Gaming After Hours
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Nintendo disabled Swapnote messaging service due to “Offensive Material”
Swapnote discontinued
Nintendo has disabled its message service, Swapnote, for Nintendo 3DS. This service allows users to send and receive Spotpass notes(or Nintendo Letter Box in other regions). One thing that was great about this wonderful service was it’s ability to send 5 second voice recordings and use your Play Coins to unlock a wide assortment of delightful stationary that were brimming with vivid personality.
You could also send take photos with your Nintendo 3DS Camera and send photos to your friends. It was a wonderful service and for this user, brought much joy and laughs to look forward too. Plus, you would occasionally receive these messages from the many developers who worked with Nintendo after discovering some users have used the service to transfer offensive material.
“Nintendo has learned that some consumers, including minors, have been exchanging their friend codes on Internet bulletin boards and then using Swapnote (known as Nintendo Letter Box in other regions) to exchange offensive material. Nintendo has been investigating ways of preventing this and determined it is best to stop the SpotPass feature of Swapnote because it allows direct exchange of photos and was actively misused.
Nintendo always wants to provide a positive experience for all consumers and limit the risk of any inappropriate activity or misuse of a service. We feel it is important on this occasion to take this action.
[Nintendo is] very sorry for any inconvenience to the many consumers who have been using this service responsibly; however, this decision was made considering the point that many minors also use this feature of Swapnote, Thank you for your understanding.
Nintendo will continue to work to ensure more consumers are aware of our Parental Control features, which allows parents to manage their children’s experience on our systems.”
Service was stopped as 7pm PT, October 31 in all regions where the service was offered. Special Notes services are also stopped. No timeline on its return was offered.
Gaming After Hours perspective:
I am very upset about this and find this as a huge disappointment. I enjoyed it very much! I just got my nephews connected online and was looking forward to sending messages with them and was looking forward to interacting with them on my Nintendo 3D, but now, thanks to a few people, they have to ruin it for the several millions that do use. Hopefully Nintendo finds another alternative to this dilemma.
source: Nintendo
Gaming After Hours 
This irritates me SO much. I NEVER sent inappropriate things and NOBODY EVER sent me any either. The worse thing that happened was a ACNL picture was sent to me where they made their animal say a cuss word for their catchphrase. How come only a few do this and we all have to suffer the consequences. My main use of app: send photos I took of lake and flowers, send photos of my real artwork, tell people about my 3ds problems(top screen goes completely black a lot), and sometimes make plans to play multiplayer games with friends on friend list. I LOVED this app and used it a lot. Its basically useless now, taking up space. I understand maybe if a kid received an inappropriate message from an adult that’s a problem but why did the kid have that adult on their friends list? Same for kids sending things to other kids. Whether it was an adult or a child doing it they could have deleted that person. Don’t get rid of these functions for EVERYONE maybe it should have been suspended only for the people that did it!
This isn’t fair at all, now we all have to go use other means such as message boards to setup play sessions and other discussions.