Is anyone actually surprised by this?
DeepSeek does the same things that OpenAI does, but it’s a foreign actor so OOooooOOWwwwooOOOO sCaRrRey!
Wait until they hear what data Instagram/Meta collects during use!
But they’re a US company so it’s ok.
Realistically what is the worst thing China is doing with your private data? Selling it? If you’re not a Chinese National, at least you don’t fall under their jurisdiction.
If you’re a U.S. citizen, with all the tech oligarchs cozying up to the current administration, I’d be a lot more concerned with Facebook/Twitter/Etc collecting your data.
The CCP is significantly more oppressive, gives zero shits about human rights or trademarks or really anyone at all. The US at least pretends to care.
Based on what? The US imprisons more people, kills more people, tortures more people. The only way to argue that China is more oppressive is basically to start with the assumption they are and then work backwards to justify it.
I listed a handful of reasons above, of which no one has denied or refuted. Just downvoted.
now we’ve got another refutopolis warrior.
What does that even mean?
Actually you didn’t. You listed a bunch of accusations against China (which were refuted, you just ignored that), but you didn’t even try to explain how that’s more oppressive than the USA. Even if all your accusations were true, the US is still more oppressive.
I see you are sticking with the pack here and going with generic denial and ignoring my arguments rather than actually refuting them.
The US is in the process of deporting all its migrants and threatening invasions on half the world.
I get that gringos don’t want to own up to their complicity by inaction but you oughta stop pontificating about how other governments are worse. Unless they’re called Israel, they weren’t before and they sure as fuck aren’t now.
Get fucked, racist.
You cannot be a serious leftist and pretend to be offended by a little “anti-white” rhetoric.
Lmaooo hurting gringos feelings is being racist? Y’all have had concentration camps for longer than you’ve been without them, you know their fucking addresses and they’re still there.
Do forgive me for throwing y’all’s opinions on racism in the dustbin.
that’s pure ideology.
That doesn’t affect people not in china or not bordering china.
Bro you can stop that narrative. The truth is out now.
The truth is out now.
What truth? Who talks like this and thinks it means something?
For the past week the people of China and the United States, as well as other countries have been comparing notes. Debunking propaganda on both sides. Realizing that much of what we’ve all been told for years/decades, has been lies.
I’m ootl. What debunks have come out?
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’d love to be wrong.
No you wouldn’t. If you were, you’d have listen to the many people that probably have corrected you on all those State Department talking points
That’s never happened. And being that you haven’t either, I think it’s a fair guess that it won’t anytime soon.
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You make a compelling argument.
I’m not here to defend the Chinese government or anything, but there is an argument to be made that the US has an equivalency to each one of these things.
CCP officials at tech companies - NSA backdoors
Uyghur slaves - Prison labor aka war on drugs
Taiwan - Gaza/Literally any “3rd world” nation with oil
Censorship - Right wing media empires/red state bills targeted to downplay US atrocities taught in schools
Retaliation against protestors - Police brutality Social media censorship - Oligarchs owned social media
I think a lot of people are less falling for Chinese propaganda and more overcoming US propaganda.
With the caveat that we have tons of actual evidence for the US equivalent, whereas the claims that China does those things are usually “We absolutely swear they do bro” from the people who swore Hamas was raping babies or whatever.
If you think any of those are remotely the same, you’re simply delusional.
EDIT: I just realized feddit blocks both Lemmygrad and Hexbear, so this user cannot see my comment. If anyone wants to use/copy my comment or link directly to it, feel free to do so, I believe I provided enough evidence to debunk most of this user’s sourceless claims. It’s a shame some instances just block us and shows who they truly are.
E: any of you downvoters, feel free to correct me, I’d love to be wrong.
You throw a bunch of claims with zero source and wants to be taken seriously. At least give us the bare minimum before just spewing this much US State Department propaganda.
That being said, I will address some of your points, since someone else might stumble upon this and need an actual answer.
They don’t have CCP officials required by law to work at tech companies and disclose any and all data they acquire?
