We’ve learned some unfortunate news – Hololive vtubers (virtual YouTubers) Kiryu Coco and Akai Haato have been suspended for a few weeks.
Both YouTubers have been suspended for three weeks by their management company Cover for reportedly mentioning Taiwan, when talking about their viewer ratings. The suspension will run from September 28th to October 19th, 2020.
The two performers talked up their viewer analytics during the livestream, and at one point mentioned Taiwan. While Cover says the suspension was because they violated “guidelines and contractual obligations by divulging confidential information,” they were also “making statements insensitive to certain nationalities.”
The last bit, of course, is likely in regards to China and their “One-China” policy, where China claims domain over Taiwan. This goes back to the Chinese Civil War, where the nationalist Republic of China fought against the Communist Party of China, and ultimately lost, facing exile in Taiwan ever since.
After the formation of the communist People’s Republic of China, the stance has been that Taiwan belongs to mainland China, and the PRC. If you even acknowledge Taiwan as an independent entity or mention its name, you run the risk of getting censored entirely from China.
Fans were quick to mention the primary reason for the suspension, talking up their internal analytics, is bogus as members of their virtual performer group have talked about their viewer ratings before. The main difference this time is – as said above, the mere mention of Taiwan.
Hololive has an account on the popular Chinese video sharing and streaming app Bilibili, on which they posted a statement for the suspension as well. This statement actually mentions the One China policy, saying Cover supports the policy. More curiously, the Japanese press release (translated into English) makes no mention of their support for the One China policy.
How do you feel about the suspension? Is Cover trying to avoid getting banned in China? Sound off in the comments below!