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China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- JudasGoat 9y agoI started working in electronics in the late 1970's and as a "drug criminal" at the time, it became obvious to me that I was working on building my own handcuffs. I guess I really lacked vision because I didn't see this coming.
- iooi 9y agoSo if we assume they're getting their ideas from Black Mirror, how much longer until they start using humans for energy? [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089049/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089049/
- NedIsakoff 9y agoIts a comic book..
- rsynnott 9y agoThe Chinese social credit system has been around in some form for longer than Black Mirror. Black Mirror got the idea from THEM.
- iooi 9y agoSource?
- rsynnott 9y agoPlanning of the system in its current form started in 2014: https://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/planning-outline-for-the-construction-of-a-social-credit-system-2014-2020/ https://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/plan... The Black Mirror episode about a system like this came out in 2016.
- trhway 9y agoi think this episode and Matrix got it wrong wrt. what humans would be used for. It isn't energy production. Given that humans have largest brain with largest brain/body ratio and with good energy efficiency the opening scene from Matrix looks to me like racks of GPUs running distributed computation/simulation. In the spirit of this episode and the totalitarian nature of China today and the whole world tomorrow, i think it will be an every [regular] citizen duty to "plug in" for set amount of hours to run your fair share of social computing "dapps" and to sync-up/check the thoughts/emotions as well. The open office enforced hive-style collaboration/teamwork and always-on IM with implicit contract of immediately dropping everything and lending your brain is a very-very early preview of that future.
- krapp 9y ago>Given that humans have largest brain with largest brain/body ratio and with good energy efficiency the opening scene from Matrix looks to me like racks of GPUs running distributed computation/simulation. That was what the Matrix was originally supposed to be - the humans were wired into a neural network to bootstrap the AIs, but executives were afraid moviegoers wouldn't be smart enough to understand that, so they forced the change to "batteries."
- lainga 9y agoHumans-as-CPUs was the original plot of the Matrix IIRC, as pitched by the Wachowskis. The studio thought audiences would have a hard time understanding this, so they became D-cell batteries in the film instead. Ahh, jinx!
- trhway 9y agoI wonder - can't they remaster the movie? It wouldn't be an issue for modern audience given the cloud and Siri/Alexa becoming household notions.
- fenwick67 9y agoYeah humans are not very efficient at power conversion and I hate seeing this trope. When The Matrix was first conceived, the machines used humans for some computing, but that was dumbed down a bit in the final product. EDIT: ugh, double jinx
- jandrese 9y agoI don't think they were using the bikes in that episode to power some great civilization or something, just to reduce costs and more importantly to keep everyone busy. It wasn't clear what happened in the background, but it seemed like humanity was in a prison and to keep incidents down they made them do hard labor and provided endless mindless entertainment. Probably supposed to be an allegory for 9-5 jobs. The ending suggests that the rest of the planet is alive at least. Maybe humanity was put in prison for wrecking the biosphere and they're giving the planet time to recover?
- seibelj 9y agoTruly a dystopia. I hope someday citizens rebel against this nightmare
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ghostcluster 9y agoThey are > The number of annual protests has grown steadily since the early 1990s, from approximately 8700 “mass group incidents” in 1993[1] to over 87,000 in 2005.[2] In 2006, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimated the number of annual mass incidents to exceed 90,000, and Chinese sociology professor Sun Liping estimated 180,000 incidents in 2010.[3][4] Mass incidents are defined broadly as "planned or impromptu gathering that forms because of internal contradictions", and can include public speeches or demonstrations, physical clashes, public airings of grievances, and other group behaviors that are seen as disrupting social stability.[5] However > Despite the increase in protests, some scholars have argued that they may not pose an existential threat to Communist Party rule because they lack “connective tissue;” the preponderance of protests in China are aimed at local-level officials, and only a select few dissident movements seek systemic change. Who knows how it will play out in the long run, especially with the looming demographic problems of their aging population.
- RubenSandwich 9y agoIf anyone wants to see some of the negative effects of a persistent 'social score' that affects real life I recommend this Black Mirror episode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive.
- azakai 9y agoThe Electric Dreams episode "Safe and Sound" also explores these issues, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6980876/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6980876/
- miketery 9y agoI was thinking you were going to link to "Kill all Others" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6912900/?ref_=ttep_ep7 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6912900/?ref_=ttep_ep7
- thriftwy 9y agoI like how in Nosedive, nobody is ever having fun. I mean, guests at the party (spoiler) should be amused at the ghost of the maid and the scandal, filming it and all - especially young guys. It should go completely viral. Instead they stand frowning as if they're 70 - to avoid hurting their score. Under social credit society, everybody will be forced to act like they're at the end of their life path.
- ajmurmann 9y agoThe interesting thing and probably the point of the episode is that that's already what's happening in social media right now if you want to keep your followers.
- thriftwy 9y agoI don't know what kind of people friend boring self-promoters. The problem here, there's not enough eyeballs. They end up friending each other and then pretending they have a huge crowd. And then there's real content, viral content, assertive content. In short, life. Social credit system fights life because life doesn't follow rules, life doesn't care about likes and life doesn't climb their ladder. So naturally I expect harsh sanctions for anything viral or any unexpected flash mobs in such systems.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- wufufufu 9y agoSoon... "Amazon to ban people with too many returns from groceries"
- matte_black 9y agoGood lord, if I was banned from buying anything on Amazon or its subsidiaries I’d be incredibly fucked. I never thought of this before, it left me with a thousand yard stare.
