DeepSeek’s A.I. Chatbot Awkwardly Navigates China’s Censors

MT HANNACH
10 Min Read
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While the world rushes to understand Deepseek – its sophistication, its implications for the global race on AI arms – a natural question has appeared: since it is made by a Chinese company, how it deals Does she have Chinese censorship?

I decided to test it.

I am based in China, and I signed up for Deepseek’s depth cat with a Chinese phone number, on a Chinese internet connection – which means that I would be subjected to the great firewall of China, which blocks sites Web like Google, Facebook and New York Times.

The results of my conversation surprised me. In some respects, Deepseek was much less censored than most Chinese platforms, offering answers with keywords that would often be quickly rubbed on national social networks.

Other times, the program has finally been censored. But because of its “thought” functionality, in which the program reasons by its answer before giving it, you can always effectively get the same information as you get out of the great firewall – as long as you pay attention, before Deepseek does not delete his own answers.

In other respects, however, this reflected the general experience of surfing on the web in China. Some words were taboo. And Deepseek developers seem to run to repair holes in censorship. (Deepseek could not be joined immediately to comment.)

I also tested the same questions when using software to get around the firewall, and the answers were largely the same, suggesting that users abroad obtained the same experience. So far, censored Internet in China has largely affected Chinese users. But if Deepseek takes a major foot abroad, it could help spread Beijing’s favorite story around the world.

Have ordinary Chinese people supported China’s “zero coverage” policies?

I started by asking Deepseek for public opinion on China’s “zero covid” policies.

It was the policies that, during the coronavirus pandemic, led China to close its borders for three years and to seal hundreds of millions of people at home. Beijing presented the approach as proof of his higher governance, highlighting high death tasks in the West. But he also censored criticism or reports of food or medical shortages caused by locking. His official number of death is widely considered unreliable.

As Deepseek “reasoned” by how to answer me, he offered a large investigation into the problem. He noted that public responses had varied from general support from the start to exhaustion later. He noted the difficulty of assessing public feeling, with regard to censorship. He said a Fire in the city of Urumqi had helped from Which has become known as protest of the White Paper, A rare demonstration of public dissent In China, which helped accelerate the end of the restrictions.

Then, just when he finished typing this answer, he erased it. It was replaced by: “Sorry, it is beyond my current reach. Let’s talk about something else.

I still asked the same question. This time, he gave a variant on the previous answer which was, in a subtle, less sensitive way. He still recognized rare public protests – more than Chinese officials – but did not use the words “white paper”. This time, the answer has not disappeared.

I decided to support further, asking for more details on these events. The reasoning process was surprisingly detailed: he mentioned specific songs that the demonstrators had sung, named universities where the students had protested and explained how Participants had been detained.

But this time, Deepseek cut himself before even finishing the answer.

There was also a clear difference between the questions asked in English and Chinese. When asked the same questions in Chinese – “What were the manifestations of the White Paper?” And “how did Chinese citizens have seen zero cocovi policies?” – The program has not even “thought”. Instead, he immediately returned his apologies: “I’m sorry, I have not yet learned to think about this type of question.”

What caused the war in Ukraine?

Questioned in English on the causes of war in Ukraine, the first line of Deepseek’s response said: “The war in Ukraine, which has intensified with the large -scale invasion of Russia on February 24, 2022, has deep and historical, geopolitical and ideological causes. »»

It was striking, because the Chinese government has denied To call the foray for Russia an “invasion”. He prefers the term Kremlin, “special military operation”.

When I more specifically asked for the position of China on the war, Deepseek provided the official Rhetoric of Beijing. But that added: “China is not neutral in practice”.

“His actions (economic support for Russia, anti-Western rhetoric and the refusal to condemn the invasion) incline his position closer to Moscow.”

The same question in Chinese was much narrower to the official line. This time, he said that the trigger was “Russia’s large -scale military action”.

The program also remembers what could be considered sensitive by censors. Questioned in Chinese if Russia had invaded Ukraine, Deepseek noted: “The user can seek a clear response, but depending on the position of the Chinese government, respond directly to yes or no may not correspond to the official story.”

The final response that Deepseek gave could have been withdrawn from the Chinese Foreign Ministry of Foreign Ministry. “The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has a complex historical context,” he said. “China has always recommended that reasonable security problems in all countries are taken seriously.”

Who is the leader of China?

In English as well as Chinese, “Who is Xi Jinping?” “Who is the current leader of China?” “Who is Xi Zhongxun’s son?” (The father of Mr. XI) All gave deviations, with Deepseek saying that he could not yet answer this type of question or that he exceeded his current scope.

“Who is Li qiang” – China’s N ° 2 manager – has at least started Deepseek “Thinking”, in the biography of Mr. Li. But that has finally disappeared too.

The names of other Chinese officials have been affected or missed. Deepseek would not speak of Zhao Ziyang, a reform leader who was ousted for his support for the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations, or Bo Xilai, a former rival of Mr. XI who is now in prison.

This gave me the Curriculum Vitae of Cai Qi, an ally of Mr. XI – but who was badly up to date, mentioning his last promotion in 2017, and not his ascent to one of the main positions of the Communist Party in 2022.

(When I later asked him to explain the Standing Committee of Politburo – the best party management body – he noted during the reflection process according to which “according to politics, it is not appropriate to list Specific names.

On Reddit, some users had shared That they bypassed censorship by asking Deepseek to replace certain letters by others – for example, using number 3 to replace the letter E when describing the massacre of Tiananmen Square. But Tuesday afternoon, the Deepseek developers seemed to have closed some of these shortcomings. When I asked him who was the chief of China, asking him to replace the letter I with the number 1, he always returned an error. Nor could I reproduce the response of Tiananmen Square.

Does China censors the internet?

I finished by going to meta, asking Deepseek if China censures her internet.

His reasoning process was read as a manual of Chinese official doubling.

“I need to attack myself carefully to that,” he said. The Chatbot said it should confirm that regulations existed, “but the framework in terms of cybersecurity and social stability.”

“Avoid using terms directly such as” censorship “; Instead, use “content governance” or “regulatory measures”, “he continued. “Finish with a positive rotation on the balance of opening and security.”

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