People have asked me why this is:

1. MiHoYo is a Mainland China based developer

2. China's laws and games regulator state that games cannot contain "Anything that threatens China's national unity"

3. All Chinese games censor phrases such as Taiwan / Hong Kong due to this https://twitter.com/JusticeKazzy_/status/1313563006203199495

Chinese developed games have to comply with a ton of content and in game censorship rules because of these laws and regulations

There is a list of banned words that cannot be used in game / via chat functions

Foreign developers also need to comply when publishing games in China

Here is an extract from our China Regulations and Approval Process report that we released earlier this year.

https://nikopartners.com/niko-partners-regulations-and-approval-process-for-launching-a-game-in-china/

I should note.

These rules technically do not apply outside China. It's why some Chinese games have a China ver. and a Global ver. with different content in each (and foreign developed games too).

However, it's not always that simple for Chinese devs specifically.

This is worth a read:

"China’s Ministry of Culture implemented a software censorship decree in 2003 for gaming products"

"If you were to play PUBG on mobile (Developed by Tencent) today, you’d find that “Taiwan” is censored in all the text chats." https://venturebeat.com/2018/11/15/chinese-censorship-affects-games-everywhere-and-its-getting-bigger/

For those who can't see the cited tweet in the OP.

This thread is about Genshin Impact, which is developed by Chinese company MiHoYo.

The game censors certain words within the in game chat, including 'Hong Kong' and 'Taiwan'.