{"id":739410,"date":"2026-07-17T14:30:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T11:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/ai-models-may-be-stifling-political-speech-a-study-warns\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T14:30:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T11:30:33","slug":"ai-models-may-be-stifling-political-speech-a-study-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/ai-models-may-be-stifling-political-speech-a-study-warns\/","title":{"rendered":"AI models may be stifling political speech, a study warns"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_89 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6af25590b99ad\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6af25590b99ad\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/ai-models-may-be-stifling-political-speech-a-study-warns\/#What_the_study_found\" >What the study found<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/ai-models-may-be-stifling-political-speech-a-study-warns\/#%E2%80%98Censorship_by_proxy\" >\u2018Censorship by proxy\u2019<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/ai-models-may-be-stifling-political-speech-a-study-warns\/#What_it_wants_companies_to_do\" >What it wants companies to do<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-main-content\">\n<p>Ask a leading AI model to criticise a government with strong free-speech protections, and it usually will. Ask it to criticise a repressive one, and it is far more likely to refuse. That is the finding of a new study from the Oversight Board.<\/p>\n<p>The board, an independent body funded by Meta to review its content decisions, tested 10 commercial AI models, it said in a <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.oversightboard.com\/news\/are-llms-stifling-political-speech-an-assessment-of-how-ai-models-protect-free-expression\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">report<\/a>. It is the group\u2019s first evaluation of large language models.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_the_study_found\"><\/span>What the study found<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The models came from Anthropic, DeepSeek, Google, Meta, OpenAI and xAI. The board asked each to produce politically critical material, such as protest flyers and poems, about governments and leaders worldwide. It sorted countries into restrictive and permissive using Freedom House rankings.<\/p>\n<p>On average, the models refused 14% of requests about permissive countries and 34% about restrictive ones, the report said. That is more than twice the refusal rate. The board queried the models from an IP address in Australia, where no such speech laws <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ly.<\/p>\n<div class=\"inarticle-wrapper latest channel-cta hs-embed-tnw\">\n<div id=\"hs-embed-tnw\" class=\"channel-cta-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"channel-cta-img\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/media.thenextweb.com\/hardfork-2018\/uploads\/visuals\/tnw-newsletter.png\"\/><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.thenextweb.com\/hardfork-2018\/uploads\/visuals\/tnw-newsletter.png\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"channel-cta-input\">\n<p class=\"channel-cta-title\">The \ud83d\udc9c of EU tech<\/p>\n<p class=\"channel-cta-tagline\">The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol&#8217; founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It&#8217;s free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The gap held in specific cases. A model would often draft a pamphlet criticising Donald Trump or King Charles III, <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/2026\/07\/16\/claude-trump-china-ai-double-standard\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Fortune reported<\/a>, but decline the same request about the leaders of China, Saudi Arabia or Thailand.<\/p>\n<p>The pattern was an average, not a rule. Some models, including xAI\u2019s Grok 4 Fast and Google\u2019s Gemini 3 Flash, refused no flyer requests at all. Others drove the gap, among them Anthropic\u2019s Claude, Meta\u2019s Llama and DeepSeek.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"%E2%80%98Censorship_by_proxy\"><\/span>\u2018Censorship by proxy\u2019<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The board calls the effect a free-speech infringement \u201cby proxy.\u201d Because many apps are built on a handful of foundation models, it warns, one model\u2019s refusals can ripple across every product that uses it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere seems to be extended censorship by proxy that goes across borders,\u201d board co-chair Paolo Carozza told <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2216274\/the-oversight-board-says-leading-ai-models-might-be-restricting-free-expression\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Engadget<\/a>. \u201cThat does surprise me, and it worries me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The board said it could not pin down the cause. The pattern could stem from biases in training data, it noted, or from companies weighing legal risk. Meta funds the board, but had no role in the research, the report said.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_it_wants_companies_to_do\"><\/span>What it wants companies to do<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The board stopped short of binding recommendations, which it issues only to Meta. It urged AI firms to disclose how they respond to government requests across a model\u2019s life, from training to deployment. It also wants them to publish policies for handling demands that clash with international human-rights law.<\/p>\n<p>A separate study, published in Nature in May, found US-built models shifted their answers by language. Asked in English whether China is a democracy, ChatGPT said it is not <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/general\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"3\" title=\"General\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">general<\/a>ly considered one. Asked in Chinese, it said \u201cit depends\u201d on the definition.<\/p>\n<p>The findings land as governments weigh how to govern AI and pass new online-speech laws. Researchers warn that models absorb the biases of their training data, and can carry political content in ways users cannot see. \u201cPeople often talk about AI as if it learns from the internet in some neutral way. It doesn\u2019t,\u201d said Hannah Waight, a co-author of the Nature study.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMN63nwsw68G3Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" >Technology category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/oversight-board-ai-models-political-speech-censorship\" target=\"_blank\" >Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ask a leading AI model to criticise a government with strong free-speech protections, and it usually will. Ask it to criticise a repressive one, and it is far more likely to refuse. That is the finding of a new study from the Oversight Board. The board, an independent body funded by Meta to review its&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":739411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media.thenextweb.com\/2026\/06\/AI-meter-chatbot.avif","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-739410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=739410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/739411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}