- walterbell 9y agoStart here: https://www.google.com/search?q=banned+from+amazon https://www.google.com/search?q=banned+from+amazon
- HeyLaughingBoy 9y agoHow did you manage before Amazon was a thing?
- walterbell 9y agoBefore local retail stores went out of business due to competition from Amazon who was not charging sales taxes?
- ghaff 9y agoNot the OP, but I managed before cell phones and lots of other things too. I could survive without Amazon as well. But, for many types of items, there's no comparable online one-stop shop which would be, at the least, very inconvenient.
- matte_black 9y agoIt was hell. To buy one item I would have to go to a physical store and search through a bunch of crappy options with little to no information about which was better. It could easily take an hour if I didn’t rush or traffic sucked. Now, I could just wake up in the morning and get the same thing done in 5 minutes AND select a product I feel confident about based on reviews. Instead of wasting an hour of my life I could actually go live my life. As a result, pretty much everything I buy comes through Amazon. Only things I don’t buy there are things that simply aren’t on Amazon, and getting those things is usually a pain in the ass because I have to search other websites or possibly an open store that may stock that item. Using Amazon has made me time-rich. If I somehow couldn’t use it, I’d become something of a pauper: Unable to buy good items accurately, and spending a lot of time to find and purchase them. I do not want to return to those days.
- awakeasleep 9y agoTo me the principle of “once untrustworthy, always restricted” sounds like the beginning of a new caste system. Everyone's children are going to make mistakes. The wealthy are going to be able to cover up their children's mistakes, the poor are going to be put on 'the list' and become 'restricted.' The restrictions will grow, and eventually you'll have a new group of 'untouchables'
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- pishpash 9y agoThe world goes around in circles. Some always want to be on top of others, enslaving them until they get overthrown.
- Itaxpica 9y agoThis is the case in North Korea (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songbun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songbun), and it's terrifying to see it spread to other, less-totalitarian states
- posterboy 9y agoThe caste system to me means to put people in the position of a caste on purpose. Just like the younger brothers in feudal europe were second class ... so a prince might just kill his older brother. Or literally enslaving countries wholesale as untouchables (the name being an improvement over beatables, I guess). I have a hunch that caste is cognate with castrate, but it's inexplicably "uncertain" as many such terrible topics are, and indeed it's more nuanced: e.g. castrum is linked in the wiki (think casa). It makes sense via separate<enclosure<cover<layer ... it's much more complicated then that though :/
- ithkuil 9y agoIt comes from "chaste" (Latin castus) through an intermediate form meaning pure/non-mixed
- 9y ago
- dev_throw 9y agoThis illustrates the difference between having laws and enforcing them. Some countries have strict laws, but little enforcement, so marginalized people can break these laws as long as they fly under the radar. With technology, it becomes trivial to implement enforcement for even draconic laws at a scale previously unfathomable. Also, they seem to be rolling it out slowly. It reminds of the metaphorical boiling frog syndome[1], where the frog realizes what predicament it is in, but too late. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
- rrggrr 9y agoNext steps: 1. Extend social credit to non-Chinese living in China. 2. Expand to companies and individuals doing business with or visiting in China. 3. Export the program to finance dependent nations outside China. 4. Require companies depending on Chinese income to enforce the regulations in a 'know your customer'-esque format. There will be less resistance to this than one might think.
- wetback 9y agoAnd just like that, Compliance becomes a virtue.
- SubiculumCode 9y agoHaving too many laws that are only selectively enforced nearly equals the absence of the rule of law, and invariably hurts those that are poor or otherwise not afluent more than others.
- elgenie 9y ago> Some countries have strict laws, but little enforcement, so marginalized people can break these laws as long as they fly under the radar. Strict laws with little enforcement also means that the enforcement can be restricted squarely towards marginalized people and discretion used to avoid enforcement against anyone else.
- pm90 9y agoThe thing that worries me most about the autocracy in China is that all of these Orwellian measures would actually work and then would be pointed out as an example to abandon our civil liberties in favor of a system that may be big brotherly but at least "your kids will always be safe, never be close to any bad person" (By We I'm referring to Democracies). It may also be a uniquely Chinese thing too though. China has had very powerful Central States for an extremely long time (not just the CPC but all the emperors and what have you). Perhaps that's just the "Chinese Way": absolutist State which largely works for most of the people?
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoChina doesn’t have a very powerful central state, local governments have lots of power and often act out of sight from Beijing. This actually leads to more abuses of the system, however.
- MrLeap 9y agoMore decentralization leads to more abuses, yes -- but they tend to be of lower magnitude per event. Positions of power tend to attract abusers. Human nature seems to favor consolidation of hierarchies. China is just on a different part of the power cycle than the US. We're at the egalitarian everyone-is-the-same period of the cycle, and people abuse this state of affairs via a variety of ways. China is at the we-must-stymie-abusers stage, and abusers use that to abuse and stymie innocent people. Notice how both systems fail to stop abuse, they just move the dial between magnitude and frequency? What allows abuse is bad actors cloaking their activities behind the information asynchrony of a system. Transparency and holding leadership to account seems to be the best way to slow down the corruption of any system. That's why it should be easier for Americans indict police officers, and harder for a Chinese PM term limits. Those aren't the only issues in either country, but they should be pretty obviously problems to most people. It's interesting how every wedge issue seems to follow the same pattern. Take a binary choice that society should probably make -- and draw your trench diagonally from top left to bottom right so that both sides make both decisions just in different magnitudes. Leaves people angry, ideologically confused and nothing is ever resolved.
