New Switch system update makes inappropriate nicknames display as “???”

Nintendo has released system update Ver. 16.0.0 for the Nintendo Switch. The contents of the update are as follows:

– User nicknames that cannot be used will be replaced with “???” which can be updated from the profile settings.
– General system stability improvements to enhance the user’s experience.

The Ver. 10.2.0 update for the Switch, which was released in 2020, made it impossible to use certain words as your user nickname. Some prohibited words include KKK, slave, Nazi, and ACAB. Coronavirus and COVID were also added to the list of words, but at the time, it was still possible to include “coronavirus” if it was written in Japanese. That is no longer the case as of the time of writing.

Although such words were prohibited after the 2020 update, it was still possible to include them in your nickname if they were combined with additional characters. For example, it was reported that you could use words like “shit” and “porn” in your nickname as long as you added some extra letters or symbols.

The new update implements a method of dealing with that workaround, as any user nicknames that include prohibited words are now automatically replaced with “???” The workaround is also partially blocked now when inputting the Console Nickname.

By preventing the use of nicknames that include prohibited words, there is also the possibility that innocent nicknames will get caught up in the process. For example, depending on the language, you could have a word that includes the sequence of letters that make up “shit” within it.

The changes in this new update can be seen as a way to filter out inappropriate nicknames within games, while also allowing those without any bad intentions to keep using their nicknames as normal.

It’s reasonable to think that the list of prohibited words itself will also continue to be updated, just like we mentioned before with “coronavirus” written in Japanese. Nintendo will likely continue to make efforts in order to deal with any elements that may cause troubles between users.

Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-02-21 12:51 JST)