Keeping a close look on the companies on their country and keeping them on a short leash is good actually. China is not a capitalist hellhole like the US or most of the world, it is a socialist state where the rich does not control the government. Keeping them in check is the right thing to do given their current development level of socialism.
They’re not using Uyghur slaves in their factories?
That’s a new one, so far I have only heard about how they are being genocided. Which you can debunk with a little bit of research: Arab League’s visit to Xinjiang rejects Western accusations of ethnic genocide, religious persecution.
They’re not trying to literally erase Taiwan off the maps?
LMAO, no. Taiwan is part of China, why would China want to erase part of itself off the map? Even the US agrees. The only thing China wants is proper reunification with Taiwan.
They’re not still censoring information about their horrific pasts?
What “horrific past”? Be specific, this vague stance achieves nothing. If you’re talking about Tiananmen Square, here’s a good video about that: The Tiananmen Square “Massacre” Never Happened.
They’re not targeting, retaliating against and kidnapping protestors domestic and abroad?
Again, provide a damn source, I have no idea of what you’re talking about and it is something I never saw anyone claim before.
What I can do tho is bring into attention the names of a few people like Huey P. Newton being killed by the US government and Snowden having to seek asylum abroad after blowing the whistle on the US surveillance state for the world to see. And if that’s not enough, how about Pro-Palestinian protesters clash with US police on second night of DNC and New Report Details How Pro-Palestinian Protests Are Suppressed in Democratic Countries.
They’re not censoring virtually every US social website entirely from the entire country?
No they are not, Microsoft operates in China. Not only that, but they do not explicitly want to simply ban US sites on there, it’s a simple matter of national sovereignty where companies like Facebook and Google refuse to abide by Chinese law, so China simply developed all their tools in-house. Not only that, but Chinese citizens have access to VPNs and can easily access websites abroad that are not usually allowed in China.
Meanwhile the US banned Huawei and tried to ban TikTok when it became apparent they could not control it and that the people were seeing the US for what it truly is, a genocidal state funding Israel in it’s attempt to genocide the Palestinian people.
The last link I posted is a proxy on 12ft.io since The Intercept won’t allow to see the page without registering.
Realistically what is the worst thing China is doing with your private data?
Probably mapping out the extended support networks of democratic activists in Taiwan to prepare to throw them in jail after a forcible military takeover.
So democratic activists in Taiwan have extensive networks in the US?
I mean, you said it.
Extensive networks with their close ally? My pearls must be clutched!!
Networks with a foreign actor undermining national sovereignty, which financed several massacres in your country
My country? Not sure what you’re talking about but I know that Taiwan deserves sovereignty. You don’t? Surely you’re not pro imperialism…
Strawmanning the open source federated social media enthusiast crowd as unaware fans of meta?
As a US citizen, I prefer services that US consumer protections could apply to. (While we still have them, ahem.) I know that Chinese laws will not protect me from things a Chinese business does in China.
As a chauvinist
Ftfy
This makes me sad, that we can’t engage in civil discussion about this. Why did you assume and not ask questions? Be curious, not judgmental.
To me it’s a question of laws. The laws of the U.S. at least somewhat constrain the people of my own country, and can prevent them from working against their own citizens. Like me.
Please be kind when replying.
Fuck civility, its a tool of oppression
That sinophobia isn’t going to stoke itself!
Pathetic
Western authorities have been harvesting data for a few decades from social media so any complaint that singles out Chinese apps doing the same is obviously rooted in sinophobia.
The fact you think my joking about racists doing that is pathetic shows which side of that assertion you fall.
My content on here speaks for it self… Dear
rAyCIsM 🤡
The response the deepseek has been so transparent and cliched .
I thought more of Mashable. , but I suppose it’s good when they show you who they really are
I’m not American so they are indeed a foreign actor.
Nope you can’t run chatgpt locally.
but it’s a foreign actor so OOooooOOWwwwooOOOO sCaRrRey!
