What is Censorship?

In an AI context, censorship means blocking, removing, or limiting content that is considered inappropriate, harmful, or against rules. AI systems, like chatbots, search engines, or social media algorithms, may be trained to censor certain types of speech, images, or information. While censorship can protect people from harmful content, it can also limit freedom of expression if used too broadly or unfairly.

A recent example of this is the DeepSeek LLM, which is powerful and free, but will not refer to certain historical events considered inconvenient to its country's government.

To explain censorship to a child, tell them it's when someone in charge decides certain things are not okay to see or hear, and they block or hide those things. This happens on the internet, in games, and in videos to keep things safe or appropriate, but sometimes it can go too far and hide too much.

Hiding important facts that are inconvenient but true prevents people from learning from them and trying to put things right.

Imagine you're at school and the teacher takes away a book because it has scary pictures that could upset some young kids. That’s one way censorship can help—by protecting people.

But what if someone takes away a book just because it talks about something they don’t like, even if it’s true? That’s when censorship might be unfair, because it keeps people from learning important things. So, censorship can be used to help people or to hide the truth. How it's used really matters.