3 ms·

> I guess censorship doesnt have as bad a rep in china as it has here It's probably disliked, just people know not to talk about it so blatantly due to chillin

> I guess censorship doesnt have as bad a rep in china as it has here It's probably disliked, just people know not to talk about it so blatantly due to chilling effects from aforementioned censorship. disclaimer: ignorant American, no clue what i'm talking about.

fragmede 2y ago
on the topic of censorship, US LLMs' censorship is called alignment. llama or ChatGPT's refusal on how to make meth or nuclear bombs is the same as not answering questions abput Tiananmen tank man as far as the matrix math word prediction box is concerned.
- throwaway314155 2y ago
  The distinction is that one form of censorship is clearly done for public relations purposes from profit minded individuals while the other is a top down mandate to effectively rewrite history from the government.
  - lecretinus 2y ago
    >to effectively rewrite history from the government. This is disingenuous. It's not "rewriting" anything, it's simply refusing to answer. Western models, on the other hand, often try to lecture or give blatantly biased responses instead of simply refusing when prompted on topics considered controversial in the burger land. OpenAI even helpfully flags prompts as potentially violating their guidelines.
jampekka 2y ago
My guess would be that most Chinese even support the censorship at least to an extent for its stabilizing effect etc. CCP has quite a high approval rating in China even when it's polled more confidentially. https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/chinese-communist-party-support-lower-when-surveys-anonymous/ https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/chinese-communist-part...
- kdmtctl 2y ago
  Yep. And invent a new type of VPN every quarter to break free. The indifferent mass prevails in every country, similarly cold to the First Amendment and Censorship. And engineers just do what they love to do, coping with reality. Activism is not for everyone.
  - jampekka 2y ago
    Indeed. At least as long as the living conditions are tolerable (for them), most people don't really care about things like censorship or surveillance or propaganda, no matter the system. The ones inventing the VPNs are a small minority, and it seems that CCP isn't really that bothered about such small minorities as long as they don't make a ruckus. AFAIU just using a VPN as such is very unlikely to lead to any trouble in China. For example in geopolitical matters the media is extremely skewed everywhere, and everywhere most people kind of pretend it's not. It's a lot more convenient to go with whatever is the prevailing narrative about things going on somewhere oceans away than to risk being associated with "the enemy".
    - kdmtctl 2y ago
      They do request to take down repos, sometimes in person for a disciplinary effect. And GFW is very effective, BTW. Wholeheartedly agree with the rest of the comment.

fragmede 2y ago

on the topic of censorship, US LLMs' censorship is called alignment. llama or ChatGPT's refusal on how to make meth or nuclear bombs is the same as not answering questions abput Tiananmen tank man as far as the matrix math word prediction box is concerned.

throwaway314155 2y ago
The distinction is that one form of censorship is clearly done for public relations purposes from profit minded individuals while the other is a top down mandate to effectively rewrite history from the government.
- lecretinus 2y ago
  >to effectively rewrite history from the government. This is disingenuous. It's not "rewriting" anything, it's simply refusing to answer. Western models, on the other hand, often try to lecture or give blatantly biased responses instead of simply refusing when prompted on topics considered controversial in the burger land. OpenAI even helpfully flags prompts as potentially violating their guidelines.

jampekka 2y ago

My guess would be that most Chinese even support the censorship at least to an extent for its stabilizing effect etc. CCP has quite a high approval rating in China even when it's polled more confidentially. https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/chinese-communist-party-support-lower-when-surveys-anonymous/ https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/chinese-communist-part...

kdmtctl 2y ago
Yep. And invent a new type of VPN every quarter to break free. The indifferent mass prevails in every country, similarly cold to the First Amendment and Censorship. And engineers just do what they love to do, coping with reality. Activism is not for everyone.
- jampekka 2y ago
  Indeed. At least as long as the living conditions are tolerable (for them), most people don't really care about things like censorship or surveillance or propaganda, no matter the system. The ones inventing the VPNs are a small minority, and it seems that CCP isn't really that bothered about such small minorities as long as they don't make a ruckus. AFAIU just using a VPN as such is very unlikely to lead to any trouble in China. For example in geopolitical matters the media is extremely skewed everywhere, and everywhere most people kind of pretend it's not. It's a lot more convenient to go with whatever is the prevailing narrative about things going on somewhere oceans away than to risk being associated with "the enemy".
  - kdmtctl 2y ago
    They do request to take down repos, sometimes in person for a disciplinary effect. And GFW is very effective, BTW. Wholeheartedly agree with the rest of the comment.