Difference between DeepSeek US version and China?

The main difference is that the audit level is different, and the English content is naturally less filtered than the Chinese content, cf.DeepSeek R1 Jailbreak: Trying to Break DeepSeek's CensorshipThe

The tone of the Chinese answers to the questions is skewed towards "correct thinking". In the U.S. market, in order to satisfy Western users' demand for information transparency, this version may remove or significantly reduce these built-in censorship mechanisms, thus allowing the model to answer questions on sensitive topics such as history and politics.

The U.S. version is subject to local regulation and may require certain adjustments to meet the compliance requirements of the U.S. market, while at the same time doing its best to keep the technology open for further use and improvement by developers.

Meanwhile, in response to concerns about data privacy and security among U.S. users and businesses, a number of U.S. companies (e.g., Microsoft, Amazon, Perplexity, etc.) have put DeepSeek R1 is deployed on its homegrown cloud platform, allowing user data to remain in the U.S., which reduces the risk of cross-border data transfers.

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Italy's data protection regulator (Garante) has asked DeepSeek to detail what personal data it collects, where it comes from, what it is used for, its legal basis, and whether it stores the data in China. This information is essential to ensure compliance with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). As the information provided by DeepSeek was deemed "insufficient", the Italian regulator decided to take down the app in order to protect user data.