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The current credit systems in China works very, very differently from what the western media describes. Major commercial systems like "Zhemaxinyong" are actuall

The current credit systems in China works very, very differently from what the western media describes. Major commercial systems like "Zhemaxinyong" are actually way more transparent than US credit system. You get to see a lot of the details about what's impacting your score at all time, and you have lots of control on where do you want to share your score to. The official "social credit" system that the government wants to build is still at a very early stage right now, and it'll be no where close to what the western media imagined (or rather, hoped) The fairy tales about Chinese social credit system denying loans because of private messages are malicious wishes of western media or Chinese activists at most

cromwellian 9y ago
Right, it's all the delusions of the Western media as to how this could go wrong, because we never had any things go wrong with blacklists in the West? In the 1950s we had anti-communist blacklists that didn't work out too well. Today we have the terrorist watch list. It's our experience with government creating blacklists and the inherent injustice from false positives that make us very wary of it. People have accidentally gotten onto the terrorist watch list and had their lives ruined. In China, you have this combined with a President who seems bent on keeping power forever (removing term limits), a party which aggressively blocks and filters anything critical of the government, the installation of key-loggers, face recognition cams, firewalls, and a huge system of monitoring social media, that should raise alarms when there is talk about a universal social ranking, as it's pretty obvious how easy you could end up with a low ranking from off hand joke about the government on Weibo. (https://international.thenewslens.com/article/65955 https://international.thenewslens.com/article/65955) I assume you've been living abroad for a while, so you must know we that aggressively criticize our own governments because we don't trust them to do the right thing, and there is ample lessons from history that proves that out. While the Chinese government wants to credit a social credit system to keep the population "honest", there is no "good governance credit system" to keep the government "honest". In the West, we have independent court systems to try and achieve that, as well as democratic elections. It doesn't always work, and corruption still flourishes, (good lord, the fucking Trump administration) but at least there's some attempted check on government power and corruption. All I'd say is, a glass heart when China is criticized is probably not the best way to react, but I guess it may be the only way to react, since criticism of the government isn't really permitted publicly internally, the only Chinese widespread public criticism is from the external diaspora. My own feeling is that Xi is taking the country in the wrong direction and there appears to be no internal forces to stop him. Anyway, here's an example of the hell of disputing these kinds of lists. https://www.marketplace.org/2018/02/13/world/social-credit-score-china-blacklisted https://www.marketplace.org/2018/02/13/world/social-credit-s... "Lawyer Li Xiaolin was also not given advanced notice that he was blacklisted. In 2014, Li was sued for defamation and lost. A judge ordered Li to make an apology, which he submitted in writing in April 2015. Ten months later, when he was away on a work trip, he was blocked from buying a return flight home to Beijing. That’s when he found out he was blacklisted. It took him another three weeks before an official told him why. “The court said my apology was not sincere. I asked officials how they determined what is sincere.” Li said. Eventually Li wrote a second apology and the court removed him from the blacklist in 2016. Then last year, he tried to get a credit card. “The bank denied my application. I figured out that the bank might still have my name blacklisted and I was right,” Li said. The bank updated its records the next day, but by that point, he had spent almost a year to fully clear his name."
- FreedomWarrior 9y ago
  > A party which aggressively blocks and filters anything critical of the government, the installation of key-loggers, face recognition cams, firewalls, and a huge system of monitoring social media I'm sure you're aware of this, but I'd like to point out that U.S. (and many of its allies) has all those things as well, apart from the aggressive filtering. At least China is up front about it.
  - cromwellian 9y ago
    False equivalence. The US has no regulation that requires the installation of spyware or face a fine or jail. China does (https://www.deepdotweb.com/2017/08/12/chinese-government-requiring-muslims-install-spyware-electronic-devices/ https://www.deepdotweb.com/2017/08/12/chinese-government-req...). The US has no laws requiring firewalls to block or censor content from foreign countries. The US doesn't block VPNs and there is no law against them. Yes, they try to snoop on communications, but in US domestic citizens and companies can resist with encryption and in the courts, and in general, a warrant is required for legal access. Having the NSA snoop on your conversations or use 0-days to hack isn't the same as being told to put security backdoors by the government and go to jail if you don't. And "aggressive filtering" is your euphemism for the Great Firewall? I'd call sending to to jail for selling a VPN a little more than "aggressive filtering" I've lived in China and to call it "aggressive filtering" is a pretty nice way of putting it.
- tonylinn80 9y ago
  I'm not denying China doesn't have problems. It has tons of problems in fact. Aggressive blocking is annoying. But let's take a break and see: Do you think you have to be super careful if you are in China and not to call Xi "Steamed Bun"? Do you seriously believe anyone in China would get blocked of loans because a credit system is in place that assigns low score to anyone talking ill of the government? That's what western media wants you to think. The truth behind these stories are usually a lot more complicated, but it's not in the interest of the media to unravel all the truth. In fact, tons of people calls Xi "Steamed Bun" in China, it's like his nickname, I also do that myself. And yes, a government blacklist do exists in China. It's totally reasonable you'll at least be denied of applying for loans if you made your way to that list. I couldn't find the reason why those Xie is on that blacklist (the article certainly downplayed that part, at least), but the article also said "Hu said the central government has not assigned any social credit scores to its citizens yet, but eventually there will be a financial credit score". Did you see what that mean? At least these cases in the report do not have much to do with credit system because it doesn't exist yet. How things would turned out eventually is a guess, at most. I've lived in US for quite some time, and saw tons of shit show. Why do American news media split into "Left" and "Right"? If you read reports from both sides, you'll almost see two entirely different world. And yet most Americans do not do so, they chose one side and read only what they want to believe. Is either side lying? Maybe, but not necessarily. News reporters just need to selectively report the truth that can reinforce what they believe. Magnify problems of the other side, and downplay anything that they found hurtful. That's just human nature

