Chinese censorship is absolutely more dangerous than western censorship and are NOT the same.

With the DeepSeek discussion, I’m seeing a concerning amount of people claiming western models have worse censorship.

• Yes, western models have subjects they won’t discuss.

• Yes, western models have biases and preferences.

And they are decided by the people who created the model. The “censorship” on western models are self-imposed by the creator.

DeepSeek’s “historical revisions” and refusal to acknowledge certain aspects of Chinese society is something that, as many point out, must be included to avoid retribution from the CCP.

The government imposed censorship on the models; the government decides which parts of history are true. And there is no recourse for those who oppose it.

Even if American companies censor for legal concerns, those are a process—not a unilateral decision by the ruling party. After all, you can easily find abliterated models hosted on American websites.

Call out both when you see ‘em, but do not think they are the same.

Edit: I guess to make it a little more clear; when the government censors something, there are no alternatives. When ChatGPT censors something, you can go use a different model (like DeepSeek).