- jsonne 9y agoChina is doing this explicitly, but the West has been doing this implicitly for a while. Doxxing people with the "wrong" opinion and emailing their employers, friends, etc. I pretty regularly see if on Facebook where someone says something and their post or a screenshot of their post is shared hundreds of thousands of times with test that says "make this person famous". To be clear people should be called out for bigoted speech. An internet lynch mob though solves nothing and just creates a forever alienated group of people outside of society with little to no stake in the future. We all, as in humanity, could use understanding the nuance of stopping bad behavior while also forgiving people for their pasts. I don't have all the answers, but I guess I wrote this as it's just a generally worrying trend I see with the internet overall.
- tome 9y agoWoah, there's a difference between an "internet lynch mob" doing it and the state doing it!
- jsonne 9y agoAgreed. I was bringing up that in my mind they both fall under the same overarching trend I've been seeing in the west for a while.
- anf 9y agoIf you don't want things you post screen-shot-ed and re-pasted, don't post them on the internet under your real name?
- Consultant32452 9y agoIf you don't want your career destroyed and your life threatened, don't come to work on "no whites" day at your college.
- anf 9y agoIf your career can be destroyed by having the opinions you decided to post in a public forum under your real name copy-pasted, you're an idiot.
- willart4food 9y agoBlack Mirror?
- mLuby 9y agoYeah, season 3 episode 1 "nosedive"—worth the watch (on Netflix). You don't need to see any other black mirror episodes to get it. (Don't watch S1E1 1!)
- daveFNbuck 9y ago> (Don't watch S1E1 1!) People always say that but it's one of the most compelling episodes.
- ufo 9y agoI think telling people to avoid S1E1 is counterproductive if the alternative is to start with S1E2. I always thought that one was even more graphically disturbing.
- daveFNbuck 9y agoS1E2 does at least capture the spirit of the show a lot better. If you have trouble with that one, you probably won't like the show.
- throwawaymanbot 9y agoWhat if the west decides, we dont want Chinese people who are "allowed" to fly to Europe/USA in protest at this super silly Chinese idea?
- walterbell 9y agoFrom http://www.collective-evolution.com/2017/10/26/black-mirror-meets-reality-china-moves-to-rate-its-citizens-using-a-social-credit-system/ http://www.collective-evolution.com/2017/10/26/black-mirror-... "You won’t be eligible for … positions in public office … social security and welfare … senior level positions in the food and drug sector … sleep in a bed in overnight trains … higher-starred hotels and restaurants … Your children … won’t be allowed to attend more expensive private schools … We have made extreme advancements in health care because people found flaws in previous practices and had faith that they could improve them. This can be applied to quite literally every single industry, which is why these ranking systems could negatively affect growth, innovation, and our entire economic system as a whole. If we can no longer challenge our current state of being and question our surroundings, then how can we continue to advance as a collective? As a collective, many of our strengths lie in our differences. A diverse society includes people with all different strengths and brackets of knowledge, but if we’re all racing to get a better ranking, then we could lose a lot of those differences in trying to become “people pleasers” and adhering to social norms."
- zanny 9y agoThe CCP is not interested in progress, its interested in maintaining permanent, absolute power at any cost.
- walterbell 9y agoLike every other country, they want a healthy economy, which requires innovation. China's proposed social credit system would be counterproductive to innovation, i.e. the cost may be too high.
- Mvandenbergh 9y agoPeople have been hoping for this link between freedom and economic development for years about China. It turns out that it's just wishful thinking. China is much richer and no more free than it was decades ago.
- sytelus 9y ago...committed acts like spreading false information about terrorism and causing trouble on flights, as well as those who used expired tickets or smoked on trains. The move is in line with President’s Xi Jinping’s plan to construct a social credit system based on the principle of “once untrustworthy, always restricted”. 6.15 million Chinese citizens had been banned from taking flights for social misdeeds.
- zzzeek 9y agoclicked on the comments for the link here just to see all the "it's essentially the same thing here in the US!" posts and I was not disappointed. (or I was, depending on how you look at it)
- hexane360 9y agoSo why are the analogies others have made not valid? (although I haven't found anyone saying it's "essentially the same thing")
- Chaebixi 9y agoIt's pure whataboutism that only serves to totally distract attention away from this newly-designed Chinese policy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism > Whataboutism (also known as whataboutery) is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument, which is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda. When criticisms were leveled at the Soviet Union, the Soviet response would be "What about..." followed by an event in the Western world. > The Guardian deemed whataboutism, as used in Russia, "practically a national ideology". Journalist Julia Ioffe wrote that "Anyone who has ever studied the Soviet Union" was aware of the technique, citing the Soviet rejoinder to criticism, And you are lynching Negroes, as a "classic" example of the tactic.
