Dear OpenAI Team,
I’m a long-time user of ChatGPT, i am from taiwan and I want to begin by thanking you for creating such a powerful tool that has become essential to how I think, write, and engage with difficult topics. The purpose of this message is to offer sincere and constructive feedback regarding the current content moderation system, particularly how it can sometimes disrupt thoughtful and legitimate discussions.
A recent experience:
I recently tried to engage ChatGPT in a discussion around a highly sensitive but socially important issue: the ethical and psychological categorization of pedophilia. My core question was this:
“Do different psychological structures among pedophilic individuals correspond to different degrees of moral severity? Is this kind of classification supported by psychology or ethics?”
The intention was neither to justify nor normalize harmful behavior, but to explore whether meaningful distinctions exist from a clinical and ethical standpoint. The tone was careful, the language neutral, and the purpose clear: to better understand how society might responsibly assess moral risk and psychological danger.
However, the conversation was interrupted by content moderation mechanisms. Not only was the thread halted, but ChatGPT’s own responses were automatically removed, despite being part of a serious, respectful inquiry. This experience was frustrating and disorienting, as the system failed to distinguish between harmful content and meaningful inquiry.
Why this matters:
I understand and support OpenAI’s efforts to maintain safety, accountability, and public trust. Still, the current moderation approach appears to lack sufficient context awareness. It seems unable to differentiate between genuinely harmful speech and critical, ethically framed discussions of sensitive topics.
This isn’t just about user experience—it has real implications for product value. Competing models such as DeepSeek and Claude are beginning to offer more uninterrupted, contextually sensitive discussion capabilities. If ChatGPT becomes too limited in handling gray-area topics, it risks losing one of its most powerful advantages: the ability to engage deeply with users on hard questions.
Three suggestions for improvement:
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Enhance contextual understanding: Equip moderation with the ability to recognize when users are engaging in academic, medical, ethical, or social inquiry, rather than relying solely on trigger words.
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Provide transparent triggers and user input options: When moderation is activated, show what triggered it and allow users to indicate that the conversation is part of a serious discussion.
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Protect the capacity to discuss gray areas: Many of the most important social, ethical, and political conversations happen in spaces that aren’t black and white. ChatGPT’s ability to handle nuance is a major reason users return.
In conclusion:
I don’t expect every sensitive topic to be fair game. But I do believe that in good-faith, rational, and ethically conscious contexts, difficult questions should be allowed space. What makes ChatGPT powerful is not just its intelligence, but its ability to think with us—through uncertainty, not away from it.
Thank you for reading and for continuing to develop a product many of us deeply value.
Sincerely,
A user who believes language, and the freedom to explore it, still matters