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College Rejection Threat Highlights Social Credit Blacklists

65 points by Sami_Lehtinen 8y ago

sgt101 8y ago
Very interesting references in this post which give a good perspective on the blacklist system.
Animats 8y ago
China may be on to something. White-collar crime convictions should include restrictions like that unless and until all losses and fines have been repaid. You can fly, but only in coach. You can't fly in a private aircraft. You can't have a credit card above the low-end level. You can't be an officer or director of a company. You can't play golf on a public course. You have to file taxes with the standard deduction.
- timavr 8y ago
  But why? They are already getting prison sentence for it. The problem is that all the punishment is actually cost society money and productivity. Like telling people that they can’t get education because of whatever is huge net negative to society.
  - im3w1l 8y ago
    For the sake of argument: US universities argue the importance of personality scores. Couldn't social credit be interpreted in the same way? Maybe society stands to gain if more reputable and trustworthy people get the top education spots? That argument doesn't work for banning the children of people with debts though.
    - majewsky 8y ago
      I would expect most people who argue against the social credit system to also argue against those personality scores.
  - yorwba 8y ago
    Based on the article, it appears that the blacklists are used to punish instances where someone was ordered to pay a fine but didn't comply. I think in pretty much any western country, that would result in a prison sentence in itself, but apparently not in China. So those limitations that are put on blacklisted persons are essentially a half-prison: not complete restriction of movement, but enough to serve as punishment. From that viewpoint, it might actually be cheaper to enforce than a prison sentence. It certainly seems to be preferable to the Chinese authorities who came up with the system.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      Whoa there. Not paying a fine in a western country doesn’t necessarily (and doesn’t often) lead to jail time. Civil penalties are not easily converted into criminal ones, for obvious reasons (they punish poorer offenders for not being rich).
      - yorwba 8y ago
        I'm most familiar with the situation in Germany [1] where you either have to pay your fines, prove that you can't pay (in which case the fine is deferred or split into smaller installments) or get detained in prison for up to six weeks (or three months for multiple fines). Of course most people do end up complying in one way or another (which means that the fine is eventually paid, even if very poor people might need many small installments). I'm pretty sure that most other countries will also eventually threaten to imprison someone if they make no effort to pay a fine, otherwise many people would simply ignore them and never pay. [1] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_owig/englisch_owig.html#p0534 https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_owig/englisch_ow...
        seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        No, that definitely isn’t true in the USA. I didn’t realize Germany was so backwards. They will seize your assets, garnish your wages, but they won’t send you to jail, how would you even pay then?
- viraptor 8y ago
  It's easy to go to far with those by accident. Examples: - no private aircraft - what about rural doctors and farmers? - no high end credit card - so you want them to pay more (higher interest) to the banks, because... why? - can't be a director - so do you just take their company from them? who do you give it to? how does that help repay debt? - no golf - so if someone's a professional golfer/trainer you're stripping them of a job that would help repay the debt? Almost all these ideas are like debtors prison - maybe feels good to kick the guilty, but does society benefit?
  - ForHackernews 8y ago
    > - no private aircraft - what about rural doctors and farmers? The day that a rural doctor or farmer is indicted for defrauding investors for hundreds of millions of dollars, that objection might make sense.
    - viraptor 8y ago
      Not investors, but I don't see why they couldn't defraud people for large amount via scams.
    - Broken_Hippo 8y ago
      It isn't so out of the question for folks to cheat on their taxes and get caught for it. This happens at all levels of society. It doesn't have to be for much money, after all, just enough to help folks survive. With the US tax code as-is, it is actually pretty easy.
soccred 8y ago
Minority View Warning!! In a small rural village, when one person misbehaves, everyone knows and punishes the offender with collective actions. That serves as a major deterrent against bad behaviors. This mechanism is weakened by the size of community. Reputational information cannot always travel as far as a person could. The social credit system is a reimplementation of this mechanism from the old days. It can be abused the same way. A village peon who angers the powerful become an outcast regardless of who is in the right.
- timavr 8y ago