- hexane360 9y agoI don't think this applies here, because in this case the two events are directly related. Poster's aren't bringing up random unrelated problems with the U.S., they're bringing up similar systems already in place in the U.S. that HN commentators aren't up in arms about. So you either need to do what I asked, which is explain why the two aren't comparable, or admit that the pushback against these policies is because they're new, foreign, or framed differently than their American counterparts.
- johan_larson 9y agoTo be fair we ban people with felony convictions from huge swathes of jobs, formally or informally, even if the crime happened decades ago. Also, good luck finding a place to live legally if you've been convicted of a sex crime.
- walterbell 9y agoFrom https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/business/economy/labor-market-inmates.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/business/economy/labor-ma... "A rapidly tightening labor market is forcing companies across the country to consider workers they once would have turned away. That is providing opportunities to people who have long faced barriers to employment, such as criminal records, disabilities or prolonged bouts of joblessness."
- murph-almighty 9y ago"the free market solves all problems" It's funny that this is happening with minimal legislative action (not that I'm okay with that)
- bkohlmann 9y agoWe ban them after due process procedures are complete - which often involves knowing your accused crime and accuser, lengthy evidence gathering, and impartial trials. As I understand the Chinese social capital system, there is no due process, you may not even know if you've been cited for anything until the punishment comes, and violations are identified without appeal.
- namelost 9y agoWhat use is due process if everybody is guilty of some crime? Have you ever changed a URL parameter against a ToS? Felony computer hacking!
- johan_larson 9y agoMore than 90% of criminal convictions are the result of pleas, not trials. Few people can come up with the sort of money needed to mount a serious defense to a criminal charge. And in some cases the state can take your money up front, so you definitely don't have the resources to mount a defense.
- fouric 9y agoThis is very, very bad. Now, what can we do about it? What should we do about it?
- lolc 9y agoSo what's the current exchange rate between social credit and Yen?
- avcdsuia 9y agoShenzhen gov are using facial recognition to detect pedestrians running through the red light[0]. Their even release high quality pictures without mosaic in the first version, just a few days ago. [0]https://www.stc.gov.cn/facei/ https://www.stc.gov.cn/facei/
- simsla 9y agoThese are censored (mozaic), as far as I can see. I think the social credit thing sounds horrible, but I don't think there's anything wrong with automatic detection of traffic violations. Traffic codes are here to help people stay safe, they shouldn't be conditional on people seeing a cop.
- wpdev_63 9y agoThe problem comes up when send tickets in the mail though. Cops game the system by putting motorway cameras in speeding traps to draw money into the court system. Atleast when a cop gives you an unjust ticket they have to face you. With a machine it's just print a ticket and ship it out. Who do you appeal to?
- contingencies 9y agoThe address is 新洲莲花路口东侧 (the east side of the intersection between Xinzhou Lu and Lianhua Lu). I sort of want to go down there and see if I can't photobomb a jaywalking picture :) https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lian+Hua+Lu,+FuTian+CBD,+Futian+Qu,+Shenzhen+Shi,+Guangdong+Sheng,+China,+518000/@22.5538266,114.046965,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m8!1m2!2m1!1z5paw5rSy6I6y6Iqx6Lev5Y-j77yM5rex5Zyz!3m4!1s0x3403f475796d78f1:0x85be2f66d0e04eee!8m2!3d22.5538217!4d114.049159 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lian+Hua+Lu,+FuTian+CBD,+F... Note that the facial ID obviously doesn't work very well as they are only posting the affirmative matches. Every intersection in China has far more than two jaywalkers per day.
- olfactory 9y agoThis sounds horrible, but the "Real Name" movement for online services (such as Facebook) is an equally insidious American version. When a "real name" service becomes a financial services company, we have a merging of social metadata and a conventional credit score. It does not start out as a dystopian vision. Why should Facebook charge advertisers money to show ads to people with a 400 credit score? The yield of many ads is improved when you have hard demographic and behavioral data as an additional filter. What's the difference between an Uber Pool rider getting a ride with other similarly-rated riders? Why should I with a near 5 star rating have to risk sitting in a pool with someone who has a 3.2 star rating? I certainly don't want to.
- jandrese 9y agoThat last line was almost a direct quote from the Black Mirror episode "Nosedive".
- olfactory 9y agoWhile that (excellent) episode is perhaps a bit hyperbolic, why would a business not want to use any segmentation techniques at its disposal. Marketers call this attracting "qualified" customers, and it's why fine dining restaurants do not also offer fast food burgers via an attached drive-through, and why a five star hotel does not convert unbooked rooms into hostels.
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago> This sounds horrible, but the "Real Name" movement for online services (such as Facebook) is an equally insidious American version. Add to that Facebook’s blocking you from access to your account unless you upload a photo that clearly shows your whole face, which has been reported in recent months. Real name + financial services + facial recognition + is even worse.
- smsm42 9y agoI don't have my face on my FB profile, and nobody blocked me.
- phil248 9y ago"China said it will begin applying its so-called social credit ... and stop people who have committed misdeeds from taking such transport for up to a year." Here in the US, you can get banned from air travel permanently, and you don't even need to do anything wrong!
