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Would like to believe in 'the wisdom of crowds'.
Concerned about 'smear-campaigns' against products, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has started discussing the balance between free speech and moderation for the Wii U’s Miiverse service.
Miiverse will be Nintendo’s virtual community for its next console, and will allow users to post their opinion of games. Nintendo is concerned that this could lead to “negative campaigns on the internet in which false opinions are deliberately posted to ruin the reputation of a product.”
But Iwata has acknowledged the inherent danger of censoring negative comments, saying:
“It is very difficult to tell consumers' real complaints from those that are posted as part of a negative campaign. If we were to delete anything negative about our games, it could constitute a suppression of free speech and you would not able to believe in even a good reputation.”
Furthermore, Iwata is confident in the community of Miiverse to limit the scope of these malicious campaigns, stating that a “…number of users with fair opinions exist, opinions posted just for the purpose of a negative campaign will be gradually overwhelmed by the majority of posts of fair impressions.” This will in part be done by allowing users to flag inappropriate comments.
In his closing remarks Iwata also raises the point that they cannot totally rely on the community to make the right choices:
“We cannot afford to always act on 'the ethical doctrine that human nature is fundamentally good.' At the same time, however, we would like to believe in the possibility of 'the wisdom of crowds,' which could create a very interesting and fascinating world, and make efforts for the services to realize it in one way or another.”
Nintendo already has plans to use several techniques to moderate and control content posted by users in Miiverse. Besides allowing users to flag content, Nintendo will also employ a moderation team to approve images and normal posts, which could result in a delay of upwards to 30 minutes before content appears online.
