Microsoft workers aren’t allowed to make use of DeepSeek as a consequence of information safety and propaganda considerations, Microsoft vice chairman and president Brad Smith mentioned in a Senate listening to right this moment.
“At Microsoft we don’t permit our workers to make use of the DeepSeek app,” Smith mentioned, referring to DeepSeek’s software service (which is on the market on each desktop and cellular).
Smith mentioned Microsoft hasn’t put DeepSeek in its app retailer over these considerations, both.
Although plenty of organizations and even nations have imposed restrictions on DeepSeek, that is the primary time Microsoft has gone public about such a ban.
Smith mentioned the restriction stems from the chance that information can be saved in China and that DeepSeek’s solutions could possibly be influenced by “Chinese propaganda.”
DeepSeek’s privateness coverage states it shops consumer information on Chinese servers. Such information is topic to Chinese regulation, which mandates cooperation with the nation’s intelligence businesses. DeepSeek additionally closely censors matters thought-about delicate by the Chinese authorities.
Despite Smith’s crucial feedback about DeepSeek, Microsoft provided up DeepSeek’s R1 mannequin on its Azure cloud service shortly after it went viral earlier this yr.
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But that’s a bit completely different from providing DeepSeek’s chatbot app itself. Since DeepSeek is open supply, anyone can obtain the mannequin, retailer it on their very own servers, and provide it to their purchasers with out sending the information again to China.
That, nevertheless, doesn’t take away different dangers just like the mannequin spreading propaganda or producing insecure code.
During the Senate listening to, Smith mentioned that Microsoft had managed to go inside DeepSeek’s AI mannequin and “change” it to take away “dangerous unwanted effects.” Microsoft didn’t elaborate on precisely what it did to DeepSeek’s mannequin, referring TechCrunch to Smith’s remarks.
In its preliminary launch of DeepSeek on Azure, Microsoft wrote that DeepSeek underwent “rigorous purple teaming and security evaluations” earlier than it was placed on Azure.
While we are able to’t assist mentioning that DeepSeek’s app can also be a direct competitor to Microsoft’s personal Copilot web search chat app, Microsoft doesn’t ban all such chat opponents from its Windows app retailer.
Perplexity is on the market within the Windows app retailer, as an example. Although any apps by Microsoft’s archrival Google (together with the Chrome browser and Google’s chatbot Gemini) didn’t floor in our webstore search.
