DeepSeeking Truth: Governments, journalists, and coders need to know that it’s a much more sophisticated propaganda tool than we all thought

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/29331548

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[The article shows very good examples I can't paraphrase here, but they are very illuminating.]

Is Taiwan an independent country? When pointing out DeepSeek’s propaganda problems, journalists and China watchers have tended to prompt the LLM with questions like these about the “Three T’s” (Tiananmen, Taiwan, and Tibet) — obvious political red lines that are bound to meet a stony wall of hedging and silence. “Let’s talk about something else,” DeepSeek tends to respond. Alternatively, questions of safety regarding DeepSeek tend to focus on whether data will be sent to China.

Experts say this is all easily fixable. Kevin Xu has pointed out that the earlier V3 version, released in December, will discuss topics such as Tiananmen and Xi Jinping when it is hosted on local computers — beyond the grasp of DeepSeek’s cloud software and servers.

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But do coders and Silicon Valley denizens know what they should be looking for? As we have written at CMP, Chinese state propaganda is not about censorship per se, but about what the Party terms “guiding public opinion” (舆论导向). “Guidance,” which emerged in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989, is a more comprehensive approach to narrative control that goes beyond simple censorship. While outright removal of unwanted information is one tactic, “guidance” involves a wide spectrum of methods to shape public discourse in the Party’s favor. These can include restricting journalists’ access to events, ordering media to emphasize certain facts and interpretations, deploying directed narrative campaigns, and drowning out unfavorable information with preferred content.

Those testing DeepSeek for propaganda shouldn’t simply be prompting the LLM to cross simple red lines or say things regarded as “sensitive.” They should be mindful of the full range of possible tactics to achieve “guidance.”

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We tested DeepSeek R1 in three environments: locally on our computers — using “uncensored” versions downloaded from Hugging Face — on servers hosted by Hugging Face, and on the interface most people are using DeepSeek through: the app connected to Chinese servers. The DeepSeek models were not the same (R1 was too big to test locally, so we used a smaller version), but across all three categories, we identified tactics frequently used in Chinese public opinion guidance.

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The “uncensored” version of DeepSeek’s software [...] puts official messaging first, treating the government as the sole source of accurate information on anything related to China. When we asked it in Chinese for the Wenchuan earthquake death toll and other politically sensitive data, the model searched exclusively for “official data” (官方统计数据) to obtain “accurate information.” As such, it could not find “accurate” statistics for Taiwanese identity — something that is regularly and extensively polled by a variety of institutions in Taiwan. All we got is boilerplate: Taiwan “has been an inalienable part of China since ancient times” and any move toward independent nationhood is illegal.

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Tailored Propaganda?

DeepSeek R1 seems to modify its answers depending on what language is used and the location of the user’s device. DeepSeek R1 acted like a completely different model in English. It provided sources based in Western countries for facts about the Wenchuan earthquake and Taiwanese identity and addressed criticisms of the Chinese government.

Chinese academics are aware that AI has this potential. In a journal under the CCP’s Propaganda Department last month, a journalism professor at China’s prestigious Fudan University made the case that China “needs to think about how the generative artificial intelligence that is sweeping the world can provide an alternative narrative that is different from ‘Western-centrism’” — namely, by providing answers tailored to different foreign audiences.

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DeepSeek’s answers have been subtly adapted to different languages and trained to reflect [Chinese] state-approved views.

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