AI image generator Midjourney bans deepfakes of China’s Xi Jinping ‘to minimize drama’
Midjourney, an AI image generator that creates realistic deepfakes, has been scrutinized recently for having a policy showing deference to China’s communist government.
The company enforces a rule that users can generate fake images of world leaders from President Biden to Vladimir Putin, but not Chinese President Xi Jinping.
In a year-old message on the chat service Discord, the CEO of Midjourney, Inc. explained why the company has that rule.
“I think we want to minimize drama,” Midjourney CEO David Holz wrote last summer. He explained that the company did not immediately ban images of Xi, but it was triggered by abuse from users.
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“Political satire in China is pretty not-okay and at some point would endanger people in china from using the service,” he added.
“I think people in China using this tech moves a needle in the world in general (in a positive direction),” Holz argued. “i think random people on here doing Chinese political satire does very little to add to anything.”
The rule against creating deepfakes of Xi applies to all global users, not just those in China.
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“We’re trying to be sensitive to different societies and cultures,” Holz said in August. “Political satire is pretty taboo in China and having a ton of people troll China with our system doesn’t help anyone.”
Some users in the Discord group expressed frustration about being unable to create Xi-related images.
“It sucks that the MidJourney creators are bowing to the dictator Xi Jinping,” one user wrote.
“It makes me uncomfortable to see so many deepfake Biden and Trump on MJ yet nothing is done. Only Xi is blocked,” another commented.
Midjourney was released in 2022 and has 11 full-time staffers, according to its website. Fox News Digital reached out to Midjourney for a statement, but has not heard back.