a public place, EMC servers in this case, you don't go and expect that everyone will think the same way as you think. If there is a hate or a negative response to your beliefs or your way of living, that may indicate that the person questioning your life-style is not thinking the same as you. You may not be neutral all the time, there is always one person that is offended by your comment, always I'm am open minded, it doesn't disturbs me what you think, or your lifestyle. It just makes me uncomfortable, and by being that way, it makes me think bad in certain ways to that different thing that I've never lived
Many only state their true opinions of something during anger. If I acted completely passively, then it would produce no data. At all. Ever.
In other words, the stereotypes and how the media sets the Muslims culture is the on to be blame, and mostly the society. This is my opinion.
The primary point of this is to compare opinions of Islam and Christianity. I've seen people declare themselves as devoted Christians on many of the servers tested and people will state in chat that it's a good thing.
I agree, if the media states a Muslim does a crime, religion is mentioned. If a Christian or atheist commits a crime, religion is not mentioned in news reports.
As far as I know, both of these "documentaries" include no interaction unless it was deemed necessary (ie a safety issue). If you wanted to do a similar experiment you would have used Islam related skins and walked by people without any explicit interaction. In your experiment you clearly interact with others in what could be considered a mildly provocative way. In your explanation of your experiment, you focus almost solely on the reactions you got and not on the methods you used to obtain them. Published research is published in great detail so that others that would potentially use the research can verify its authenticity/claims. Your claims would be considered void in almost any setting based off of what you have provided.
I said inspired by, not copying, there's a difference. And we didn't in any way try to anger a member of the community before they had said something that we had deemed as anit-islamic.
Most crimes by Muslims aren't committed for religious purposes, although many are, especially major ones. The problems seem to be people comparing large crimes committed by Muslims and believing that there is some kind of correlation between this and most minor crimes.
