Since 2017, Azur Lane has dominated the mobile gaming market with lots and lots of “waifus” that you can obtain through gacha mechanics. That’s why its developers, Shanghai Manjuu and Xiamen Yongshi know very well how to appeal to their audience, with the constant release of new characters and quite revealing skins. However, the latter just got them in trouble on the Twitter/X platform.
Why did Twitter/X just censor Azur Lane?
A few days ago, the official Azur Lane Twitter/X account posted this image of the new Cheshire character skin. However, everyone noticed something very strange: It was totally censored. The text of the tweet has an explanation, as it says: “From the Twitter/X management policy team, we have received a request to “restrict speech content” regarding some of the official posts with in-game images. Therefore, the following tweets may be removed in the near future. Rest assured that game productions and illustrations are not regulated.”
Basically, the Azur Lane team confirmed that they were forced to remove and censor some tweets with racy images, but that at least none of these illustrations or skins will be censored in-game. This news was very badly received by fans, who immediately pointed their frustration towards the Twitter/X team that took this measure, since this social network always boasted of being more permissive towards adult content. On top of that, Elon Musk promised that there would be fewer regulations for publications when he acquired Twitter/X in 2022, so it is completely understandable that fans of this popular game feel that this sanction is somewhat unfair.
This is not the first time Azur Lane’s developers have been criticized for their use of racy skins, as there have gradually been more and more scantily clad characters in this popular video game. While it is logical that this type of content would drive some people away from the game, after all this is the main method of advertising that Shanghai Manjuu and Xiamen Yongshi use to attract their most loyal audience, the fans of their “waifus”. That’s why the recent Twitter/X censorship is a huge blow to these Chinese-based developers.
Many Azur Lane fans have commented about it, both on Twitter/X and on specialized sites such as Otakomu. There we can find interesting comments, such as “The final boss is also X, so the X-operated final boss theory is getting stronger”, “Even if the censorship is strong, it still looks good”, “Don’t spare Elon Musk” and “Mr. Elon, first regulate the Chinese adult content bot accounts”. This last comment refers to the countless bots with adult content that have been plaguing the platform for months now.
What do you think of this controversy, and do you think Azur Lane should have been censored by Twitter/X?
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