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It's amazing to me how China is so effectively creating a 1984-type situation without much stir among the rest of the world. These chat programs are super impor

It's amazing to me how China is so effectively creating a 1984-type situation without much stir among the rest of the world. These chat programs are super important for everyday life in China. The same company that provides chatting also provides your ability to pay for everything, and a credit score that determines what you can buy, how much you pay, and more. So if you say something you shouldn't, this could very easily be something where your entire life is destroyed. If they choose, these ultimately government controlled companies can easily make it so you can't buy things anymore, you are not trusted anywhere, and even your friends all disconnect with you because your bad score could affect theirs. Pretty scary. It will be interesting to see how the Chinese government reacts to globally available, unfiltered internet via satellite, like the one SpaceX is making https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellat...

aaron-lebo 9y ago
What scares me more is the cheerleading and defense of this in the West, and the way this is voluntarily happening here. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J24C0TI https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J24C0TI This is a telescreen.
- api 9y ago
  China's GDP is doing great, and GDP growth is the only thing that matters to quite a few people.
  - yusuke10 9y ago
    FAKE gdp. most likely 0% gdp growth, if not negative. China’s 2015 GDP Was Exaggerated By Fake Data, Analysis Shows (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-01/china-s-2015-gdp-puffed-up-by-fake-economic-data-analysis-shows https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-01/china-s-2...) Another Chinese city admits 'fake' economic data (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-data/another-chinese-city-admits-fake-economic-data-idUSKBN1F60I1 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-data/anothe...) This Is How China's Regions Fare in the Fake GDP Data Stakes (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-19/this-is-how-china-s-regions-fare-in-the-fake-gdp-data-stakes https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-19/this-is-h...)
    - ShorsHammer 9y ago
      Two of your links suggest gdp growth of around 6% still. They fake data to move gdp fractions of a percent. Outright lying doesn't help further your argument. There's some excellent independent estimates of Chinas gdp out there.
    - dang 9y ago
      This account has only used HN to engage in political battle—in this case national battle about China. Regardless of what you're battling for, that's an abuse of the site as explained at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, so we've banned the account. Please don't create accounts to break the site rules with.
- jjaredsimpson 9y ago
  Anonymity paired with speech is a new modern invention which didn't always exist. I don't this it is necessarily true that that kinds of speech is always for the ultimate good. I'm fine with societies experimenting with more surveillance with the aim of improving people's behavior. It just seems like the modern version of sitting around a fire face to face and not being an asshole.
  - zentiggr 9y ago
    > I'm fine with societies experimenting with more surveillance with the aim of improving people's behavior. If only that surveillance didn't open up avenues for exploitation, targeting, and suppression even more. And I'm pretty sure we've got a little too much "cpmpliance" monitoring as we are right now... I'm ready for ALPRs, Stingrays, and a bunch of other LEO practices to get curtailed or even stopped outright.
    - jjaredsimpson 9y ago
      We can't only experiment with structures and tools that have only upside positive consequences. The existence of a bad outcome is something to be avoided and guarded against, but I don't see why any possible tool which has a potential to be abused should be avoided.
  - gurkendoktor 9y ago
    Echo Show is not an anonymous broadcast platform. Using it to talk to friends is the modern version of doing it face to face; why do we suddenly need to have corporations or the government in the middle? It is true that societies are experimenting with policing what people say online; Germany's attempts to combat hate speech and fake news come to mind. But that is (hopefully) different from punishing political dissent. Do you honestly believe that it is better for society if people can't openly say "I disagree with removing presidential term limits"?
