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Paypal is doing this now, in partnership with the SPLC.

AlexandrB 8y ago
While comparing Paypal banning a few people to China is hyperbole, you're not entirely wrong. With Facebook/Google in the role of data gathering, I think insurance and credit companies will slowly move us towards a distributed version of social credit. Where doing something "bad" can affect your credit score and insurance premiums eventually making your life impossible if you do enough "bad" things.
- leereeves 8y ago
  Who will define "bad"? In China, "bad" means opposing government corruption. > When [reporter] Liu Hu recently tried to book a flight, he was told he was banned from flying because he was on the list of untrustworthy people. Liu is a journalist who was ordered by a court to apologize for a series of tweets he wrote and was then told his apology was insincere. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-social-credit-system-surveillance-cameras/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-social-credit-system-surv... > Liu had posted information about embezzlement by a local official, Ma Zhengqi, on his personal page on the Weibo social network because he knew that censorship would prevent its publication in the newspaper. https://rsf.org/en/hero/liu-hu https://rsf.org/en/hero/liu-hu
  - Hydraulix989 8y ago
    It depends. If you have more political power than the person you are reporting, then you will be fine.
  - creaghpatr 8y ago
    Their system is easier to execute, definitely more difficult to pull off in bipartisan US with public and private sectors.
  - AlexandrB 8y ago
    > Who will define "bad"? That's why I put it in quotes. "Bad" in this case depends on what a company thinks makes you high-risk or otherwise undesirable as a customer. In the case of health insurance, it may be when Google or Facebook classifying you as having a sedentary lifestyle. In the case of banks it may be if you take too many trips to Vegas. In the case of the NSA, it may be posting negative things about the current administration. Because it's distributed among many actors, it will be like the existing credit score system - mostly opaque and unaccountable. Good luck convincing an insurance company that Google misclassified your behaviour.
- tombh 8y ago
  Without wanting to unnecessarily stoke the hyperbole, I'm struck that the Facebook/Google beast is a level more powerful because the effects of its "scoring" are implicit and emergent, rather than China's being explicit and contrived. I assume the Chinese system could be dismantled relatively quickly without overturning the fabric of their society. Facebook/Google on the other hand is so engrained in the nature of Western society I find it difficult to imagine how we transition away from them. China's system is hand-cranked and top-down. The Facebook/Google system has a life of its own that pervades the very foundations of its host.
  - spaced-out 8y ago
    I think the nature of the entities are very different. Facebook/Google/Paypal provide a new vector of boycotting/vigilantism. People with ideologies sufficiently unpopular with the mainstream get targeted for boycotts, which can spread to the rest of their financial and social network. This effect is impossible to separate from society because its an expression of something that's always been part of human society -- shaming and shunning. The Chinese system is top down, and designed to maintain the Communist Party's hold on power. Every aspect of the system is dictated from the top, so of course it could easily be dismantled or changed.
    - creaghpatr 8y ago
      I don't think they are all the same. Anyone can live fine without Facebook. Being banned from Google services would be very inconvenient, but being banned from the credit card consortium would be a life-changing blow. Chase Sapphire has stepped into the arena in this regard, canceling credit for users with unsavory political beliefs.
      - AlexandrB 8y ago
        > I don't think they are all the same. Anyone can live fine without Facebook. Being banned from Google services would be very inconvenient... You're not thinking big enough. Already, even details like mobile location information is leaking into the hands of bounty hunters[1], which means such information is probably easily available to less controversial operations like insurance companies. Wait until a "background check" for housing means asking Facebook if you've ever expressed an interest in smoking. [1] https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/08/companies-resell-us-carrier-data/ https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/08/companies-resell-us-carr...
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  The difference to me is that in China, you can lose social credit by "spreading rumors online," and we all know what that's code for. More generally, there's a big difference between "we won't let you do X because we don't trust you" versus "we won't let you do X because we have moral objections to something you've done." China's social credit system takes the latter into account. Edit: Frankly, I'm getting pretty tired of this "the US is no better" discussion every time there's a news story about China's social credit system. The US has some major problems, but conflating the two is a false equivalence. When CNN reporters are banned from flying because the president thinks they're "fake news", we can have this discussion again.
  - fixermark 8y ago
    It gets a little muddy (there's definitely a train of thought that goes "We don't trust you because we have moral objections so something you've done," witness the boycott of Gillette for their toxic masculinity ad, or of Chik-fil-a for their support of "conversion therapy"), but to a first approximation I agree with your take.
    - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
      There is a separate conversation to be had around how quick some people are to "blacklist" individuals and organizations they think did something objectionable. But at least in that case, it's a bunch of individuals voting with their wallets and/or time, as opposed to a central authority. Put another way, there's a reason free speech (as it's defined in the US) applies to the government and not private entities.
akhilcacharya 8y ago
Comparing the SPLC, a legitimate anti-racist organization, with the Chinese Communist Party is absolutely ridiculous.
- BurningFrog 8y ago
  Many say the SPLC has lost its credibility of late. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-southern-poverty-law-center-has-lost-all-credibility/2018/06/21/22ab7d60-756d-11e8-9780-b1dd6a09b549_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-southern-poverty...
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Is there any rights/liberties special interest organization that hasn't been turned into political crap? The ACLU and NRA are basically the DNC and RNC at this point.
  - fixermark 8y ago
    I'd recommend against using weasel-words like "many" if you're going to dump as your source the author of "Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack." If what you're trying to say is "The American political right wing has grown to distrust the SPLC," I'd agree, but I'd note it's the same right wing that couldn't seem to find its voice to condemn a political rally where participants shouted "Jews will not replace us" and "Blood and soil," a rally that resulted in the death of one counter-protester due to vehicular homicide. Given the evidence I see, sadly, it's not the SPLC I'm leaning towards distrusting.
- cat199 8y ago
  I dunno, here's the generally slightly left leaning washington post allowing publication of an OP-ed entitled "The Southern Poverty Law Center has lost all credibility": https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-southern-poverty-law-center-has-lost-all-credibility/2018/06/21/22ab7d60-756d-11e8-9780-b1dd6a09b549_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-southern-poverty... agreed, not the CP of china, but some of the facts detailed in that article, even if selectively curated to prove a point, seem a bit egregious and wacky..
ceejayoz 8y ago
Predictably, the "I shouldn't have to bake a cake for a gay wedding" folks are very incensed by PayPal's "I shouldn't have to host a bank account for a homophobic organization".
- leereeves 8y ago
  The same First Amendment that protects that baker also protects the rest of us from being forced to say things we don't believe, which is why the Supreme Court ruled in the cakeshop's favor. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man's laws, not God's — and if you cut them down, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    That's not true - the decision was not on any sort of free speech basis. https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/06/opinion-analysis-court-rules-narrowly-for-baker-in-same-sex-wedding-cake-case/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/06/opinion-analysis-court-ru... > The opinion seemed to leave open the possibility that, in a future case, a service provider’s sincere religious beliefs might have to yield to the state’s interest in protecting the rights of same-sex couples, and the majority did not rule at all on one of the central arguments in the case – whether compelling Phillips to bake a cake for a same-sex couple would violate his right to freedom of speech.
    - leereeves 8y ago
      The First Amendment protects both freedom of speech and religion. But even if you insist on limiting the argument to free speech: > Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately, in an opinion joined by Gorsuch, to address an issue that the court did not decide: whether an order mandating that Phillips bake cakes for same-sex weddings violates his right to free speech. In Thomas’ view, Phillips’ creation of custom wedding cakes is exactly the kind of “expressive” conduct protected by the First Amendment. Requiring Phillips to make such cakes for same-sex marriage, even when it will convey a message that “he believes his faith forbids,” violates his First Amendment rights.
xamuel 8y ago
We're witnessing the inevitable consequences of believing it's possible to be a good person through human willpower alone. (Pro-tip: It's not.) Whether it's done directly through well-intending bureaucrats, or indirectly through well-intending FAANG censors, the end result is the same: the mark of the beast. "And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." (Revelation 13:16-17)
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  Well it's not like it's a new tendency. We just changed "they look like a bad sort", to "they look like a bad sort, to the algorithm".
- creaghpatr 8y ago
  Perhaps, but I wouldn't call it...apocalyptic.
intopieces 8y ago
PayPal is preventing people from buying travel tickets?