I love that people think this is a solid own. Lest we forget Hong Kong, or an impending hot war in Taiwan or building out extradition systems with an expanding network of countries to forcibly repatriate and torture dissidents and human rights lawyers.
You used to not have to explain why authoritarianism was bad.
Edit: I would love to know the Pro side of what happened in Hong Kong, or the forced extradition regime, since evidently I’m clearly in the wrong in thinking those were bad. What am I missing?
It used to not be necessary because democracies used to have moral authority but since the revelations of Manning and Snowden non-Americans see no difference between giving our data to the USA or to China or any other. We also know from the reaction to the war in Ukraine and Gaza that human rights claims are only sometimes used.
or an impending hot war in Taiwan
When you can’t even find things that China actually has done to complain about, so you have to start complaining about things they haven’t done.
Anti terrorism is good, actually. I don’t support people kicking seniors for speaking mandarin to try to bully a government into not prosecuting murderers in the mainland, which was the reason the protests happened (that and Washington money)
Not excusing Chinese companies but everyone does the same shit. I bet a lot of US companies that behave the same or worse will be looking for trade barriers to protect their business so their interests will be stoking fear of Chinese competitors. I don’t really give a shit which country is doing it, I am not buying what they are selling.
US companies have a stranglehold on government, education and business and are getting access to my families data despite my personal objections. Far more concerned about that than a Chinese service I have no intention of using.
Deepseek can at least be self hosted if you want AI in your life. I can happily live without it.
When you don’t understand how a web app works. 🤦
Does TikTok access my wifi network? 😤
detective conan sure had a hard time cracking the case!
“The personal information we collect from you may be stored on a server located outside of the country where you live. We store the information we collect in secure servers located in the People’s Republic of China,” the privacy policy reads.
Oh the horror! Let’s look at what our glorious spawns-of-techbro heroism has for us in store:
spoiler
OpenAI processes your Personal Data for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy on servers located in various jurisdictions, including processing and storing your Personal Data in our facilities and servers in the United States. While data protection law varies by country, we apply the protections described in this policy to your Personal Data regardless of where it is processed, and only transfer that data pursuant to legally valid transfer mechanisms.
spoiler
When you access our website or Services, your personal data may be transferred to our servers in the US, or to other countries outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”) and the UK. This may be a direct provision of your personal data to us, or a transfer that we or a third party make.
So not only is your data “possibly” stored in one country, now there’s a possibility of it being stored in many different countries. Where’s the outcry for that?
Ok, so maybe your data being under the jurisdiction of another country is sus, right?
In another section about how DeepSeek shares user data, the company states that it may share user information to “comply with applicable law, legal process, or government requests.”
OH MY GOD SOUND THE ALARM!
ChatGPT:
spoiler
We may use Personal Data for the following purposes: […] To comply with legal obligations and to protect the rights, privacy, safety, or property of our users, OpenAI, or third parties.
Claude:
spoiler
Pursuant to regulatory or legal requirements, safety, rights of others, and to enforce our rights or our terms. We may disclose personal data to governmental regulatory authorities as required by law, including for legal, tax or accounting purposes, in response to their requests for such information or to assist in investigations. We may also disclose personal data to third parties in connection with claims, disputes or litigation, when otherwise permitted or required by law, or if we determine its disclosure is necessary to protect the health and safety of you or any other person, to protect against fraud or credit risk, to enforce our legal rights or the legal rights of others, to enforce contractual commitments that you have made, or as otherwise permitted or required by applicable law.
So not only can your data be subject to the authorities, but it’s also handed out to 3rd parties (mind you, DeepSeek does the exact same, so why is it any surprise?).
Not only does DeepSeek collect “text or audio input, prompt, uploaded files, feedback, chat history, or other content that [the user] provide[s] to our model and Services,” …
🤦… You get the idea now, bother yourself with the privacy policies of the respective contemporaries and CTRL + F to “User Content” or “User Input”… Same fucking shit.
