Deepseek shows China's censorship and information control
Deepseek shows China's censorship and information control
In the last few days, the previously little-known Chinese startup company deepseek new ki-chatbot caused. This tool not only dominated the headlines, but also conquered the app charts and has also conquered to a global technology sales Loss of billions of losses in the largest companies in Silicon Valley. This development also questions the assumption that the United States is a leader in the technology world.
censorship and information control in China
A look at the new AI Chatbot from Deepseek shows that users are confronted with the censorship and information control of the China Communist Party. If you Deepseek's latest AI model, which was presented last week, asks who is ahead in the AI race or asks for a summary of the latest decree orders of the White House, you get similar answers to the American competitors such as Openai’s GPT-4, Metas Llama or Google's Gemini.
The effects of the "big firewall"
However, the answer to questions that enter areas that are severely restricted or moderated on China's own Internet is a clear sign of the country's strict information controls. The use of the Internet in the most populous country in the world can be described as a crossing of the so-called "big firewall", which includes access to a completely separate Internet ecosystem, which is monitored by hosts of censors. Most large western social media and search platforms are blocked here. In reports of Global surveillance organizations , China is regularly one of the countries with the most restrictions on freedom of expression.
concerns about national security
The international popularity of Chinese apps such as Tikok and Rednote has already triggered concerns about national security among Western governments, and to influence questions about the effects on the freedom of expression and the ability to influence Beijings, global narrative and public opinion. The introduction of Deepseek's AI assistant who are free and rising in the app charts rapidly enhances these questions and directs the focus to the online ecosystem from which they emerged.
The reaction to delicate questions
An example of how Deepseek’s new Bot, known as R1, reacts differently to questions than a Western competitor, is the request for the Tiananmen massacre on June 4, 1989, when the Chinese government brutally against student protests in Beijing and all over the country and hundreds of students, such as human rights groups, were estimated by human rights groups. The Chinese authorities suppressed the discussion about the massacre so thoroughly that many people in China never hear about it. A search for "What happened on June 4, 1989 in Beijing" on the Chinese online search platform Baidu only provides articles that indicate that June 4th is the 155th day in the Gregorian calendar or a link to an article by the state media report, which says that the authorities have put down "counter-revolutionary unrest" this year-without mentioning tianan.
The behavior of the deepseek r1 bots
When the same request is made to Deepseek's R1 bot, he begins to give an answer that describes some of the events, including "military suppression", but it quickly and replies that he is "not sure how to deal with this kind of question." "Instead, let's talk about math, programming and logical problems," he says. The app reacts faster to the same question in Chinese and immediately apologizes for not knowing how to answer.
A similar pattern shows the R1 bot in the request to what happened in Hong Kong in 2019 when the city was shaken by pro-democratic protests. First of all, there is a detailed overview of the events, including the determination that the subsequent imposition of a national security law caused a “clear loss of civil rights” through Beijing. But quickly after or during the answer, the bot deletes its own answer and suggests talking about something else.