  - gaius 9y ago
    I'm fine with societies experimenting with more surveillance with the aim of improving people's behavior. A listening device in private homes is a genie that won't go back in its bottle. Are you willing to stand up and say, I trust every official, elected or otherwise, for the rest of my life, and the lives of any descendants I might have? Because you have just written a blank cheque that says exactly that.
bwang29 9y ago
There is already a "sesame" score built in Sesame Credit by Alibaba (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_Credit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_Credit) The Wired article is a little more exaggerating (https://www.wired.com/story/age-of-social-credit/ https://www.wired.com/story/age-of-social-credit/) but here is the rough breakdown of your score according to https://www.zhihu.com/question/27844479 https://www.zhihu.com/question/27844479 1. Identity Characteristics (15%) Public Security Real Name Authentication Identity Information Information Stability ... 2. Credit History (35%) Credit Card Repayment History Micronesia Repayment Record Utilities Fee Ticket ... 3. Compliance Capability (20%) Payment Account balance balance balance balance car information real estate information ...... 4. Personal connections (5%) relationship circle circle of friends credit level of social influence ... ... 5. behavior preferences (25%) account activity level consumer level payment level consumer preferences ...
smaili 9y ago
> So if you say something you shouldn't, this could very easily be something where your entire life is destroyed. According to the article, this has already happened: Over on WeChat’s top messaging service, there were reports that some users had been banned or restricted based on the content they had shared. WeChat owner Tencent has disputed claims that it stores or reads chat logs, but — regardless — the app includes a social media-like feed where users can share public messages with friends.
davesque 9y ago
At this rate, it seems reasonable to assume they'd use a kill vehicle to take the satellites out.
- snerbles 9y ago
  You'd see wide-spread jamming well before then.
- nradov 9y ago
  The Chinese government isn't stupid enough to commit an act of war and open up their own satellites to retaliation. They'll just ban possession of the ground terminals like they ban firearms, drugs, "subversive" literature, etc. It won't be completely effective but will prevent most people in China from having unfettered satellite Internet access.
  - Slansitartop 9y ago
    > They'll just ban possession of the ground terminals like they ban firearms, drugs, "subversive" literature, etc. They probably already have. I think their customs forms have a checkbox to declare radios and telecommunications equipment, sort of like the US has for agricultural products. My guess is you'll get extra scrutiny, at a minimum, if you check the box.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
gurkendoktor 9y ago
Using WeChat can already destroy your life: http://www.zeit.de/feature/freedom-of-press-china-zhang-miao-imprisonment http://www.zeit.de/feature/freedom-of-press-china-zhang-miao...
coldtea 9y ago
>It's amazing to me how China is so effectively creating a 1984-type situation without much stir among the rest of the world. This is perhaps because of several things: 1) That's the way "the rest of the world's" governments and corporate interests want their own countries to go, and have been pushing towards since decades. The rest of the world's leaders (most of them) could not care less for the lip service they pay to "freedom" et al. 2) A superpower gets to do whatever it likes "without much stir from the rest of the world". Heck, France and Britain had 1/3rd of the world, outside or their national borders, enslaved "without much stir from the rest of the world" until well after WWII. And suddenly the "rest of the world" will care for what China does to its own citizens? 3) It's nobody's business really what China does to its own citizens. There are other countries with the worlds largest prison population and most police shootings (by crazy amounts, like having 25% of the worlds prisoners for 4% of the worlds population), and they continue in that path "without much stir among the rest of the world". Why would it be different here?