  Reputation is very abstract concept and in the eyes of the beholder. There is no universal reputation metric. In the US there is credit rating system, which everyone used prior to 2008 to determine who is credit worthy. After economy collapsed majority of businesses just completely ignored it because huge chunk of population who still had good jobs just defaulted on their obligations, because their assets were so much underwater.It just made total economic sense to default.
- walshemj 8y ago
  Unless of course its the village elders/headmen who are doing the oppressing eg the abuse lower case villagers in India face.
- zhdc1 8y ago
  Does this really happen, though? If you look at incidence rates for violence, prostitution, alcoholism, and other anti-social behaviors, misbehavior tends to decrease over time (in line with urbanization/modernization). Small communities may be better at incentivizing the perception of good behavior, but it's debatable whether this leads to better outcomes, or if it just teaches community members how to hide or ignore transgressions.
- zimbatm 8y ago
  In that case we should also reproduce the other things that are available in the village, like a shared history that helps with the understanding of the situation. The thing that is scary is the blanket application of rules. This type of system is bound to have issues because it will lose the finesse that individuals can apply to a situation. As usual with bigger, more efficient systems some qualities are lost, and here it's the human touch.
modells 8y ago
Orwellian and insane as fuck. Who decides what is a “credit” and what is a “debt?” What recourse or due-process do people have to challenge this evidence-free, glorified thought-policing? Those were rhetorical questions because this sort of whole social-engineering is totalitarian, ludicrous and the textbook definition of evil; also look at internet and media censorship, Xi installing himself as Emperor, lack of property rights and the supposedly “anti-corruption” campaign. What shred of moral authority can one have when they install themselves as supreme dictator?
- gooien201807 8y ago
  Exactly. This is horrifying. Another insane situation is the US drone program's Social Credit Kill List [1], > In 2014, former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden said in a public debate, “We kill people based on metadata.” > According to multiple reports and leaks, death-by-metadata could be triggered, without even knowing the target’s name, if too many derogatory checks appear on their profile. “Armed military aged males” exhibiting suspicious behavior in the wrong place can become targets, as can someone “seen to be giving out orders.” Such mathematics-based assassinations have come to be known as “signature strikes.” > “When I learned about signature strikes, that was incredible,” Faisal says. “If the criteria is being armed or having a beard – that is everyone in Yemen.” Governments need to be more transparent on how social credits are "credited" and "debited". 1. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-to-survive-americas-kill-list-699334/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-...
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    Thank you for sharing that Rolling Stone link. It is harrowing and absolutely terrifying, and indeed a clear and irrefutable description of how the U.S. has already been using a form of algorithmic social credit system for years to select assassination targets in the middle east. Highly relevant for a thread like this one duscussing additional (less lethal) types of damage from social credit systems.
- est 8y ago
  > Who decides what is a “credit” and what is a “debt?” What recourse or due-process do people have to challenge this evidence-free, glorified thought-policing? While I agree that the whole "credit system" is nonsense, but for this particular question, I'd blame bad journalism.
nicodjimenez 8y ago
Sociopaths do exist and a social credit system can be helpful in limiting the extent of their damage. On the other hand, at what costs? Some social problems (illegal immigration in the US comes to mind) might not actually have a practical solution. For such problems, it might be the case that actually trying to solve the problem is much worse than just living with it. Kind of like back problems. Light treatment - like physical therapy - can be really helpful, but the heavy handed approach of surgery can leave you paralyzed / dealing with extreme pain.
- xkcd-sucks 8y ago
  Sociopaths are precisely the sort of people who enjoy success in optimizing for whatever metrics they're measured by
rebuilder 8y ago
Barring someone from getting an education because of their father's debts seems tremendously short-sighted. Setting aside the issue of being punished for someone else's offenses, if you start taking away people's life prospects, it's not hard to see the criminal undervlasses growing in numbers. If the case described in the article is representative of how this credit system works, it seems likely to undermine the stability of Chinese society, not bolster it.
- est 8y ago
  If you click through the links after links and read the original article, the family obviously had a $200,000 loan from a bank and failed to pay at due time, meanwhile his kids still attend private schools. The case was brought to a court, and the father was added to the "blacklist". This story aside, the system is in spotlight because China now have a huge debt problem.
reversengineer 8y ago
This story is totally taken out of context. The rejection was from a PRIVATE university and based on an inability to pay past loans. This is totally within scope of reasonableness.

