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> Isn't HF banned in China?

I think, for some definition of “banned”, that’s the case. It doesn’t stop the Chinese labs from having organization accounts on HF and distributing models there. ModelScope is apparently the HF-equivalent for reaching Chinese users.

I think in the West we think everything is blocked. But for example, if you book an eSIM, when you visit you already get direct access to Western services because they route it to some other server. Hong Kong is totally different: they basically use WhatsApp and Google Maps, and everything worked when I was there.

But also yes, parent is right, HF is more or less inaccessible, and Modelscope frequently cited as the mirror to use (although many Chinese labs seems to treat HF as the mirror, and Modelscope as the "real" origin).

HF is indeed banned in China. The Chinese equivalent of HF is ModelScope[1].

[1]: https://modelscope.cn/