The problem with everyone being so connected these days is that at a click of a button, news and spread like wildfire, even if it isn’t necessarily true. For Minecraft players who have come across a rumor suggesting that the game’s servers will be shutting down at the end of 2020, it isn’t true.
This is according to a tweet by Minecraft community manager Helen Zbihlyj who said that Minecraft is not shutting down and that Mojang is not closing. For those who are wondering what is going on, basically a website by the name of Channel45News published a story with the title that reads, “Minecraft will shut down their servers in late 2020”.
In case you’re unfamiliar with Channel45News, it’s a website that lets users generate fake headlines, and while these kind of prank websites aren’t new, search engines picked up on the article and was also promoted by other publications, fueling the fires. However, the tweet by the Minecraft community manager has hopefully shut those rumors down.
https://feedly.com/i/collection/content/user/e30f65e9-7838-4e46-b61f-174ffa9fcd87/category/Games
In fact, if you were to go to the website, you’ll notice a banner on the right that says it’s a prank, so how this got picked up in the first place is unclear, but it goes to show how fake news can cause unnecessary panic.