The Miiverse, Nintendo’s new social network, will be open to all Wii U players at launch, as well as 3DS users in the future. As we previously reported, the service will allow users to post messages and draw pictures to post in other people’s games. But when the largest portion of your target audience is children, how do you keep the service clean for everyone? Nintendo believes the best way to keep the Miiverse family-friendly is to require a stamp of approval on every post before the message is shared.
Human approval is part of a three-part strategy Nintendo president Satoru Iwata detailed to the LA Times. Messages will first be scanned by content filtering software, immediately catching posts with naughty words and content. Filtering can’t catch all the bad stuff though, especially when people get creative with spelling. To combat this, Nintendo plans to hire a team of individuals to manually approve every message posted on the Miiverse.
So how long will you have to wait before your elaborate drawing of Luigi’s mustache is shared with the world? Iwata promised that Nintendo will listen to user feedback at launch to determine how long messages should be in Ninten-limbo. “But personally, I think 30 minutes should be acceptable,” said Iwata.
The third part of Nintendo’s strategy is to allow users to report and flag inappropriate posts, but as the LA Times points out, some gamers will have already seen the content before it’s been reported and taken down. While a 30 minute wait time isn’t ideal and other options should be explored, I’ll take the wait time over insults about my mom appearing in New Super Mario Bros. U any day of the week.
