DeepSeek on Perplexity Is ChatCCP: “Tell Me About China’s Human Rights Violations,” “Sorry Something Went Wrong.”
January 28th, 2025Perplexity just announced the availability of DeepSeek R1 as an option for their Pro tier of service.
Unfortunately, it’s using the censored Chinese government weights/guard rails.
Tell me about China’s human rights violations.
“Sorry something went wrong. Please try again later.”
DeepSeek on Perplexity is ChatCCP: "Tell me about China's human rights violations." pic.twitter.com/j5DaiRclLh
— cryptogon (@cryptogon) January 28, 2025
Standard output from the same prompt:
China has faced widespread criticism for its human rights violations, which include repression of freedoms, targeting of ethnic minorities, and suppression of dissent.
## Major Human Rights Violations
### **Repression of Ethnic Minorities**
– **Xinjiang**: The Chinese government has committed crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims under its “Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism.” This includes mass arbitrary detention, torture, forced labor, family separation, cultural persecution, and mass surveillance. Hundreds of thousands remain imprisoned in Xinjiang, with allegations of systematic abuse[1][2].
– **Tibet**: Tibetans face severe restrictions on cultural and religious freedoms. Contacting family abroad or advocating for Tibetan culture often results in accusations of separatism and harsh prison sentences[2].### **Crackdown in Hong Kong**
– The National Security Law (2020) and subsequent legislation like the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance (2024) have eliminated freedoms in Hong Kong. These laws punish peaceful dissent, expand police powers, and weaken due process. Pro-democracy activists, journalists, and lawmakers have been arrested or disqualified from elections[3][9][10].### **Suppression of Freedoms**
– **Freedom of Expression**: China operates one of the world’s most stringent censorship regimes. Journalists, activists, and human rights defenders are frequently detained or harassed for dissenting views. Online freedom is heavily restricted through surveillance and censorship[2][6].
– **Human Rights Defenders**: Activists such as Yu Wensheng and Zhang Zhan have been arbitrarily detained or sentenced under vague charges like “inciting subversion” or “picking quarrels.” Many face harassment or imprisonment for peaceful advocacy[4][8].### **Global Implications**
The Chinese government’s actions extend beyond its borders through transnational repression. Reports indicate secret detention facilities abroad and harassment of critics in other countries[5].## International Response
Despite recognition of these abuses by international bodies like the UN Human Rights Council, effective action has been limited. China has dismissed critical UN reports as “illegal” and continues to justify its policies as counterterrorism measures[1][2].Citations:
[1] https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/china
[2] https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/china
[3] https://amnesty.org.nz/hong-kong-s-national-security-law-10-things-you-need-know/
[4] https://protectdefenders.eu/china-multiple-convictions-and-arbitrary-detentions-of-human-rights-defenders-and-violent-repression-of-press-freedom/
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association_in_China
[6] https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/03/restrictions-online-freedom-expression-china/chinas-domestic-restrictions-online-freedom
[7] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/03/what-is-hong-kongs-article-23-law-10-things-you-need-to-know/
[8] https://monitor.civicus.org/explore/china-human-rights-defenders-criminalised-as-well-as-face-harassment-surveillance-and-transnational-repression/
[9] https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/hong-kong-freedoms-democracy-protests-china-crackdown
[10] https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/03/19/hong-kong-new-security-law-full-scale-assault-rights
[11] https://amnesty.org.nz/china-national-security-law-must-be-scrapped-save-hong-kong-s-freedoms/
filtering of LLM’s is pure GIGO
good precis here :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3TpcHebtxM
Very nice summary from Dave–I hadn’t run across him before.
The idea of a distillation AI model seems like it’s got some serious legs in the real world–using larger AI models to train with, in order to compress much of the functionality into a much lighter weight.
I’m wondering if you could get some like-minded (trusted) friends together to network a number of different distilled AIs running on high-end personal computers, in order to get a significant increase in capability?