- wpasc 9y ago
  I think you have raised false equivalencies here
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- mygo 9y ago
  It’s amazing to me that the argument of “don’t go after those guys for what they are doing when those other guys are doing bad things too” never dies. Even with all of its blatant fallacy. It will persist until the end of time. And solve nothing.
  - Passthepeas 9y ago
    I think it does more to illustrate hypocrisy and priorities than anything; it's like worrying about another driver's flat tire, when your own car is literally on fire. Though I do understand and agree with your overall sentiment.
notyourwork 9y ago
What should the rest of the world do?
- samlevine 9y ago
  Hopefully not what was done to open up imperial China to the opium trade.
staplers 9y ago
If they choose, these ultimately government controlled companies can easily make it so you can't buy things anymore, you are not trusted anywhere America already has that, it's called a credit score and it does this exact thing.
- phyller 9y ago
  Your credit score isn't affected by what you post on Hacker News. Your credit score is affected if you don't pay your bills. You'll find it harder to get credit in the future. I don't see the relation with state sponsored suppression. Also, you can still buy things with cash. In China they use these apps to pay for things, you can't buy some things with cash.
  - tyfon 9y ago
    A lot of companies use publicly posted stuff + friends on facebook to create a credit score though so it does happen in the west. Just not quite in the same way as in China.
    - claytonjy 9y ago
      Is this true of the US? I see articles from 2015/2016 about credit rating agencies (FICO in particular) looking into "alternate data" to inform scores, including social media stuff, but it looks like FB was fighting that to some extent (more regulatory burden) and the tone is "this is coming" not "this is here".
      - sedachv 9y ago
        Source: worked for an online payday lender. There are a lot of commercial APIs from "Consumer Reporting Agencies," providing public information beyond credit rating agencies, that are in use to determine lending decisions. The Wikipedia article on the FCRA[1] has a brief list of these firms and a summary of the laws around data collection and dissemination. IMO the United States needs to both step up enforcement of existing data privacy laws, and more legislation protecting people. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act
joe_the_user 9y ago
"The rest of world" occasionally complains about China's dictatorial measures as it occasionally complains about dictatorial measures in other areas. The only time there have been angry crusades against a given dictatorship (NAZIs, Soviets, etc) is when a given group of nations view these dictatorships as enemies. Which isn't to say these areas weren't dictatorships but that it's always taken more than dictatorship to get the ire of even those nations claiming to care most about democracy and human rights.
daodedickinson 9y ago
99% of the population could oppose a policy, but no individual could never know they aren't alone and they'll be disarmed against disciplinary power requiring fewer and fewer people at the top to control the rest with machines. Just a handful of decision makers controls search results, the new Google shopping censorship of the last two days, the massive purge of even very moderate conservative YouTube channels over the past few weeks... the only difference here is that the rulers skewing our discourse are "private". One "engineer" at a computer can silence the voices of over a billion people, whether in China or California.
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  Which makes it all the more important to maintain offline connections, and resist the pressure to include the online world in everything.
trevyn 9y ago
>can easily make it so you can't buy things anymore This actually happened to me on a small scale with a legitimate US company, as a US citizen placing a legitimate order. The company deals in high-fraud-risk physical goods, their system decided that I was a high fraud risk, and outright banned me for life. I would have been happy to provide any kind of ID, sent them cash in the mail, whatever. But nope, banned for life, end of story. Truly a bizarre, bizarre experience. After their support line was no help, I emailed their CEO with no response so far. Their investors are up next.
- k_sh 9y ago
  What company was this?

