Hi, orsond from the fifth column here.
The Fifth Column is a Minecraft hacking and griefing group. We created Project Copenhiemer which is a Minecraft server scanning tool. Copenhiemer scans the internet every 20 minutes for minecraft servers, logs players, server versions, mods and more.
Originally we had created it to find players and grief their server worlds, highlighting how much information about players is leaked from Mojangs default server configuration. They have put some features into the game to stop this information from being leaked but have made it an opt in system which no one uses or is even aware of.
We have become increasingly worried about the direction of Mojang's safety policies and we believe they are just playing lip service to the actual problems at hand.
Online gaming and gaming coms has a seriously unaddressed problem with child safety.
Mojang's reasoning for chat reporting is to protect children. Chat reporting does absolutely nothing to solve this problem. You can report people for swearing, drug/alcohol references, etc. You cannot report a player for child exploitation unless they use the chat system to do so.
As an example, I know one server admin that disabled chat entirely on his large server only to have pedophiles use in game signs to message and groom children over Skype and Discord.
If Mojang were serious about protecting children, they would stop developing their paternalistic chat surveillance system and split multiplayer children and 18+ play from each other.
For example, children should only be able to join under 18's Mojang hosted servers (realms) where conduct can be heavily monitored and 18+ players join multiplayer servers where children cannot play.
It is clear they have thought about this problem for a total of 5 minutes and have shut down healthy & reasonable debate about their solution to avoid embarrassment and scrutiny.