The country's authorities believe that the chatbot spreads American “disinformation”.
Chinese regulators have ordered major tech companies not to offer their users access to the ChatGPT chatbot. As Nikkei reports citing sources, Beijing fears that the bot will give users answers that have not passed the censorship.
Tencent Holdings and Ant Group, the fintech affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, have been instructed not to offer access to ChatGPT services on their platforms either directly or through third parties. The publication's sources also added that tech companies need to report to regulators before they launch their own ChatGPT-like services.
Also read: Microsoft explains strange behavior of Bing chatbot
Officially, ChatGPT developed by OpenAI is not available in China. However, some users have already been able to use it via VPN. In addition, dozens of mini-programs created by third-party developers claiming to offer ChatGPT services appeared on WeChat.
Under pressure from regulators, Tencent suspended several such third-party services, regardless of whether they were connected to ChatGPT or were actually impersonators.
Earlier, the state-run China Daily published a message on Weibo saying that the bot “may lend a helping hand to the US government in spreading disinformation and manipulating global narratives for its geopolitical interests.” .
Sources in Chinese tech companies emphasized that this attitude towards the chatbot did not come as a surprise to them. One of the companies said that they understood that ChatGPT would have problems entering the Chinese market due to local censorship. Another company added that they would not offer users access to ChatGPT even without instructions, as they are already under the supervision of regulators.
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