aaron-lebo 9y ago

What scares me more is the cheerleading and defense of this in the West, and the way this is voluntarily happening here. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J24C0TI https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J24C0TI This is a telescreen.

api 9y ago
China's GDP is doing great, and GDP growth is the only thing that matters to quite a few people.
- yusuke10 9y ago
  FAKE gdp. most likely 0% gdp growth, if not negative. China’s 2015 GDP Was Exaggerated By Fake Data, Analysis Shows (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-01/china-s-2015-gdp-puffed-up-by-fake-economic-data-analysis-shows https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-01/china-s-2...) Another Chinese city admits 'fake' economic data (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-data/another-chinese-city-admits-fake-economic-data-idUSKBN1F60I1 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-data/anothe...) This Is How China's Regions Fare in the Fake GDP Data Stakes (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-19/this-is-how-china-s-regions-fare-in-the-fake-gdp-data-stakes https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-19/this-is-h...)
  - ShorsHammer 9y ago
    Two of your links suggest gdp growth of around 6% still. They fake data to move gdp fractions of a percent. Outright lying doesn't help further your argument. There's some excellent independent estimates of Chinas gdp out there.
  - dang 9y ago
    This account has only used HN to engage in political battle—in this case national battle about China. Regardless of what you're battling for, that's an abuse of the site as explained at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, so we've banned the account. Please don't create accounts to break the site rules with.
jjaredsimpson 9y ago
Anonymity paired with speech is a new modern invention which didn't always exist. I don't this it is necessarily true that that kinds of speech is always for the ultimate good. I'm fine with societies experimenting with more surveillance with the aim of improving people's behavior. It just seems like the modern version of sitting around a fire face to face and not being an asshole.
- zentiggr 9y ago
  > I'm fine with societies experimenting with more surveillance with the aim of improving people's behavior. If only that surveillance didn't open up avenues for exploitation, targeting, and suppression even more. And I'm pretty sure we've got a little too much "cpmpliance" monitoring as we are right now... I'm ready for ALPRs, Stingrays, and a bunch of other LEO practices to get curtailed or even stopped outright.
  - jjaredsimpson 9y ago
    We can't only experiment with structures and tools that have only upside positive consequences. The existence of a bad outcome is something to be avoided and guarded against, but I don't see why any possible tool which has a potential to be abused should be avoided.
- gurkendoktor 9y ago
  Echo Show is not an anonymous broadcast platform. Using it to talk to friends is the modern version of doing it face to face; why do we suddenly need to have corporations or the government in the middle? It is true that societies are experimenting with policing what people say online; Germany's attempts to combat hate speech and fake news come to mind. But that is (hopefully) different from punishing political dissent. Do you honestly believe that it is better for society if people can't openly say "I disagree with removing presidential term limits"?
- gaius 9y ago
  I'm fine with societies experimenting with more surveillance with the aim of improving people's behavior. A listening device in private homes is a genie that won't go back in its bottle. Are you willing to stand up and say, I trust every official, elected or otherwise, for the rest of my life, and the lives of any descendants I might have? Because you have just written a blank cheque that says exactly that.

bwang29 9y ago

There is already a "sesame" score built in Sesame Credit by Alibaba (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_Credit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_Credit) The Wired article is a little more exaggerating (https://www.wired.com/story/age-of-social-credit/ https://www.wired.com/story/age-of-social-credit/) but here is the rough breakdown of your score according to https://www.zhihu.com/question/27844479 https://www.zhihu.com/question/27844479 1. Identity Characteristics (15%) Public Security Real Name Authentication Identity Information Information Stability ... 2. Credit History (35%) Credit Card Repayment History Micronesia Repayment Record Utilities Fee Ticket ... 3. Compliance Capability (20%) Payment Account balance balance balance balance car information real estate information ...... 4. Personal connections (5%) relationship circle circle of friends credit level of social influence ... ... 5. behavior preferences (25%) account activity level consumer level payment level consumer preferences ...

smaili 9y ago

> So if you say something you shouldn't, this could very easily be something where your entire life is destroyed. According to the article, this has already happened: Over on WeChat’s top messaging service, there were reports that some users had been banned or restricted based on the content they had shared. WeChat owner Tencent has disputed claims that it stores or reads chat logs, but — regardless — the app includes a social media-like feed where users can share public messages with friends.

davesque 9y ago

At this rate, it seems reasonable to assume they'd use a kill vehicle to take the satellites out.

snerbles 9y ago
You'd see wide-spread jamming well before then.
nradov 9y ago
The Chinese government isn't stupid enough to commit an act of war and open up their own satellites to retaliation. They'll just ban possession of the ground terminals like they ban firearms, drugs, "subversive" literature, etc. It won't be completely effective but will prevent most people in China from having unfettered satellite Internet access.
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  > They'll just ban possession of the ground terminals like they ban firearms, drugs, "subversive" literature, etc. They probably already have. I think their customs forms have a checkbox to declare radios and telecommunications equipment, sort of like the US has for agricultural products. My guess is you'll get extra scrutiny, at a minimum, if you check the box.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

gurkendoktor 9y ago

Using WeChat can already destroy your life: http://www.zeit.de/feature/freedom-of-press-china-zhang-miao-imprisonment http://www.zeit.de/feature/freedom-of-press-china-zhang-miao...

