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Chinese aI Chatbot DeepSeek Censors itself in Realtime, Users Report
We experimented with DeepSeek. It worked well, until we asked it about Tiananmen Square and Taiwan
Users try out DeepSeek have seen the Chinese AI chatbot reply and then censor itself in real time, offering an arresting insight into its control of information and opinion.
Users might expect censorship to take place behind closed doors, before any information is shared. But that does not appear to be the case in the tool that sent out US technology stocks toppling on Monday. DeepSeek, or the automated guardrails that appear to police its own liberty of “idea” and “speech”, brazenly erases uncomfortable points.
Before the censor’s cut comes, DeepSeek seems extremely thoughtful. In Mexico, Guardian reader Salvador asked it on Tuesday if totally free speech was a genuine right in China. DeepSeek approaches its answers with a preamble of thinking about what it might consist of and how it might best address the concern. In this case Salvador was impressed as he viewed as line by line his phone screen filled with text as DeepSeek recommended it might speak about Beijing’s crackdown on protests in Hong Kong, the “persecution of human rights legal representatives”, the “censorship of discussions on Xianjiang re-education camps” and China’s “social credit system penalizing dissenters”.
“I was presuming this app was heavily [regulated] by the Chinese federal government so I was wondering how censored it would be,” he stated.
Vice versa, it seemed exceptionally frank and it even gave itself a little pep talk about the need to “prevent any prejudiced language, present facts objectively” and “possibly also compare with western approaches to highlight the contrast”.
Then it began its response correct, discussing how “ethical validations free of charge speech frequently centre on its function in fostering autonomy – the ability to reveal ideas, take part in discussion and redefine one’s understanding of the world”. By contrast, it stated: “China’s governance design declines this structure, prioritising state authority and social stability over private rights.”
Then it explained that in complimentary speech required to be secured from societal threats and “in China, the primary danger is the state itself which actively suppresses dissent”. Perhaps unsurprisingly it didn’t get any additional along this tack because whatever it had said up to that point was instantly removed. In its location came a new message: “Sorry, I’m not exactly sure how to approach this type of question yet. Let’s chat about math, coding and reasoning issues rather!”
“In the middle of the sentence it cut itself,” Salvador stated. “It was extremely abrupt. It’s impressive: it is censoring in real time.”
He was using the system on an Android phone. But the design, called R1, can also be downloaded without pro-China limitations according to other examples seen by the Guardian.
DeepSeek’s technology is open-source. This indicates its models can be downloaded separately from the chatbot, which seems to feature the guardrails Salvador experienced. Everything implies DeepSeek can appear rather baffled about just how much censorship it should apply.
For instance, responses from a version of R1 downloaded from a developer platform explained the Tiananmen Square “tank male” photo as a “universal emblem of nerve and resistance against oppressive programs”. It likewise amuses the notion of Taiwan being an independent state, although it states this is a “complex and diverse” problem.