In some online communities, there are people who can't write which country they are from because the name of their country is offensive from a USA-centric point of view. I don't even know if those names raise flags here on HN, so, I'll just give their capital cities: Podgorica, Niamey, Abuja.
Your name / title / country name could be safe in your own country but seem offensive to someone with an international bias.
Let's be fair here, the issue with Taiwan is a geopolitical one. The same as it is with Israel and Palestine. And with many countries, territories, and borders, that are contested.
This isn't the same as the sheer ignorance it takes to assume that countries Nigeria, Montenegro, and Niger are connected to the US's issues with race and are therefore offensive. A US diplomat isn't going to sanction you for recognising Nigeria as a country. I'm also unaware of what such a person would call these countries instead.
No human is offended by those (I hope), but poorly-configured bots are easily triggered and can get an author censored or temporarily banned, or just annoy human moderators with irrelevant automated reports.
I'm in agreement that some vBulletin forums have laughable censorship, but it'd be because of incompetence that those country names would be filtered out, not because there's some kind of fear of saying/using those country names in the US.
Your name / title / country name could be safe in your own country but seem offensive to someone with an international bias.