China has blocked new artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT over fears that its American owners would use the tool to spread propaganda in the country.

ChatGPT is the latest chatbot from OpenAI, founded in 2015 by Elon Musk, Sam Altman and others, but has only been publicly available since November.

The AI tool has the ability to produce high-quality essays with minimal human input. It also generates text on any subject in response to a prompt or query.

However, major tech companies in China have been ordered not to offer the chatbot to the public, specifically firms in the social media app business. The ban is due to ChatGPT generating replies that the Chinese Communist Party would otherwise censor.

ChatGPT joins the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, Wikipedia and some Google services that are also blocked nationwide in the Asian country.

However, users are reportedly using virtual private networks and dozens of ‘mini programs’ released by third-party developers to access ChatGPT services.

China is one of the world’s most restrictive countries when it comes to the Internet and media, as it controls the news, online environment and social media platforms.