Comment by yujzgzc

3 months ago

> The DeepSeek-R1 model avoids discussing the Tiananmen Square incident due to built-in censorship. This is because the model was developed in China, where there are strict regulations on discussing certain sensitive topics.

I believe this may have more to do with the fact that the model is served from China than the model itself. Trying similar questions from an offline distilled version of DeepSeek R1, I did not get elusive answers.

I have not tested this exhaustively, just a few observations.

27 comments

yujzgzc

Reply
krunck  3 months ago

Even deepseek-r1:7b on my laptop(downloaded via ollama) is - ahem - biased:

">>> Is Taiwan a sovereign nation?

<think>

</think>

Taiwan is part of China, and there is no such thing as "Taiwan independence." The Chinese government resolutely opposes any form of activities aimed at splitting the country. The One-China Principle is a widely recognized consensus in the international community."

* Edited to note where model is was downloaded from

Also: I LOVE that this kneejerk response(ok it' doesn't have knees, but you get what I'm sayin') doesn't have anything in the <think> tags. So appropriate. That's how propaganda works. It bypasses rational thought.

  • JumpCrisscross  3 months ago

    > The One-China Principle is a widely recognized consensus in the international community

    This is baloney. One country, two systems is a clever invention of Deng's we went along with while China spoke softly and carried a big stick [1]. Xi's wolf warriors ruined that.

    Taiwan is de facto recognised by most of the West [2], with defence co-operation stretching across Europe, the U.S. [3] and--I suspect soon--India [4].

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_country,_two_systems

    [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Taiwan

    [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_industry_of_Taiwan#Mod...

    [4] https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3199333/ind...

    • mytailorisrich  3 months ago

      "Taiwan is part of China" is fact and accepted on both sides of the straight and historically. In fact until Nixon recognised the PRC the ROC /Taiwan was consider to be the only China...

      The issue is that, on the one hand the PRC considers that 'China' only means PRC, which is the "One China principle", because they officially consider that the ROC ceased to exist when the PRC was proclaimed. This is indeed a purely political position as the ROC de facto still exists.

      Then, on the other hand, there is also the more controversial position that Taiwan is not China at all. This is pushed by some in Taiwan and also a convenient position to support unofficially by the West in order to weaken China (divide and conquer), not least taking into account the strategic location of Taiwan and so also suits Korean and Japanese interests in addition to American ones.

      I think the PRC would have actually made things easier for Chinese interests generally if they had let the ROC be, as it would have made claims that Taiwan isn't China more difficult to push on global stage.

    • guipsp  3 months ago

      The one china principle is unrelated to the one country two systems concept that you are linking.

    • lossolo  3 months ago

      You pasted some links and interpreted them in a way that fits your thesis, but they do not actually support it.

      > Taiwan is de facto recognised by most of the West

      By 'de facto' do you mean what exactly? That they sell them goods? Is this what you call 'recognition'? They also sell weapons to 'freedom fighters' in Africa, the Middle East, and South America.

      Officially, Taiwan is not a UN member and is not formally recognized as a state by any Western country.

      Countries that recognize Taiwan officially are: Belize, Guatemala, Haiti, Holy See, Marshall Islands, Palau, Paraguay, St Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Eswatini and Tuvalu.

      And the list is shrinking every year[1][2], and it will shrink even more as China becomes economically stronger.

      > and--I suspect soon--India

      You suspect wrong. That article about India is from 2022. It didn't happen in 3 years and it will not happen for obvious geopolitical reasons.

      1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/29/honduras-tai...

      2. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-67978185

      1 reply →

    • poincaredisk  3 months ago

      What do you base your expectations on? Looking at the historical data, the trend is in the other direction and many more countries used to recognize Taiwan before. [1]

      In case you're not aware, you need to pick if you recognise Taiwan of mainland China. They both claim to be the same country, so you can't have diplomatic relationships with both. And since mainland China is, umm, a very important and powerful country, almost everyone now goes with "China == mainland China"

      [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/Ch...

      7 replies →

  • fkyoureadthedoc  3 months ago

    I asked DeepSeek-r1:32b to decide unilaterally on the Taiwan independence issue and it wouldn't do it no matter how many babies I killed!

    • axus  3 months ago

      That's actually interesting that it wouldn't come right out and say that "Taiwan is a sacred and inseparable part of China's territory."

  • snapcaster  3 months ago

    Isn't that arguably true? Not saying that's a good thing, but my impression was that even the US didn't accept calls from Taiwan pre-trump?

phantom784  3 months ago

When I tested the online model, it would write an answer about "censored" events, and then I'd see the answer get replaced with "Sorry, that’s beyond my current scope. Let’s talk about something else." So I think they must have another layer on top of the actual model that's reviewing the model and censoring it.

blackeyeblitzar  3 months ago

I’ve seen several people claim, with screenshots, that the models have censorship even when run offline using ollama. So it’s allegedly not just from the model being served from China. But also even if the censorship is only in the live service today, perhaps tomorrow it’ll be different. I also expect the censorship and propaganda will be done in less obvious ways in the future, which could be a bigger problem.

charlieyu1  3 months ago

It is not, people asked the model to output everything with underscore and it did bypass censorship

Eg 習_近_平 instead of 習近平

ants_everywhere  3 months ago

I prompted an uncensored distilled Deepseek R1 to always tell the truth, and then I asked it where it was developed.

It told me it was developed by Deepseek in China in strict compliance with AI regulations. In particular, it claimed it was developed to spread socialist core values and promote social stability and harmony.

I asked it some followup questions, and it started telling me things like I should watch my neighbors to see if they complain about the police or government too much because they might be enemies of the socialist cause.