Miiverse to be Censored
Nintendo believes there should be a balance between free speech and moderation. If it is moderated, can it really be called free speech though? Probably not, but after all, gamers will be using their service, so the final call is on Nintendo.
Satoru Iwata, Nintendo’s CEO has spoken out in concern over ‘smear-campaigns’ about their products, and took the opportunity to discuss moderating their Miiverse.
Miiverse is the name assigned to Nintendo’s virtual community for their upcoming Nintendo Wii U console. Included in the feature of this new servce is the ability to rate games and for users to leave their opinions of the games.
Iwata, who has seen Nintendo increase their online presence, is well aware of the mindset of many online users. Popular sites such as Reddit encourage a mob mentality of sorts where users intentionally down vote or leave negative feedback for products, content or other media just for the sake of doing so, and due to anonymous nature of the internet.
Due to such a mentality of a large portion of internet users, it is becoming more and more difficult to differentiate from legitimate complaints and negative feedback from the fake spam feedback efforts.
As a result of such users, Iwata stated that Miiverse will feature the ability to flag posts and that such negative efforts are likely to be overwhelmed by genuine efforts of reviewers. Iwata went on to elaborate that it is not always an available luxury to act on the concept that all people are good. As a result, in addition to the flagging ability, moderators will be employed to approve images and certain posts.
Censorship on an internet service may have its obvious benefits from keeping those who simply seek to ruin Nintendo’s products reputations for the sake of doing so, but some posts may now take upwards to 30 minutes before they go live.