- cinquemb 9y agoThe systems/databases that will process/store the relevant social credit information will be prime targets for exploitation as this becomes more intertwined with practical daily life and automated systems. Imagine being able to shut out a billion people variably by tampering with such and affecting the economy to a great degree. And people complain about the evolving landscape of DDOS attacks now…
- otherview 9y agoThis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI) came out almost 3 years ago..
- openasocket 9y agoI was about to discuss the same thing! I haven't been able to find other documentation about it, whether it was actually implemented, or if it applies to this kind of restrictions. But that has really stood out in my mind as one of the most outrageously dystopian concepts
- abvdasker 9y agoDo you want a dystopia? Because this is how you get a dystopia.
- jrs95 9y agoThe good news about this social credit system is that China's self driving cars will be able to make more optimal decisions about who lives and dies when a crash is inevitable. Isn't innovation wonderful!?
- polskibus 9y agoThe big question is : Is anyone going to sanction countries who bar people like that? Shouldn't it be human right to be viewed outside any calculated measure?
- glegouard 9y agoIt is sad to see that humans need such a system to respect rules and others. There is also the danger that the rules to respect change over time...
- kaybe 9y agoNo, we don't need it. The rules most of us disrespect are routinely are not useful in the specific cases (eg I'm not going to wait at a red light in the middle of the night as a pedestrian, only as a driver). Almost all people are actually nice to each other, at least where I have been.
- newnewpdro 9y agoGet ready for more China stabbing sprees [1] as the consequences of this become increasingly felt by their society. This strikes me as an obviously bad idea, but perhaps there are no good solutions with a population of that size. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenpeng_Village_Primary_School_stabbing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenpeng_Village_Primary_Schoo...
- eddieplan9 9y agoPlease do not try to rationalize a completely bullshit way of governing by citing there is no better way. It's an insult to the people victimized by this. I am a Chinese expat, and their stupid policy now says I cannot fly in China because I only have a passport and not a National ID.
- juanmirocks 9y agoBlack Mirror Nosedive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive) social-status-like castes, only than in a real bluntly open dictatorship. Bad times.
- echevil 9y agoIf the author of this article has read the original announcement from either Chinese government or various sources from China, they'll know the so called "people with bad social credit" that'll get these restrictions is defined very clearly, and yet it mentioned only a tiny bit of it in very misleading way. Many of the actions described in the definition would put you in jail in US. Whether they're intentionally misleading people is anybody's guess. There are many paragraphs clarifying the definition either here: http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/gzdt/201803/t20180316_879653.html http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/gzdt/201803/t20180316_879653.html Or here: http://www.ce.cn/xwzx/gnsz/gdxw/201803/16/t20180316_28505546.shtml http://www.ce.cn/xwzx/gnsz/gdxw/201803/16/t20180316_28505546... There is also clearly defined way to lift the restrictions as defined in the NDRC announcement. Most of the restrictions are removed automatically in one year. Certainly not "once untrustworthy, always restricted"
- junnan 9y agoFinally an original source. I was wondering what the original text of "once untrustworthy, always restricted" would be. I think a more accurate translation should be "untrustworthy here, restricted everywhere".
- smsm42 9y agoIs it already being used to suppress criticism of the government and CPC, or is it planned for next month?
- Dove 9y agoChina has been working on this for a while, and barring people from transportation is not the scary bit. That's last-century scary. No, it's the emergence of a new sort of ideological warfare making use of the recent knowledge developed in gaming industry that is the scary bit. This is a new kind of threat, something we as humans haven't learned how to deal with. Here's some analysis from a game designer from 2015: https://youtu.be/lHcTKWiZ8sI https://youtu.be/lHcTKWiZ8sI
- AboutTheWhisles 9y agoAre we sure this is dystopian enough? I love the idea of taking someone who might be marginalized and marginalizing them even further, but how can we make sure it is passed down through the generations to their family?
- openasocket 9y agoI remember reading about a proposal for China's social credit system, that it bases your score on the score of your friends (defined based on social media contacts, who you text, email, etc.). To discourage you from becoming friends with or remaining friends with someone who has done something wrong in the eyes of the Party. I have no idea if that was actually implemented, or if it's the same social credit system used here, but that's pretty damn dystopian.
- Chaebixi 9y agoThey have some corporation-run social credit pilot projects that apparently look at purchases and social media activity. No doubt the government-run program will get that data as well.
- drumttocs8 9y agoI already saw this episode on Black Mirror [0]. Is this a rerun? [0] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/
- daodedickinson 9y agoNo different from how Twitter, Facebook, and Google operate. People outside of the party are systematically humiliated and ground to dust.
- Aunche 9y agoThis article is typical western fear-mongering. China can already arbitrarily detain political dissidents if they want to. This "social credit score" is nothing more than an elaborate system to enforce misdemeanor laws.
- yladiz 9y ago> This "social credit score" is nothing more than an elaborate system to enforce misdemeanor laws. I don't agree. It's more about making people compliant with what the government wants in society, and making those who don't follow the "social" rules in the country subject to various restrictions, essentially limiting their freedom if they don't do what the government wants. In essence they're attempting to legitimize their arbitrary policies by making it about something vaguely enforceable.
- Aunche 9y agoThat's what the western media spins it as, but is there any evidence of that? The examples listed in the article are misdemeanor laws.
