Yeah that part is either just bullshit or OP gave the bot access to his camera previously, which is just dumb.

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> If this were true, why didn’t the chatbot immediately recognize that the word “Taiwan” should trigger the response?

Not recognizing they were outputting wrongthink until after it was being streamed to the user is a known behavior with some Chinese chatbot apps. A quick search found an example of DeepSeek doing it: https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1ic3kl6/deepseek_ce...

I don't think his story is genuine, but it showing the "wrong" answer before correcting itself is known behavior.

EDIT: Here's an example of it outputting a full response about Taiwan specifically before removing it: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1i7ceol/...

This is manifestly false.

My wife grew up in Shanghai, and you'll have to go quite some distance to find someone more critical of the PRC and CCP than she is. And it's with good reason.

She grew up during the cultural revolution, and was largely raised by her grandmother because literally every other person in her extended family was in prison or work camp, not because of anything they had actually done wrong, but for political reasons because the whole family was blacklisted.

And that's not just the old days. Her father died as a direct result of Chinese Covid policy. During the pandemic her cousins still in the country would ask her (on Skype) "is X true?", and largely their perception of what was going on was false. She would exfiltrate encrypted news reports to them - until those started getting blocked. Her dad's estate still has affairs that need to be resolved, but we've decided not to return to China until Xi is gone, as it's just not safe. It doesn't get much airplay, but there are currently a couple of hundred Americans who are being illegally detained in China right now. It's not worth the risk.

My first trip to China was about 30 years ago, shortly after we got married. And back then, I would have said that you were right. Honestly, it felt like for the average person in their day-to-day-lives, the Chinese were less under the governmental thumb than we are. People from the countryside would bring their produce into the city to sell, or cook dumplings and buns to sell on the side of the street - stuff that in America we'd have to get permits for. It seemed that the oligarchy had an understanding with the people: let us control the big picture, and we'll look the other way for the little things. But Chinese politics is a pendulum swinging very widely. From Tienanmen Square and Tank Man, it had swung quite a bit the other way. But today, it's come back 180-degrees. Xi is really trying for a Cultural Revolution 2.0.

These impressions largely match what I hear from other Chinese immigrants - except for Party members, who tend not to want to talk about it at all. I'm afraid that you've been listening to too much propaganda.

>And as for foreigners, our view of China is far worse than it actually is, China doesn’t need to hide anything, people who visit China will come away with a more positive view of the country than those who do not visit.

To the extent that's true, it's because they won't let you see the uyghur reeducation camps.

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