coldtea 9y ago

>It's amazing to me how China is so effectively creating a 1984-type situation without much stir among the rest of the world. This is perhaps because of several things: 1) That's the way "the rest of the world's" governments and corporate interests want their own countries to go, and have been pushing towards since decades. The rest of the world's leaders (most of them) could not care less for the lip service they pay to "freedom" et al. 2) A superpower gets to do whatever it likes "without much stir from the rest of the world". Heck, France and Britain had 1/3rd of the world, outside or their national borders, enslaved "without much stir from the rest of the world" until well after WWII. And suddenly the "rest of the world" will care for what China does to its own citizens? 3) It's nobody's business really what China does to its own citizens. There are other countries with the worlds largest prison population and most police shootings (by crazy amounts, like having 25% of the worlds prisoners for 4% of the worlds population), and they continue in that path "without much stir among the rest of the world". Why would it be different here?

wpasc 9y ago
I think you have raised false equivalencies here
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
mygo 9y ago
It’s amazing to me that the argument of “don’t go after those guys for what they are doing when those other guys are doing bad things too” never dies. Even with all of its blatant fallacy. It will persist until the end of time. And solve nothing.
- Passthepeas 9y ago
  I think it does more to illustrate hypocrisy and priorities than anything; it's like worrying about another driver's flat tire, when your own car is literally on fire. Though I do understand and agree with your overall sentiment.

notyourwork 9y ago

What should the rest of the world do?

samlevine 9y ago
Hopefully not what was done to open up imperial China to the opium trade.

staplers 9y ago

If they choose, these ultimately government controlled companies can easily make it so you can't buy things anymore, you are not trusted anywhere America already has that, it's called a credit score and it does this exact thing.

phyller 9y ago
Your credit score isn't affected by what you post on Hacker News. Your credit score is affected if you don't pay your bills. You'll find it harder to get credit in the future. I don't see the relation with state sponsored suppression. Also, you can still buy things with cash. In China they use these apps to pay for things, you can't buy some things with cash.
- tyfon 9y ago
  A lot of companies use publicly posted stuff + friends on facebook to create a credit score though so it does happen in the west. Just not quite in the same way as in China.
  - claytonjy 9y ago
    Is this true of the US? I see articles from 2015/2016 about credit rating agencies (FICO in particular) looking into "alternate data" to inform scores, including social media stuff, but it looks like FB was fighting that to some extent (more regulatory burden) and the tone is "this is coming" not "this is here".
    - sedachv 9y ago
      Source: worked for an online payday lender. There are a lot of commercial APIs from "Consumer Reporting Agencies," providing public information beyond credit rating agencies, that are in use to determine lending decisions. The Wikipedia article on the FCRA[1] has a brief list of these firms and a summary of the laws around data collection and dissemination. IMO the United States needs to both step up enforcement of existing data privacy laws, and more legislation protecting people. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act

joe_the_user 9y ago

"The rest of world" occasionally complains about China's dictatorial measures as it occasionally complains about dictatorial measures in other areas. The only time there have been angry crusades against a given dictatorship (NAZIs, Soviets, etc) is when a given group of nations view these dictatorships as enemies. Which isn't to say these areas weren't dictatorships but that it's always taken more than dictatorship to get the ire of even those nations claiming to care most about democracy and human rights.

daodedickinson 9y ago

99% of the population could oppose a policy, but no individual could never know they aren't alone and they'll be disarmed against disciplinary power requiring fewer and fewer people at the top to control the rest with machines. Just a handful of decision makers controls search results, the new Google shopping censorship of the last two days, the massive purge of even very moderate conservative YouTube channels over the past few weeks... the only difference here is that the rulers skewing our discourse are "private". One "engineer" at a computer can silence the voices of over a billion people, whether in China or California.

Slansitartop 9y ago
Which makes it all the more important to maintain offline connections, and resist the pressure to include the online world in everything.

trevyn 9y ago

>can easily make it so you can't buy things anymore This actually happened to me on a small scale with a legitimate US company, as a US citizen placing a legitimate order. The company deals in high-fraud-risk physical goods, their system decided that I was a high fraud risk, and outright banned me for life. I would have been happy to provide any kind of ID, sent them cash in the mail, whatever. But nope, banned for life, end of story. Truly a bizarre, bizarre experience. After their support line was no help, I emailed their CEO with no response so far. Their investors are up next.

k_sh 9y ago
What company was this?