- Bizarro 9y agoAnd again and again, we have the usual suspects doing the usual things in every single one of these type of stories - every single one. I guess dang and others are ok with it.
- syntaxing 9y agoNot really about the article, but the amount of Whataboutism has been growing uncomfortably stronger in the comments on Hacker News. Actions of others is not enough to justify one's self (good or bad). All these comments using Chinese/USA or Western/Eastern as their main point of argument is superfluous.
- jakeogh 9y agoNow pair that with "basic income". Same thing will happen anywhere that awful idea is put in place. Got a ticket? No worries; we already deducted it;) Public transit and free money are just two of many ways to increase the people's dependence on the state. Next up is the "opportunity" of pre-programmed cars.
- red_admiral 9y agoRestrictions on flying for people who 'cause trouble on flights' sounds like something I could support. Especially trouble of the drunken kind.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- MechEStudent 9y agoThey are already applying this to foreigners when selecting possible people to track, monitor, or engage.
- johnny99 9y agoWow--a crude implementation of Whuffie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie
- eddieplan9 9y agoI am deeply disgusted by false equivalency used in many posts this thread. Whatever you think the West is doing is not even close to this. The Chinese government owns and runs more than 50% of the economy and 100% of the industries they deem essential. They can not only cut your off completely from planes and trains, but also your electricity, driver license, internet, telephone, banks, ability to get any travel document, ability to stay at any hotel, etc. Let that sink for a bit, before you claim that Google or even NSA can do something similar. I am a Chinese expat, but I don't have a National ID. I have a Chinese passport, but I cannot even buy train tickets online (yet i can ride the train) with it and I cannot open a bank account in my own country. Things will get worse with 'social credit' as another barrier because I won't have a credit history with them. [edit] removed claim that Chinese expat won't be able to fly in China without National ID because some say the viral news is a rumor. Honestly i cannot tell any more.
- stuffedBelly 9y agoI get your sentiment, but being an expat does not automatically put you on the ban list unless you committed crime or previously had beef with the Chinese government.
- crankylinuxuser 9y ago13th Amendment: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. ---------------- Slavery is ALLOWED if guilty of a crime. So go on ahead and keep espousing "rah rah USA". We're still in a slave country.
- mieseratte 9y agoDoes the United States actually practice slavery in the prison system in any fashion? My understanding is that work is optional, comes with a very small amount of compensation as incentive, but is otherwise non-compulsory. Is any US State or Federal prison running cotton plantations in Georgia with forced, uncompensated labor?
- jonathanyc 9y agoOnce again, I’m disappointed in how quickly the comments on these articles about China doing horrible things devolves into defense of America. It’s sort of like a reverse whataboutism. Ideally learning about what bad things other countries are doing would allow us to look at what similar things we do in our own country and then work to improve things. Instead the opposite seems to happen, and we actually draw a line under our current policies while saying “well, at least here...”. Other people doing horrible things is not justification for us to do less horrible things. Conversely, because we do bad things doesn’t mean we can’t criticize the bad things others do. On the other hand, we are in a much better position to change things in our own country than in foreign countries. I’ll end my commment by repeating that what China is doing here seems like a step in the wrong direction, and is not something we should be defending.
- ygaf 9y agoThis is hilarious. When whataboutism is convenient to the self-righteous, what then exists is "reverse whataboutism".
- ygaf 9y agoI'm not banned? I had the thought that jonathanyc was an actual HN admin. Either way, having thought I was walking into a ban, I'm shaping up and won't simply contribute negativity. (I still believe HN threads aren't supposed to derail in topic, unless an actual admin conveys otherwise)
- 908087 9y agoCCP is truly the Facebook of governments. No wonder Zuckerberg was trying to get the Chinese president to name his kid. Hopefully I'm wrong on this, but I expect a similar program to end up in the US within the next 5-10 years. At first, US citizens/media/government officials will collectively point and say "look over there, China is doing bad things". Next, companies like Facebook/Google/Palantir will start (officially) working with the US government to implement something nearly identical, but slightly less bad in some relatively meaningless way, here (or, in other words, bring whatever they've already been working on behind the scenes up to the surface), and the party line will change to "b-b-but China did it first!" / "at least we aren't as bad as China" / "something something what about the children / the terrorists / [bogeyman of the week]".
- stuffedBelly 9y agoI am Chinese and I can see how this can be exploited by both vigilente groups and the government to target individuals using the "spreading false information" clause alone. There are so many ways to trick people into spreading false information. More importantly, people are not the one to decide what is considered "false", the government is. It might be ok to make people with bad credit harder to purchase non life-essential stuff such as cars (you heard it, cars are not essentials in many countries), but they shouldn't be treated as criminals.
- nitwit005 9y agoYep, will almost certainly result in extortion. Take over someone's Weibo account, threaten to destroy their social score, demand payment. Or just the usual identity theft to get fines mailed to another address so they go unpaid.
- pishpash 9y ago1. Yes, Chinese society values different things from Western societies on average, but there is a wide range of values in each society and a great deal of overlap with universal expectations, so don't brush it aside as a difference in culture or political desires. 2. This is going way beyond tradition or culture. Nobody enjoys this. 3. It is being pushed through for the very simple fact that it can be pushed through. Take note: politics is groups of people trying to gain advantage over others and an equilibrium requires a vigorous defense of the smallest things that are yours; without pushback you lose what's yours; nobody will grant to you, only take away. 4. Norms and ideals matter. This is being set as the norm in China, whereas other examples in Western countries are at least considered transgressions against the norm. The delineations are in different places and the outcomes will absolutely not be the same even if they look superficially similar.
