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Xbox Live to modify Facebook and Twitter despite opposing internet
censorship

Source: http://www.current.com.au/news/article/YJIBTYCLTP.html

By Patrick Avenell

SYDNEY, NSW: Australian and New Zealand Xbox Live users clocked up
more than 101 million hours on the interactive gaming service during
the 2009 financial year. With the service set to incorporate social
networking sites, including Facebook and Twitter, Current.com.au asked
Xbox senior product category manager Jeremy Hinton how secure this
service was, from both a social and technological perspective.

In his response, Hinton said that control was a big part of the Xbox
Live experience. Microsoft wants to control the interactions between
users, with corporate social responsibility playing a part in this
decision. Hinton said this was one of the reasons why, unlike the
PlayStation 3, Xbox Live does not incorporate open web browsing.

�At its base principle, Xbox Live is effectively a closed system, and
it's a closed system because, not only do we want to control the
experience, but we also want to make sure the experience is designed
for a living room setting,� said Hinton. �You look at the vast
majority of browsers that are also in the living room today, and there
not necessarily a good experience.�

Hinton said that Microsoft is currently working with Facebook and
Twitter, so that when these sites are integrated onto Xbox Live, that
user experience will be designed �for a lounge room as opposed to a
PC�. Considering the moral overtones of this statement, we asked
Hinton if Microsoft agreed with Minister Conroy�s plan to censor the
internet.

 �No, I think we certainly agree with our industry body�s [the
Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia] position on this:
that adults have the right to choose...and [we�re] working with the
classification board here, in clearly marking content, so consumers
know what they're buying, and education is the best thing, not
necessarily censorship.�

With Microsoft not in favour of summarily censoring the internet sites
available through Xbox Live, how will it maintain the loungeroom
experience for its users? Offered the examples of a Facebook race hate
group or a person posting naked pictures of themselves, Hinton
outlined a complaints and review system, in which offending users, as
judged by Microsoft, can be warned, suspended or expelled. The
benchmark for such actions will be if the material is considered
�offensive to that community as a whole�.

Social considerations are not the only factor in Xbox Live maintaining
a closed community. Hinton said that with 30 million consoles around
the world, Microsoft acknowledged the potential for viruses to infect
the system and the hardware.

�If you...have an open browser, you could then have a virus put into
it.

�Every piece of content that goes through just needs to pass a quality
assurance to make sure it's not got going to have a bad experience for
our consumers,� he said.

Considering that Microsoft describes itself as �the worldwide leader
in software, services and solutions�, shouldn�t it be able to control
its own network of Xbox Live users to enable open web browsing? We
asked Hinton if this was a concession � that Microsoft can�t really
protect its own infrastructure from attack.

In a prepared response to this question, Hinton said:

�We�re confident in the security of our services across the board. At
the moment we don�t see web browsing as a good lounge room experience
so we�re not looking to replicate it through the console. We�re
focusing on services that maintain a high quality experience for the
consumer and let us manage that experience to make it as enjoyable as
possible.�

-- 
Clean Feed, it "cleans" the Internet in the same way that Ethnic
Cleansing "cleanses" the population.

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