cromwellian 9y ago

Right, it's all the delusions of the Western media as to how this could go wrong, because we never had any things go wrong with blacklists in the West? In the 1950s we had anti-communist blacklists that didn't work out too well. Today we have the terrorist watch list. It's our experience with government creating blacklists and the inherent injustice from false positives that make us very wary of it. People have accidentally gotten onto the terrorist watch list and had their lives ruined. In China, you have this combined with a President who seems bent on keeping power forever (removing term limits), a party which aggressively blocks and filters anything critical of the government, the installation of key-loggers, face recognition cams, firewalls, and a huge system of monitoring social media, that should raise alarms when there is talk about a universal social ranking, as it's pretty obvious how easy you could end up with a low ranking from off hand joke about the government on Weibo. (https://international.thenewslens.com/article/65955 https://international.thenewslens.com/article/65955) I assume you've been living abroad for a while, so you must know we that aggressively criticize our own governments because we don't trust them to do the right thing, and there is ample lessons from history that proves that out. While the Chinese government wants to credit a social credit system to keep the population "honest", there is no "good governance credit system" to keep the government "honest". In the West, we have independent court systems to try and achieve that, as well as democratic elections. It doesn't always work, and corruption still flourishes, (good lord, the fucking Trump administration) but at least there's some attempted check on government power and corruption. All I'd say is, a glass heart when China is criticized is probably not the best way to react, but I guess it may be the only way to react, since criticism of the government isn't really permitted publicly internally, the only Chinese widespread public criticism is from the external diaspora. My own feeling is that Xi is taking the country in the wrong direction and there appears to be no internal forces to stop him. Anyway, here's an example of the hell of disputing these kinds of lists. https://www.marketplace.org/2018/02/13/world/social-credit-score-china-blacklisted https://www.marketplace.org/2018/02/13/world/social-credit-s... "Lawyer Li Xiaolin was also not given advanced notice that he was blacklisted. In 2014, Li was sued for defamation and lost. A judge ordered Li to make an apology, which he submitted in writing in April 2015. Ten months later, when he was away on a work trip, he was blocked from buying a return flight home to Beijing. That’s when he found out he was blacklisted. It took him another three weeks before an official told him why. “The court said my apology was not sincere. I asked officials how they determined what is sincere.” Li said. Eventually Li wrote a second apology and the court removed him from the blacklist in 2016. Then last year, he tried to get a credit card. “The bank denied my application. I figured out that the bank might still have my name blacklisted and I was right,” Li said. The bank updated its records the next day, but by that point, he had spent almost a year to fully clear his name."

FreedomWarrior 9y ago
> A party which aggressively blocks and filters anything critical of the government, the installation of key-loggers, face recognition cams, firewalls, and a huge system of monitoring social media I'm sure you're aware of this, but I'd like to point out that U.S. (and many of its allies) has all those things as well, apart from the aggressive filtering. At least China is up front about it.
- cromwellian 9y ago
  False equivalence. The US has no regulation that requires the installation of spyware or face a fine or jail. China does (https://www.deepdotweb.com/2017/08/12/chinese-government-requiring-muslims-install-spyware-electronic-devices/ https://www.deepdotweb.com/2017/08/12/chinese-government-req...). The US has no laws requiring firewalls to block or censor content from foreign countries. The US doesn't block VPNs and there is no law against them. Yes, they try to snoop on communications, but in US domestic citizens and companies can resist with encryption and in the courts, and in general, a warrant is required for legal access. Having the NSA snoop on your conversations or use 0-days to hack isn't the same as being told to put security backdoors by the government and go to jail if you don't. And "aggressive filtering" is your euphemism for the Great Firewall? I'd call sending to to jail for selling a VPN a little more than "aggressive filtering" I've lived in China and to call it "aggressive filtering" is a pretty nice way of putting it.
tonylinn80 9y ago
I'm not denying China doesn't have problems. It has tons of problems in fact. Aggressive blocking is annoying. But let's take a break and see: Do you think you have to be super careful if you are in China and not to call Xi "Steamed Bun"? Do you seriously believe anyone in China would get blocked of loans because a credit system is in place that assigns low score to anyone talking ill of the government? That's what western media wants you to think. The truth behind these stories are usually a lot more complicated, but it's not in the interest of the media to unravel all the truth. In fact, tons of people calls Xi "Steamed Bun" in China, it's like his nickname, I also do that myself. And yes, a government blacklist do exists in China. It's totally reasonable you'll at least be denied of applying for loans if you made your way to that list. I couldn't find the reason why those Xie is on that blacklist (the article certainly downplayed that part, at least), but the article also said "Hu said the central government has not assigned any social credit scores to its citizens yet, but eventually there will be a financial credit score". Did you see what that mean? At least these cases in the report do not have much to do with credit system because it doesn't exist yet. How things would turned out eventually is a guess, at most. I've lived in US for quite some time, and saw tons of shit show. Why do American news media split into "Left" and "Right"? If you read reports from both sides, you'll almost see two entirely different world. And yet most Americans do not do so, they chose one side and read only what they want to believe. Is either side lying? Maybe, but not necessarily. News reporters just need to selectively report the truth that can reinforce what they believe. Magnify problems of the other side, and downplay anything that they found hurtful. That's just human nature