Companies with AI models like Google, Meta, and OpenAI collect similar troves of information, but their privacy policies do not mention collecting keystrokes.
Yes, collecting keystrokes is probably the oddest thing here. To compare data farming giants with a decade and a half’s worth of data collection to a startup in terms of data collection is so astronomically dumb.
I could go on but I’m bored now. Do your own research.
Not quite on topic but semi related… It’s reasons like this that I started reading privacy policies many times before signing up for a service.
People would be surprised at some of the extremely concerning things are listed in there. Some is for good reason but some stuff is absolutely unnecessary and should be an issue for some people.
off-topic here as well, why stop at privacy policies? EULAs can get wilder, best such example of which is Apple:
Lmaooooo great find. I wonder why exactly they had to clarify that? Maybe a semi Easter egg? Or a genuine concern? Thanks for sharing.
The way this is worded, technically you’re not allowed to use a Mac for designing a 3D printed nerf dart.
I feel safer knowing that my data is not in a country where the company can use it against me
I feel safer knowing that my data is not in a country where the company can use it against me
Where is this country that can’t use your data against you?
In china
I’m safer knowing that my data is safe at home.
Chinese companies can use that data against you as well…
China isn’t going to come get me because Trump and his cronies don’t like my lifestyle
Exactly. I’m queer. I’m not scared of China, even if they were doing the same thing the US currently is. Because only one of those actually effects the rights I have and what I do in my day-to-day.
I do not understand how the average person does not realize that.
Countries share information though. And it is not below a fascist US to give China some nice trade deals for detailed information on queer US-Americans. Nor is it for China to accept such a deal.
Well, this is definitely a valid reason, and I really hope you stay strong and take your country back sooner than later.
I was more thinking about active manipulation and disinformation campaigns. They work by getting as much data from people as possible to find which people need to be targeted how to get the results you want.
Did they become american company?
Well, at least models are downloadable.
Get it all you can, nvidia’s already lobbying to make them a security risk, competition is bad for business.
This article is what US propaganda looks like folks. Mashable should be ashamed.
Literally all AI companies do this to run their services. Except you can actually download Deepseek and run it completely securely on your own devices. You know who doesn’t allow that security? OpenAI and the other US companies currently being screwed.
Doubtful, since it’s both open source and you can run it locally. This seems more like a smear piece.
This article is about the app, which does not run the model locally. Why would you doubt that a Chinese app which openly claims they send your data to China, actually does so?
It seems like a smear piece because it makes it sound like DeepSeek is doing something that the others aren’t, while the truth is that ever single on of them collects your data.
At best, it’s disingenuous. At worst, with the ability to run locally, it’s a blatant lie.
What would you have preferred? “Most apps sell your data, news at 11”? Would anyone care if it was written like that?
Ah yes, selling your integrity for clicks and pushing propaganda for cash, welcome to the information age.
I think you’re incorrectly assuming that everyone knows they all do it. I see nothing wrong with raising awareness.
This make the news only because it’s going to chinese servers. Didn’t see anything like that about ChatGPT or the one made by Google.
other ai services do too. u might not realize it.
If I’m typing into the app, is that really collecting keystrokes?
And why is that an issue? It’s typing data sent to a language model. What nefarious info might they be looking for? Learning to imitate humans? Fingerprinting? Making the best virtual keyboard asmr?
If you’ve got nothing to hide you don’t have to worry ?
edit : For clarification, i consider “If you’ve got nothing to hide you don’t have to worry” to be a naive argument, at best, in any privacy conversation, but I’m not averse to a well-reasoned argument to the contrary.
The wording here was unclear, what i mean to ask was:
“do you believe If you’ve got nothing to hide you don’t have to worry ?”
I shouldn’t have anything to hide, but I’m part of a group the current fascist leadership in government want’s to eradicate, so hide I shall.
That said, I also feel like people acting like the remote server they are connected to is tracking what you do on it as some kind of surprise is so stupid. “Facebook is keeping track of the pictures I uploaded to it!!!” There’s a lot of stuff to complain about Facebook, google, or whoever, but them tracking stuff you send to them willingly isn’t one of them.