- rglover 9y agoWhat a terrifying time to be alive.
- mavdi 9y agoWe'll end up doing exactly the same here in the West. Just after much drama and a few terror attacks. I admire the Chinese for their efficiency.
- pasbesoin 9y agoRemember, with the Great Firewall: "China is the prototype." (My words, back when.) They started off purchasing and as an initial market as well as testing ground for Western technology and Western technology companies. Now, China has gained the technology and sophistication to roll their own. But that doesn't mean they won't market it, both commercially and to aid their allies in creating and maintaining similar forms of governance and stability (at the tip of an connection, if not a gun). So, they may be building this domestically, from the ground up. Nonetheless, the expression remains and remains apt, and concerning: "China is the prototype." Many people around the world, in government and in private business, continue to express enormous interest in this type of monitoring and control. In the U.K., of all places, that "bastion of democracy", leadership is openly advocating for the ability to monitor and censure all connections. They are going to control with whom you communicate and associate, by way of real world penalties and controls. In the U.S., what greater limit on "freedom to associate" than taking away one's ability to travel? "It can't, won't happen here." Ahuh. Just like outsourcing was going to elevate our employment prospects and wages. "We'll be the managers." How did that work out? Automation is going to get a lot more done with less hands. How do you think they are going to decide who benefits?
- jancsika 9y agoIf someone were given dark money and tasked with destabilizing the Chinese govt, I can easily seem them doing the following: * taking half the funds and putting it into think tanks that write pro social credit pieces with an earnest focus on making it more accurate and efficient from a technical standpoint (plus perhaps lobbying for its implementation in the West, for street cred) * taking the other half and putting it towards anti-govt movements within China, using the info gleaned from the think tanks to provide counter-surveillance techniques The counter-surveillance techniques will cause the govt to invest in more surveillance tech and clamp down tighter on the population. That enforcement will further fuel the anti-govt groups to become more radicalized. Of course, I'm just armchair quarterbacking this based on vaguely remembering the news around the buildup and aftermath of the Iraq war. I'm sure the Chinese government has thought through these problems more deeply than I have. edit: grammar
- Taniwha 9y agoThe main difference between this and the US is that in the US the no-fly list is secret
- wemdyjreichert 9y agoChina is terrible. Their government is evil. If you're there, get out. If not, stay out. 'Nuff said.
- yakcyll 9y agoI get that it's super anecdotal to mention this, but this idea sounds a lot like the worst oppressive, sadness-inducing systems I read about in school books, the purpose of which was literally to save people from thinking stuff like this up again.
- hatsunearu 9y agoTruly horrifying. China isn't afraid to use technology and psychology to oppress its inhabitants in the maximum possible extent... This is what North Korea would look like if they had money.
- fspeech 9y agoHere are the original documents in Chinese: http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/gzdt/201803/t20180316_879653.html http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/gzdt/201803/t20180316_879653.html http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/gzdt/201803/t20180316_879654.html http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/gzdt/201803/t20180316_879654.html The documents do not make "bad social credit" (whatever that means) a punishable cause. There is one clause relating to spread of false information but it specifically says "false terrorism information related to civil aviation safety". There are two classes of offenders. Air travel and luxury/sleeper/high speed G-train travels are banned; regular trains are not. The first class of offences pertain to directly violating transport regulations, like refusing to quit smoking on an airplane, forcing one's way onto the runway, or refusing to pay for a ticket even after getting caught riding the train without one. The second class is credit related and has six categories. The first four categories are mostly targeted at resourceful people who have misdeeds but somehow are not criminally punished. One thing that conceivable casts a wider net is for those that refuse to pay social security insurance premiums or obtain social security payments through false documents. The fifth category is about people refusing to follow court orders. The sixth category about "others" that could be added is more elastic but it did say that changes need to be published by editing the document. Google Translate of the six categories: 1. The party who has the ability to perform but refuses to perform major tax violations; 2. In the field of fiscal fund management and use, there is a person responsible for serious dishonest behaviors such as fraud, false reports, fraud, fraudulent taking, interception, misappropriation, arrears of international financial organizations and foreign governments’ due debts; 3. Those who have serious acts of dishonesty in the following areas in the field of social insurance: employers fail to participate in social insurance in accordance with relevant regulations and refuse rectification; employers have not faithfully applied for social insurance payment bases and have refused to make corrections; Those who have insurance premiums but have the capacity to pay but refuse to pay; conceal, transfer, embezzle, misappropriate social insurance funds or operate in violation of the regulations; fraudulently forge social insurance benefits through fraudulent or forgery proofs or other means; and social insurance service agencies violate the service agreement Or related regulations; refuses to assist the social insurance administrative department in the investigation and verification of accidents and problems; 4. Securities and futures are illegally punished with fines and no overdue payment; overdue entities of the listed company fail to perform their public commitments within the prescribed time limit; 5. The people's courts have taken measures to restrict consumption in accordance with relevant regulations, or have included the list of those who have been breached trustees according to law; (6) Other Restricted Persons Recognized by the Relevant Departments Responsible persons who commit serious acts of dishonesty in a civil aircraft shall be clearly identified by modifying the document.
