alt Hacker NewsThis looks like it's coming from a separate "safety mechanism". Remains to be seen how much censorship is baked into the weights. The earlier Qwen models freely talk about Tiananmen square when not served from China.
E.g. Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507 gives an extensive reply starting with:
"The famous photograph you're referring to is commonly known as "Tank Man" or "The Tank Man of Tiananmen Square", an iconic image captured on June 5, 1989, in Beijing, China. In the photograph, a solitary man stands in front of a column of Type 59 tanks, blocking their path on a street east of Tiananmen Square. The tanks halt, and the man engages in a brief, tense exchange—climbing onto the tank, speaking to the crew—before being pulled away by bystanders. ..."
And later in the response even discusses the censorship:
"... In China, the event and the photograph are heavily censored. Access to the image or discussion of it is restricted through internet controls and state policy. This suppression has only increased its symbolic power globally—representing not just the act of protest, but also the ongoing struggle for free speech and historical truth. ..."
Replies
The weights likely won't be available wrt. this model since this is part of the Max series that's always been closed. The most "open" you get is the API.
Difficult to blame them, considering censorship exists in the West too.
I run cpatonn/Qwen3-VL-30B-A3B-Thinking-AWQ-4bit locally.
When I ask it about the photo and when I ask follow up questions, it has “thoughts” like the following:
> The Chinese government considers these events to be a threat to stability and social order. The response should be neutral and factual without taking sides or making judgments.
> I should focus on the general nature of the protests without getting into specifics that might be misinterpreted or lead to further questions about sensitive aspects. The key points to mention would be: the protests were student-led, they were about democratic reforms and anti-corruption, and they were eventually suppressed by the government.
before it gives its final answer.
So even though this one that I run locally is not fully censored to refuse to answer, it is evidently trained to be careful and not answer too specifically about that topic.