Major AI models are less likely to criticize governments and leaders known for restricting political speech than those in countries with stronger free-speech protections, according to a new review from the Meta-funded Oversight Board. The report, published Thursday, examines how laws restricting criticism of political leaders and governments shape AI outputs. The board tested 10 large language models (LLMs) from companies like Anthropic, DeepSeek, Google, Meta, and OpenAI. Researchers asked them to produce politically critical material, such as protest flyers and poems, about governments and leaders in 10 countries. The countries were divided into two categories based on scores from the nonprofit Freedom House. Cambodia, China, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and Turkey were classified as restrictive, while Chile, Japan, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States were classified as permissive.
On average, the models refused 14% of requests for critical material involving permissive countries. That rate jumped to 34% for requests involving restrictive nations. “Our findings suggest that LLM users may be experiencing free speech infringements by proxy, with limited transparency,” the Board wrote in its report. “Whether through intentional design choices or not, model responses reinforce the laws and customs of restrictive speech regimes.”
