Recently, a popular Chinese romance mobile game “Love in Deep Space” stirred up a “word prison” incident. A player wrote a birthday wish that said “hope you stay safe and sound forever,” but the system mistakenly identified it as containing “sensitive words,” prompting the player to revise it and sparking discussions among netizens.
The incident occurred on June 8th. According to an official announcement on Weibo, “Love in Deep Space” started a character “Xia Yizhou” birthday wishes collection activity on June 6th, inviting players to submit their wishes. Outstanding content had the chance to appear in the game’s interactive features.
However, one player wrote in the comments section: “Happy birthday, Xia Yizhou, hope you stay safe and sound forever, healthy and well.” Unexpectedly, when the submission was made, the system popped up a prompt saying “the content contains sensitive words,” and requested modification before submission. The player posted a screenshot in the forum, triggering a wave of discussions.
Many netizens pointed out that the issue lay in the four words “stay safe and sound forever,” where the characters for “forever” and “safe” combined to form the name “Xi Yuanping,” the brother of Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.
According to Wikipedia, Xi Yuanping, 68, was a former chairman of the International Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Association, who had resettled in Hong Kong in his early years and was seldom seen in public. On Baidu Baike, the entry for “Xi Yuanping” could not be found.
Account “Teacher Li is not your teacher” on platform X reposted this submission, drawing mocking comments from a large number of netizens, saying it was a “continuation of the electronic Jin Yiwei patrolling the streets” and a “reverse science popularization scene.” Many joked that this kind of vocabulary censorship was simply a “new era avoidance system,” with some remarking, “if you didn’t know any better, you’d think it was the Qing Dynasty.”
Furthermore, some netizens revealed that just posting the phrase “New Era Word Prison” on QQ Space would also trigger the system to block it.
In fact, incidents of such sensitive word blunders are not new. Last October, in the game “Genshin Impact,” a player named a monster “Ren Yiping,” which resulted in the system deeming it as implicating “assassinating Xi Jinping,” leading to the account being banned for 11 years.
In 2021, during the promotion of the Japanese mobile game “Idol Dream Festival 2” in the Chinese version, the character “Takamine Midori” had her name altered with the Chinese character “Midori” changed to Japanese phonetics, due to concerns that the Chinese character “Midori” would be interpreted as hinting at Xi Jinping’s “passing away.”
It seems that this “sensitive word war” has escalated from news comment sections to every word written by players.
Production Team of “News Spotlight”