I extracted the safety filters from Apple Intelligence models

China calls it "harmonious society", we call it "safety". Censorship by any other name would be just as effective for manipulating the thoughts of the populace. It's not often that you get to see stuff like this.

This is the rhetorical tactic of false equivalence. State censorship by an autocracy with the objective of population control is not the same thing as a private company inside a democracy censoring their product to avoid bad press and maintain goodwill for shareholders. If you want solid proof that it's not the same thing, see all the uncensored open weights models that you can freely download and use without fear of persecution.

But who of the general populace has the technical skill to replace their on-device assistant with a free one? And that's if Apple even allows that?

In practice, there's not that much difference between a megacorporate monopolist and a state.