Friday, 31 January 2025
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** China's answer to ChatGPT: disruptive and dangerous
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This week people in China welcomed the year of the snake. The zodiac animal is known for its intelligence as well as its danger, which feels very relevant given the biggest story that has come out of China this week - DeepSeek.

By now most will be familiar with DeepSeek, the Chinese startup that just launched its latest AI model ([link removed]) , one that appears to match OpenAI's capabilities at a much lower cost. It is very intelligent artificial intelligence. But it is also dangerous. Because it operates out of China, even if you’re accessing it elsewhere, you’ll be fed responses from behind the Great Firewall. Looking for straight answers to questions about Tiananmen Square, the persecution of the Uyghurs and the Hong Kong protests? Forget about it.

According to the organisation NewsGuard, DeepSeek’s new chatbot model failed to provide accurate information on news and information topics 83% of the time ([link removed]) . That’s a staggering figure and one with huge implications if DeepSeek becomes a global AI leader.

Another danger is to users. DeepSeek says in its privacy policy ([link removed]) that personal information it collects is stored in secure servers located in China. Just how secure are these? Let’s see: in 2017 China passed a National Intelligence Law ([link removed]) , which compels all Chinese companies to assist the government with national security matters. This means, in theory at least, that any company can be forced to share user data with Chinese authorities, even if the data is from users outside the country. And DeepSeek collects a lot of data, from user’s accounts and activities to data from the devices they’re using and even “keystroke patterns or rhythms,” which can be as uniquely identifying as a fingerprint or facial recognition.

It's not just the Chinese Communist Party though who could access user’s data. Wiz, an organisation that helps other organisations create secure cloud environments, looked into the security of DeepSeek more broadly. Within minutes of investigating they said they discovered ([link removed]) a database linked to DeepSeek, which was open and exposing sensitive data.

DeepSeek has emerged on the global stage less than a fortnight after millions in the USA flocked to RedNote, the popular Chinese social media app. This app (which goes by the less than subtle name Xiaohongshu in China, that’s “Little Red Book”) also hoovers up user data ([link removed]) and filters conversations along CCP lines.

The popularity of RedNote (and for that matter TikTok) has raised important questions about how Beijing is trying to shape global narratives and the implications for free speech. With the emergence of DeepSeek, answering these questions is even more urgent.

Welcome to the year of the snake.

Jemimah Steinfeld

CEO, Index on Censorship


** More from Index
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** Afghanistan’s female lawyers are the latest target for the Taliban ([link removed])
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Pursuing a legal career has become impossible for women in the country. Some of those women told Index their stories

The war on drill ([link removed])

The police are disproportionately censoring and criminalising music by young Black men, with drill at the forefront


** Joe Mulhall, Solá Akingbolá and Hanna Komar champion silenced musicians ([link removed])
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Index on Censorship launches latest issue of magazine with powerful night of poetry and music

Editor in exile: One journalist’s daring escape from Myanmar ([link removed])

Index travels to Germany to meet exiled newspaper editor Kyaw Min Swe, who faced torture and imprisonment at the hands of the military junta


** Bobi Wine still standing up to oppression in Uganda, politically and musically ([link removed])
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Museveni’s most formidable challenger refuses to be silenced and remains on the frontline of protest

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** Nominate a freedom of expression champion
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Our Freedom of Expression Awards recognise those on the frontline of free expression and whose work has contributed significantly to confronting censorship – specifically in repressive regimes around the world.

In recent years, award recipients of these prestigious awards have included Toomaj Salehi, Malala Yousafzai, Cartoon Rights Network, and Abdelrahman ‘Moka’ Tarek.
NOMINATE TODAY ([link removed])


** From elsewhere
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USA: Elon Musk nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for “support of free speech” ([link removed]) [link removed]

UK: New inquiry into foreign governments persecuting people in Britain ([link removed])

TECH: Meta settles Trump censorship lawsuit for $25 million ([link removed])

IRAN: The country where there is one execution every eight hours ([link removed])

SWEDEN: Refugee killed on TikTok live stream “by foreign power” ([link removed])

UK: BBC apologises to staff who felt they could not speak out on Russell Brand ([link removed])



** Flashback
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Denying the Holocaust

by Michael May ([link removed])

Index on Censorship, volume 14, issue 6 ([link removed])

Back in 1985, a film called A Painful Reminder: Evidence for All Mankind was shown on British televiison for the first time after it was released from the archives of the Imperial War Museum. The film was intended to show Germans what happened in the Holocaust. In this article from the same year, Michael May, the assistant director of the Institute of Jewish Affairs in London wrote at length about the rise of Holocaust deniers. As we mark the 80th anniversary of one of the darkest episodes of the 20th century, we revisit his writing ([link removed]) .


** Support our work
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The world is becoming more authoritarian and our work supporting individuals like Kyaw Min Swe and promoting freedom of expression in countries such as Afghanistan and Myanmar has never been more important.

By supporting Index on Censorship today, you can help us in our work with censored artists, jailed musicians, journalists under threat and dissidents facing torture and worse.

Please donate today ([link removed])

Photos by Josef Kubes / Alamy Stock Photo (DeepSeek); Mariusz Cieszewski (Auschwitz)

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