Two Japanese virtual YouTubers (VTubers) were suspended by their employers on Sunday after mentioning Taiwan and showing the national flag during a livestream, stoking controversy that was inflamed further when it was discovered that their management company issued distinct apologies in Japanese and Mandarin.
While reading YouTube analytics over livestream on Thursday and Friday last week, Hololive VTubers Kiryu Coco and Akai Haato named Taiwan as contributing a high percentage of viewers.
Users on the Chinese video streaming platform Bilibili were quick to criticize the two and report their accounts, prompting Hololive’s parent company, Cover Corp, to suspend the streamers for three weeks until Oct. 19.
Photo: screengrab from YouTube
In its Japanese statement, which was also translated into English, Cover cited “divulging confidential YouTube channel analytics information” and “using said data for their own purposes” as reasons for the suspensions, in addition to making statements “that were insensitive to residents of certain regions.”
It also vowed to improve “compliance training” for its talent, although it added that it did not find either to have acted deliberately.
The firm posted a separate statement in simplified Chinese on Hololive’s Bilibili channel in addition to a translation of the original statement apologizing for its “incorrect content” and adding that the incident does not reflect the views of the company.
“Cover has always respected Chinese sovereignty and territory ... and resolutely supports the one China principle,” the statement said.
The absence of “one China” from the Japanese version did not escape the attention of Chinese Internet users, who have left more than 1.8 million comments on the two statements and are calling for a boycott of the company’s other channels.
Cover’s suspension of the entertainers angered other netizens, who denounced the company via comments and memes.
“So you really want to give up the rest of the world for China’s 0.02 percent market share? That’s just absurd,” one person wrote on Twitter.
Some threads discussing the incident on the official r/Hololive subreddit were removed, drawing more anger from fans.
The videos have been taken down from YouTube and Bilibili.
Hololive is one of the biggest agencies specializing in VTubers, or streamers who adopt a character persona and use an animated avatar instead of a video feed.
The company in November last year opened an account on Bilibili, where it has more than 4 million fans, Hololive said.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
One of two tropical depressions that formed off Taiwan yesterday morning could turn into a moderate typhoon by the weekend, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Tropical Depression No. 21 formed at 8am about 1,850km off the southeast coast, CWA forecaster Lee Meng-hsuan (李孟軒) said. The weather system is expected to move northwest as it builds momentum, possibly intensifying this weekend into a typhoon, which would be called Mitag, Lee said. The radius of the storm is expected to reach almost 200km, she said. It is forecast to approach the southeast of Taiwan on Monday next week and pass through the Bashi Channel
NO CHANGE: The TRA makes clear that the US does not consider the status of Taiwan to have been determined by WWII-era documents, a former AIT deputy director said The American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) comments that World War-II era documents do not determine Taiwan’s political status accurately conveyed the US’ stance, the US Department of State said. An AIT spokesperson on Saturday said that a Chinese official mischaracterized World War II-era documents as stating that Taiwan was ceded to the China. The remarks from the US’ de facto embassy in Taiwan drew criticism from the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, whose director said the comments put Taiwan in danger. The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that a US State Department spokesperson confirmed the AIT’s position. They added that the US would continue to
The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency as well as long-term residency in Taiwan has decreased, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that the reduction of Chinese spouses staying or living in Taiwan is only one facet reflecting the general decrease in the number of people willing to get married in Taiwan. The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency last year was 7,123, down by 2,931, or 29.15 percent, from the previous year. The same census showed that the number of Chinese spouses applying for long-term residency and receiving approval last year stood at 2,973, down 1,520,
RSS