65 points by Sami_Lehtinen 8y ago

Very interesting references in this post which give a good perspective on the blacklist system.

China may be on to something. White-collar crime convictions should include restrictions like that unless and until all losses and fines have been repaid. You can fly, but only in coach. You can't fly in a private aircraft. You can't have a credit card above the low-end level. You can't be an officer or director of a company. You can't play golf on a public course. You have to file taxes with the standard deduction.

timavr 8y ago
But why? They are already getting prison sentence for it. The problem is that all the punishment is actually cost society money and productivity. Like telling people that they can’t get education because of whatever is huge net negative to society.
- im3w1l 8y ago
  For the sake of argument: US universities argue the importance of personality scores. Couldn't social credit be interpreted in the same way? Maybe society stands to gain if more reputable and trustworthy people get the top education spots? That argument doesn't work for banning the children of people with debts though.
  - majewsky 8y ago
    I would expect most people who argue against the social credit system to also argue against those personality scores.
- yorwba 8y ago
  Based on the article, it appears that the blacklists are used to punish instances where someone was ordered to pay a fine but didn't comply. I think in pretty much any western country, that would result in a prison sentence in itself, but apparently not in China. So those limitations that are put on blacklisted persons are essentially a half-prison: not complete restriction of movement, but enough to serve as punishment. From that viewpoint, it might actually be cheaper to enforce than a prison sentence. It certainly seems to be preferable to the Chinese authorities who came up with the system.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Whoa there. Not paying a fine in a western country doesn’t necessarily (and doesn’t often) lead to jail time. Civil penalties are not easily converted into criminal ones, for obvious reasons (they punish poorer offenders for not being rich).
    - yorwba 8y ago
      I'm most familiar with the situation in Germany [1] where you either have to pay your fines, prove that you can't pay (in which case the fine is deferred or split into smaller installments) or get detained in prison for up to six weeks (or three months for multiple fines). Of course most people do end up complying in one way or another (which means that the fine is eventually paid, even if very poor people might need many small installments). I'm pretty sure that most other countries will also eventually threaten to imprison someone if they make no effort to pay a fine, otherwise many people would simply ignore them and never pay. [1] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_owig/englisch_owig.html#p0534 https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_owig/englisch_ow...
      - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        No, that definitely isn’t true in the USA. I didn’t realize Germany was so backwards. They will seize your assets, garnish your wages, but they won’t send you to jail, how would you even pay then?
viraptor 8y ago
It's easy to go to far with those by accident. Examples: - no private aircraft - what about rural doctors and farmers? - no high end credit card - so you want them to pay more (higher interest) to the banks, because... why? - can't be a director - so do you just take their company from them? who do you give it to? how does that help repay debt? - no golf - so if someone's a professional golfer/trainer you're stripping them of a job that would help repay the debt? Almost all these ideas are like debtors prison - maybe feels good to kick the guilty, but does society benefit?
- ForHackernews 8y ago
  > - no private aircraft - what about rural doctors and farmers? The day that a rural doctor or farmer is indicted for defrauding investors for hundreds of millions of dollars, that objection might make sense.
  - viraptor 8y ago
    Not investors, but I don't see why they couldn't defraud people for large amount via scams.
  - Broken_Hippo 8y ago
    It isn't so out of the question for folks to cheat on their taxes and get caught for it. This happens at all levels of society. It doesn't have to be for much money, after all, just enough to help folks survive. With the US tax code as-is, it is actually pretty easy.

soccred 8y ago

Minority View Warning!! In a small rural village, when one person misbehaves, everyone knows and punishes the offender with collective actions. That serves as a major deterrent against bad behaviors. This mechanism is weakened by the size of community. Reputational information cannot always travel as far as a person could. The social credit system is a reimplementation of this mechanism from the old days. It can be abused the same way. A village peon who angers the powerful become an outcast regardless of who is in the right.

