For community members who were pinged in the general channel on February 5, 2025, to understand how the incident unfolded.
Incident period: January–February 2025
Due to the large number of alternate accounts and inconsistent naming patterns, this individual will hereafter be referred to as the impersonator.The impersonator claimed to be an underage New Zealand Chinese individual.
Around January 26, a Bluesky account (hereafter referred to as “Bsky”) impersonating Red Candle was discovered.Its profile picture, banner, bio, and account username (redcandlegames) were all identical to Red Candle’s content on X (Twitter).Although Red Candle’s promotional posts were copied, personal posts from approximately two months prior had not been deleted.Based on this, the account was determined to be an impersonation and was reported.
#The main point of dispute from this point onward concerns the use of the @username “redcandlegames,” which is typically used by Red Candle as its official handle.
On January 29, it was discovered that the impersonator was also using “redcandlegames” as a username on Discord, interacting with other community members in the Red Candle Discord server (hereafter referred to as the Red Candle server).During this period, the impersonator uploaded files to the server with filenames that directly contained racially discriminatory terms.These actions were noticed by some members of the EN community, who reported the issue to moderators, resulting in a one-week mute.(Further details are provided later; the broader community only became aware of this incident on February 3.)
Note: The Red Candle Discord server is divided into Chinese-language and English-language channels. The English-language channels are collectively referred to as “EN.”
At the beginning, the impersonator listed all of their accounts in their Discord profile.On X (Twitter), there was also an impersonation account using the name “redcandlegames.”As of this point, there were at least three separate instances indicating attempts to impersonate Red Candle.
On February 1, it was discovered that the impersonator had changed their Discord username to “9sols.”
The impersonator changed their Bluesky display name from “redcandlegames” to “赤燭遊戲” (Red Candle Games in Mandarin).They stated only in the profile bio that the account was unofficial, claiming that reposts were made because there was no official Red Candle account on Bluesky.However, they continued to occupy the @username “redcandlegames.” Another account previously using the handle @9sols was renamed to @yi-i.
The impersonator also reposted images taken from Red Candle’s posts on X (Twitter) showing interactions with Shuhei Yoshida, and tagged the same account name on Bluesky.
Note: Shuhei Yoshida does not have a Bluesky account; the tagged name was already being used by another Bluesky user.
Finding this inappropriate, the author suggested below the post that the @username be changed.The following response was received; after the Lunar New Year, it was discovered that this reply had been deleted by the impersonator:
Response refusing to change the account name when questioned about not being an official account (deleted).