The Communist Chinese government is increasingly infamous for domestic censorship and foreign data harvesting through apps like TikTok, yet two U.S. companies are deepening ties with China.
Despite donating to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, Apple appears to be averse to real reform. The Communist Chinese Party (CCP) government media celebrated a new Apple initiative with state-tied Chinese tech company Alibaba. Meanwhile, none other than former Microsoft talent reportedly helped create DeepSeek, an advanced Chinese artificial intelligence.
New York Post announced on Feb. 10 that it had used LinkedIn and the public coding site GitHub to identify employees who switched from a Chinese Microsoft AI lab to DeepSeek. “At least four current DeepSeek employees, including a key department chief, previously worked at Microsoft Research Asia,” the outlet stated. Microsoft actually operates two labs, one in Shanghai and one in Beijing, despite China’s open hostility and intrusive policies.
Microsoft has moved to censor speech before, especially on its LinkedIn platform, as recorded in MRC’s CensorTrack database, including censoring mask critic Professor Karol Sikora in October.
Glenn Beck shared evidence from an expert who already caught the Chinese chatbot DeepSeek censoring and rewriting content about the CCP in real time. Microsoft-trained experts may have helped design that feature, based on the Post allegations. All AI in China is required to uphold “socialist core values” and Microsoft has already cooperated with the country’s censorship policies on its networking app LinkedIn, as several journalists’ and researchers accounts are no longer available to be viewed in China.
As Dan Schneider, VP of MRC Free Speech America, noted, these tech companies are playing with fire. “China is exceptional at erasing people and censoring content. It’s as if Microsoft and Apple never heard of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Not only are the identities of the murdered victims gone forever, the CCP also scrubs clean any social media post about the massacre,” Schneider said. “American companies that chase a buck in the darkest corners of the globe have no leg to stand on when US policy makers shut off the spigot.”
Indeed, Microsoft isn’t the only American company making dangerous deals with China. CCP state propaganda outlet Global Times bragged Chinese tech company Alibaba is making an AI deal with Apple on Feb. 13. “Alibaba co-founder and Chairman Joe Tsai confirmed on Thursday that Alibaba is cooperating with Apple to support the US company's mobile services, marking a fresh effort by the US tech giant to deepen its ties with China,” the Chinese state media outlet wrote. The partnership has been corroborated by U.S. outlets as well, including Reuters and CNBC.
As of 2023, the CCP bought shares in Alibaba that allowed it special rights over certain business decisions, according to Markets Insider. The CCP also practices “civil-military fusion,” where everything in the economic and tech spheres must be available to the Chinese military. Again, all companies that operate in China, including Apple, are required to uphold “socialist core values,” which include an aggressive censorship regime.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