- joejerryronnie 9y agoAt what point does the ruling party in China finally overstep its bounds and incite a full-fledged violent revolution?
- stickdogg 9y agoWow. Communism at it's best.
- jxramos 9y agoSo if one's social credit score goes too low would they allow you emigrate to another country?
- chrischen 9y agoSo they habe a nationalized yelp for people. If you’ve lived in China you’ll kmow there’s a big problem with corruption at higher levels and simply bad interpersonal behavior at lower levels (things like discourteousness and cutting in line). Whether you agree or disagree with the implementation, some sorry of wuantified karma system is probably ne essary to keep people in line. This is no different from privatized US credit system or a social shaming system (Chinese wouldn’t respond to shaming), except that this is implemented in a very Chinese way of being nationalized instead of privatized.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Gatsky 9y agoI hope our era will be remembered for something other than the abject failure of liberal democracy. The US and Europe are struggling/sabotaging themselves, while Russia and China just consolidate their power. Africa keeps burning. India will take the Sino-Russian path no doubt.
- castle-bravo 9y agoUnfortunately our (speaking as a Canadian) system doesn't seem to be truly liberal or democratic. Every five years or so, we elect a parliamentary elite selected for us by the Toronto business community. The the parliament does its best to distract the public from the true policy objectives of the government (i.e. growing the fortunes of their moneyed masters by all means necessary). this system only barely meets the loosest definition of democracy and is closer in spirit to a republic or an oligarchy. It seems that whatever liberal tendencies our government has is a holdover from last century and losing ground to American-style neoliberalism. What worries me is not that this system might fail, but that it be replaced by a state-of-the art dictatorship that treats the population as slaves.
- kwhitefoot 9y ago> “once untrustworthy, always restricted” That's even worse than California's three strikes laws.
- meganibla 9y agoFinally, The whuffie utopia has arrived. To everyone scared: go on, keep being misinformed about everything China does. It’s a common but useless consolation trap to fall into. Until you actually can see them clearly how can you start learning from their successes?
- meganibla 9y agoIsn’t this actually a great idea? If you don’t like it stop doing bad things and getting bad credit. If you behave you’ll have more privileges and be permitted to interact with others in more ways. It’s the basic social contract but implemented more efficiently. I can only imagine scofflaws is complaining. If you complain it’s open to abuse well every human system not run by an uncrackable artificial intelligence is open to abuse. Don’t unfairly fear a Chinese system over a Western system when how do you know how clear your ideas are? If you live under this system and really cannot stand or tolerate then just move to another country and cry out that you’re a fake victim and you can seek asylum from some generous Western nation wanting to pretend it’s morally supremacist.
- Pmop 9y agoBear in mind that discussions about Chinese matters may be rigged by the 50 cent army. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party
- nmstoker 9y agoPutting aside the specifics of the system in China, the underlying issues are a problem all countries need to explore. On many near capacity public systems it only takes a few bad actors to completely foul things up for entire sections, eg delaying a subway line. Traditional social pressure seems not to work anymore, for instance with this case on a train in the UK: https://youtu.be/2mpKu_x2s3w https://youtu.be/2mpKu_x2s3w In that case the train was delayed until eventually the guard said they had to allow the smoker to stay on the train or it would affect the line! Part of their argument was there were no signs saying you couldn't smoke on the train (smoking is illegal inside in any public spaces!)
- charlysl 9y agoAnd it's not only that they can do this at all as if this wan't already bad enough; on top of that neither the media, nor anyone else for that matter, can discuss/critizice this in public other than to admire it. Harmony.
- tyrex2017 9y agobetter title would be: china expands list of people prohibited to use public transport right now it is clickbait
- createuser 9y agoI'm chinese, I'd like to say: "自从我用了微信手机，这腰不酸，腿不疼的，连嘴也不歪了！"
- jm__87 9y agoThis comment section.. wow.
- l3i2 9y agohttp://www.asiaone.com/china/woman-china-delays-high-speed-train-departure-blocking-door http://www.asiaone.com/china/woman-china-delays-high-speed-t... If you read this article, you will at least understand the reason why they introduce such law. With 1.6 billion people, it's common to see chaos when a single person doesn't follow the rules, that woman in the news is a typical example. She didn't get any punishment from the railway company, nor the police can do anything about her behaviour, simply because there is no such law exists. In the end, she got suspended from her job as a primary teacher!
- bawana 9y agoThis is WONDERFUL! no really. The first step to a world without money . Imagine a powerful govt AI keeping track of your karma and then determining what you can access, get or use. There won't be any shortcuts or cheats. People with a lot of money will be on the same level as people without. The currency of success will be the help we give to each other. The only way this can work is of course a powerfully networked AI that is transparent. So if somebody seems to be at the top of the heap, everybody else can audit his/her behavior data to see how he/she got there. If this system is not transparent, then it is just another tool for the powerful to exploit the weak.
- superflb 9y agoThis is not news. Some people refuse to pay their debts, but have money to take flights or high-speed trains. They should be banned.
- burntrelish1273 9y agoI guess blogs to game / improve social credit are inevitable, but I probably won't be able to read them natively.