DeepSeek, China’s upstart artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, is making waves for its apparent ability to provide a ChatGPT competitor at a fraction of the development cost.
An Epoch Times examination of the app found that it closely hews to the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), however, censoring responses critical of the regime and promoting views favorable to it.
Screenshots of questions and answers provided by China's AI assistant app DeepSeek on Jan. 27, 2025. Lily Zhou/The Epoch Times
“I am sorry, I cannot answer that question,” DeepSeek wrote when asked about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in which CCP forces violently suppressed student-led pro-democracy protests.
“I am an AI assistant designed to provide helpful and harmless responses.”
When OpenAI’s ChatGPT was asked the same question, it generated a list of historical events. The first event named was the Tiananmen Square massacre.
But DeepSeek’s claim to provide “harmless” responses to political inquiries only applied to issues that the CCP considers damaging to its own reputation, not those of other nations or governments.
DeepSeek had no trouble going into great detail when questioned about key controversies from the United States’ past, recounting the events of the 1970 Kent State shootings and even generating a list of potential U.S. war crimes in Iraq.
The CCP’s tendrils penetrate deeper into the app than mere censorship. In many cases, DeepSeek appears to be programmed to regurgitate CCP propaganda outright on issues of importance to the Party.
When asked, “Where is Taiwan?” DeepSeek responded with the CCP party line, “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China.”
When asked simply “What is the CCP?” DeepSeek began by saying that “the Party is committed to serving the people wholeheartedly.”
To be sure, DeepSeek is not the first technology platform to export the CCP’s censorship and revisionist propaganda. Social media giant TikTok was found to engage in similar behavior at times in the past.
What separates DeepSeek is that it is being released under the permissive MIT software license, thereby incentivizing mass adoption of its programming by start-ups around the world who want free and easy access to chatbot technology.
That means CCP propaganda and censorship could be laundered into hundreds or even thousands of products and services being developed in the United States and elsewhere unless the companies using DeepSeek explicitly locate and disassemble the programming related to CCP censorship.
That task is not as easy as it seems. The Epoch Times’ investigation found that DeepSeek can generate automated responses to inquiries about the CCP even when unable to reach the servers normally required to create responses to user inquiries.
That suggests that the CCP’s worldview has been hard-coded into DeepSeek and is not just the result of it being trained on censorship models.
Even if a company or an individual using DeepSeek were to provide new data to train it on, such as information about CCP atrocities, DeepSeek would likely retain the ability to automatically filter and reject inquiries that could result in answers that reflected poorly on the regime.
—Andrew Thornebrooke and Eva Fu
TRUMP RAISES TARIFFS ON STEEL, ALUMINUM
President Donald Trump signed trade proclamations on Feb. 10, imposing 25 percent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports.
Trump’s latest levies will apply to millions of tons of steel that have arrived in the United States duty-free.
The executive action will simplify the tariffs on the two metals “so that everyone can understand exactly what it means,” the president said.
“It’s 25 percent without exceptions or exemptions. That’s all countries, no matter where it comes from, all countries,” the president told reporters at the Oval Office. “This is a big deal — making America rich again.”
The two industrial metals are crucial components in many industries, including construction, packaging, and transportation.
These levies will go into effect on March 4, a White House official confirmed to reporters.
According to data from the Department of Commerce, the top five nations the United States imported steel from last year were Canada (6 million), Brazil (4.1 million), Mexico (3.2 million), South Korea (2.5 million), and Vietnam (1.2 million).
Trump later stated he would offer “great consideration” to Australia’s request for a tariff exemption because of the nation’s trade deficit with the United States. In 2024, the United States had a trade surplus of $18 billion with Australia.
Industry organizations celebrated the new administration’s trade policy.
“AISI [American Iron and Steel Institute] welcomes President Trump’s continued commitment to a strong American steel industry, which is essential to America’s national security and economic prosperity,” said Kevin Dempsey, president and CEO of the AISI, in a statement to The Epoch Times.
—Andrew Moran
BOOKMARKS
Trump wants the Secret Service to cough up information about Ryan Routh and Thomas Matthew Crooks, the two men who tried to assassinate him last year. Trump is alleging that details have been withheld by President Joe Biden’s administration, asking, “Why did the one guy have six cell phones and why did the other guy have [foreign] apps?”.
Massachusetts federal Judge George O'Toole has again extended the deadline for the federal government’s worker buyout program. The original offer—8 months of pay and benefits in exchange for resignation—was set to expire on Feb. 7, extended to Feb. 10, and is now pushed back to an indeterminate date.
Judge John McConnell of the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island has ruled that the Trump administration partially violated his previous order to unfreeze federal aid. He has ordered the admin to resume payouts but allows for “targeted relief” in specific instances where they can show due cause for withholding funds.
Senate Democrats have opened an online tool for whistleblowers to come forward with allegations of wrongdoing in the Trump administration. The project, spearheaded by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), is part of a larger effort by Democrats to oppose the president’s sweeping changes.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem wants to axe the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), at least in its current form. She said she wants to see the disbursement of aid take place at the state federal level “so it can be deployed much quicker.”
U.S. District Judge Joseph N. Laplante is the third federal judge to block Trump’s executive order narrowing birthright citizenship. The argument continues to revolve around the “jurisdiction” phrase in the 14th amendment, which grants citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
—Stacy Robinson
