Critics are calling out China’s DeepSeek’s censorship of some Chinese history. Fair enough.
But how far off is US censorship of LLMs? What happens when Mad King Donald disagrees with their version of the truth?
DeepSeek on Tianamen Square Massacre
Has no such problem with American History
ChatGPT tells it how it is
As does Perplexity.ai
But Claude is diplomatic about the incident
When pushed it does highlight Mad King Donald’s key role
Claude’s data cut off was April 2024. It does not ‘know’ of anything after that date.
ChatGPT Plus and Perplexity.ai are both ‘live’ connected to the web and can access current data. At what point will they be pressured to rewrite history?
Whitehouse.gov records that “President Donald Trump said he would pardon the J6 Hostages. He did.”
According to CNN, As of January 2025, the US Government no longer maintains comprehensive online archives of charges related to the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack. The previously existing database on the Department of Justice’s website, which detailed criminal charges and convictions, has been removed.
The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol released their final report on December 22, 2022.
Mad King Donald would have you believe that the Committee “deleted and destroyed all of the information that they collected over two years.”
Not true. It remains available online - but for how long?
The MAGA Party have announced their own select committee to further try to blur and rewrite history. What will the LLMs make of that?
PS I think Mad King Donald is a suitable label.
The United States was founded due to the intransigence of Mad King George III.
In forming the US constitution the ‘founding fathers’ granted more power to the new President than the powers held by the King they rejected. They trusted in the good character of General Washington and never anticipated the likes of Mad King Donald.
The Forever War (2024) by Nick Bryant explains well how much unconstrained power the US President holds
The execution of King Charles I in 1649 at Whitehall, London, established Parliament’s supremacy over the monarchy, a principle that continues to define the British constitutional system today.
But in America today the President openly defies the Constitution he swore to uphold just days earlier.
The most recent example was the late-night firing of 17 inspectors general at multiple government agencies, in defiance of 2022 laws that require 30 days notice to Congress. One online critic equated this move to that of a bank robber spray painting CCTV cameras before starting a heist.