As expected, Nintendo is moving to delete what it deems inappropriate user-generated Super Smash Bros. Ultimate levels after the stage creator feature went live earlier this week.
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Most of the content currently being hauled offline is as you’d expect – soon after the stage creator feature went live, many stages featuring Swastikas and other racist and offensive imagery were uploaded.
There were also many, many penis stages, some of which ended up on the front page of the official Nintendo Switch app, as Eurogamer reported.
For that story, Eurogamer social media whizz Paul Watson commandeered the Nintendo Switch belonging to Gamer Network tech supremo Thomas Marchant to create a stage inspired by the “Double Dick Dude” from reddit.
Now, Marchant has seen the level pulled from the game, and he received a strongly-worded email from Nintendo warning against the use of “obscene and/or sexual expressions”.
But some of Nintendo’s moderation decisions have courted a good deal of controversy. It appears stages either titled “Trans Rights” or featuring the trans flag run the risk of deletion – and in some cases their creators were issued short-term bans.
Twitter user Warm Safflina received an email from Nintendo notifying her that her trans rights stage had been pulled offline for “inappropriate and/or harmful content”.
She said a Nintendo customer support rep later explained the level was removed because it was considered a “political statement”, and revealed her account was suspended for nine hours.
Nintendo has come under fire for this takedown, with many pointing out the “trans rights” message should not be considered a political statement, although based on the company’s stubborn protectiveness of its family-friendly brand, perhaps it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.