timavr 8y ago
Reputation is very abstract concept and in the eyes of the beholder. There is no universal reputation metric. In the US there is credit rating system, which everyone used prior to 2008 to determine who is credit worthy. After economy collapsed majority of businesses just completely ignored it because huge chunk of population who still had good jobs just defaulted on their obligations, because their assets were so much underwater.It just made total economic sense to default.
walshemj 8y ago
Unless of course its the village elders/headmen who are doing the oppressing eg the abuse lower case villagers in India face.
zhdc1 8y ago
Does this really happen, though? If you look at incidence rates for violence, prostitution, alcoholism, and other anti-social behaviors, misbehavior tends to decrease over time (in line with urbanization/modernization). Small communities may be better at incentivizing the perception of good behavior, but it's debatable whether this leads to better outcomes, or if it just teaches community members how to hide or ignore transgressions.
zimbatm 8y ago
In that case we should also reproduce the other things that are available in the village, like a shared history that helps with the understanding of the situation. The thing that is scary is the blanket application of rules. This type of system is bound to have issues because it will lose the finesse that individuals can apply to a situation. As usual with bigger, more efficient systems some qualities are lost, and here it's the human touch.

modells 8y ago

Orwellian and insane as fuck. Who decides what is a “credit” and what is a “debt?” What recourse or due-process do people have to challenge this evidence-free, glorified thought-policing? Those were rhetorical questions because this sort of whole social-engineering is totalitarian, ludicrous and the textbook definition of evil; also look at internet and media censorship, Xi installing himself as Emperor, lack of property rights and the supposedly “anti-corruption” campaign. What shred of moral authority can one have when they install themselves as supreme dictator?

gooien201807 8y ago
Exactly. This is horrifying. Another insane situation is the US drone program's Social Credit Kill List [1], > In 2014, former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden said in a public debate, “We kill people based on metadata.” > According to multiple reports and leaks, death-by-metadata could be triggered, without even knowing the target’s name, if too many derogatory checks appear on their profile. “Armed military aged males” exhibiting suspicious behavior in the wrong place can become targets, as can someone “seen to be giving out orders.” Such mathematics-based assassinations have come to be known as “signature strikes.” > “When I learned about signature strikes, that was incredible,” Faisal says. “If the criteria is being armed or having a beard – that is everyone in Yemen.” Governments need to be more transparent on how social credits are "credited" and "debited". 1. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-to-survive-americas-kill-list-699334/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-...
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  Thank you for sharing that Rolling Stone link. It is harrowing and absolutely terrifying, and indeed a clear and irrefutable description of how the U.S. has already been using a form of algorithmic social credit system for years to select assassination targets in the middle east. Highly relevant for a thread like this one duscussing additional (less lethal) types of damage from social credit systems.
est 8y ago
> Who decides what is a “credit” and what is a “debt?” What recourse or due-process do people have to challenge this evidence-free, glorified thought-policing? While I agree that the whole "credit system" is nonsense, but for this particular question, I'd blame bad journalism.

nicodjimenez 8y ago

Sociopaths do exist and a social credit system can be helpful in limiting the extent of their damage. On the other hand, at what costs? Some social problems (illegal immigration in the US comes to mind) might not actually have a practical solution. For such problems, it might be the case that actually trying to solve the problem is much worse than just living with it. Kind of like back problems. Light treatment - like physical therapy - can be really helpful, but the heavy handed approach of surgery can leave you paralyzed / dealing with extreme pain.

xkcd-sucks 8y ago
Sociopaths are precisely the sort of people who enjoy success in optimizing for whatever metrics they're measured by

rebuilder 8y ago

Barring someone from getting an education because of their father's debts seems tremendously short-sighted. Setting aside the issue of being punished for someone else's offenses, if you start taking away people's life prospects, it's not hard to see the criminal undervlasses growing in numbers. If the case described in the article is representative of how this credit system works, it seems likely to undermine the stability of Chinese society, not bolster it.

est 8y ago
If you click through the links after links and read the original article, the family obviously had a $200,000 loan from a bank and failed to pay at due time, meanwhile his kids still attend private schools. The case was brought to a court, and the father was added to the "blacklist". This story aside, the system is in spotlight because China now have a huge debt problem.

reversengineer 8y ago

This story is totally taken out of context. The rejection was from a PRIVATE university and based on an inability to pay past loans. This is totally within scope of reasonableness.