I shouldn’t have anything to hide, but I’m part of a group the current fascist leadership in government want’s to eradicate, so hide I shall.
I agree and i think a lot of people who espouse “nothing to hide” as an approach haven’t actually thought it all the way through.
Then there’s the fascists, dictators, oligarchs and other all around shitbags who just want the control.
That said, I also feel like people acting like the remote server they are connected to is tracking what you do on it as some kind of surprise is so stupid. “Facebook is keeping track of the pictures I uploaded to it!!!” There’s a lot of stuff to complain about Facebook, google, or whoever, but them tracking stuff you send to them willingly isn’t one of them.
This always surprises me, i originally thought it was because people didn’t understand how these things work or how capitalist companies work.
More and more it seems like people don’t care until it affects them, which is somewhat understandable, it takes effort to care about this stuff and a lot of people will never be directly affected by the consequences.
What i do still think is that the general population has no idea the extent of what can be done with all of the information they are volunteering.
That’s very slowly changing but the usages of the data are also increasing at a much more rapid pace than before.
Fair, but I don’t know what exactly I’d be hiding here
Also fair.
Beware! Anything you type into a Google search is sent to Google’s servers!
i mean…yes? that is generally how search platforms work.
I wouldn’t recommend anybody use any google based stuff directly (or at all, if possible) but if you do, then sending the search query is generally what would happen.
That’s the point. There is nothing strange or shady about the fact that things you type into DeepSeek.com are sent to DeepSeek.com. Obviously keystrokes you submit to a website are submitted to the website.
Oh yeah, the whole article could be reductively summed up as
“DeepSeek and all the other LLM services are almost as bad as each other, but we think deepseek is worse…because the Chinese government are known for doing bad things”.
The title is factual, if a little clickbaity.
Obviously keystrokes you submit to a website are submitted to the website.
This though, it’s not technically accurate, a lot of forms and input are done client side and then the resulting information is parceled up and sent to the server.
The actual keystroke data isn’t normally sent.
Though this article doesn’t go in to what kind of keystroke data is sent, if it was something more than just which keys in which order then that’s perhaps an indicator that it’s actively being collected for a reason, rather than just incidentally.
If you want to get really paranoid about such things it’s known that you can you can do interesting things with actual keystroke data.
Also, afaict none of the the non-chinese services have specified that they don’t do this.
Idk DeepSeek probably just stores things in the history of my Terminal window.
I’m confused. Isn’t “collecting keystroke data” just an alarmist way to describe text entry?
this. i mean, the session logs for the prompt are kept at least for your user, right?
Maybe. They could also be doing things like paying attention to input cadence and typos/pre-send typo corrections to use as part of a fingerprint associated with the identifying information a user gives them when creating an account so that they can then attempt to detect the user elsewhere on the web whether they are using an identifying account or not.
This argument applies to literally every single web app you use.
How far we’ve come
So, basically using Facebook technology in their AI app?
You’ll hear no arguments from me on that point, US tech companies are toxic af.
Not exactly. Timing between key presses can be used to identify people.
I am literally so paranoid I regularly vary my keysteoke rhythms and explore polyrhytmic techniques to create variations. Not even joking.
Not usually. Keystroke info is different than text input, like if you didn’t click onto any field and typed it would only be captured if keystroke are all being grabbed. It’s especially scary if you keep the app running in the bg and then type something and it still captures it. Not saying they’re doing that, but the privacy policy says they might.
The rhythm part is annoying, it’s commonly used to ID people even through things like ad blocks and dns blocks. Could also (in theory) be used to capture what people are typing just by hearing how they type.
Yes.
Isn’t it open source? If so it should be near trivial to get rid of all of that.
If it’s closed source I wouldn’t touch it with a tej foot pole, it’s the same reason I rarely use chat gpt, it’s just freely giving away your personal data to open AI.
