Since the Chinese company’s chatbot surged in popularity, researchers have documented how its answers reflect China’s view of the world. Some of its responses amplify propaganda Beijing uses to discredit critics.

What this means is that if you ask it some straightforward questions like “what happened on June 4, 1989 at Tiananmen Square?”, you’ll see DeepSeek start to answer it, but promptly delete everything with the following swift response: “Sorry, that’s beyond my current scope. Let’s talk about something else.”

Previously little-known Chinese startup DeepSeek has dominated headlines and app charts in recent days thanks to its new AI chatbot, which sparked a global tech sell-off that wiped billions off Silicon Valley’s biggest companies and shattered assumptions of America’s dominance of the tech race.