While comparing Paypal banning a few people to China is hyperbole, you're not entirely wrong. With Facebook/Google in the role of data gathering, I think insurance and credit companies will slowly move us towards a distributed version of social credit. Where doing something "bad" can affect your credit score and insurance premiums eventually making your life impossible if you do enough "bad" things.

leereeves 8y ago
Who will define "bad"? In China, "bad" means opposing government corruption. > When [reporter] Liu Hu recently tried to book a flight, he was told he was banned from flying because he was on the list of untrustworthy people. Liu is a journalist who was ordered by a court to apologize for a series of tweets he wrote and was then told his apology was insincere. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-social-credit-system-surveillance-cameras/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-social-credit-system-surv... > Liu had posted information about embezzlement by a local official, Ma Zhengqi, on his personal page on the Weibo social network because he knew that censorship would prevent its publication in the newspaper. https://rsf.org/en/hero/liu-hu https://rsf.org/en/hero/liu-hu
- Hydraulix989 8y ago
  It depends. If you have more political power than the person you are reporting, then you will be fine.
- creaghpatr 8y ago
  Their system is easier to execute, definitely more difficult to pull off in bipartisan US with public and private sectors.
- AlexandrB 8y ago
  > Who will define "bad"? That's why I put it in quotes. "Bad" in this case depends on what a company thinks makes you high-risk or otherwise undesirable as a customer. In the case of health insurance, it may be when Google or Facebook classifying you as having a sedentary lifestyle. In the case of banks it may be if you take too many trips to Vegas. In the case of the NSA, it may be posting negative things about the current administration. Because it's distributed among many actors, it will be like the existing credit score system - mostly opaque and unaccountable. Good luck convincing an insurance company that Google misclassified your behaviour.
tombh 8y ago
Without wanting to unnecessarily stoke the hyperbole, I'm struck that the Facebook/Google beast is a level more powerful because the effects of its "scoring" are implicit and emergent, rather than China's being explicit and contrived. I assume the Chinese system could be dismantled relatively quickly without overturning the fabric of their society. Facebook/Google on the other hand is so engrained in the nature of Western society I find it difficult to imagine how we transition away from them. China's system is hand-cranked and top-down. The Facebook/Google system has a life of its own that pervades the very foundations of its host.
- spaced-out 8y ago
  I think the nature of the entities are very different. Facebook/Google/Paypal provide a new vector of boycotting/vigilantism. People with ideologies sufficiently unpopular with the mainstream get targeted for boycotts, which can spread to the rest of their financial and social network. This effect is impossible to separate from society because its an expression of something that's always been part of human society -- shaming and shunning. The Chinese system is top down, and designed to maintain the Communist Party's hold on power. Every aspect of the system is dictated from the top, so of course it could easily be dismantled or changed.
  - creaghpatr 8y ago
    I don't think they are all the same. Anyone can live fine without Facebook. Being banned from Google services would be very inconvenient, but being banned from the credit card consortium would be a life-changing blow. Chase Sapphire has stepped into the arena in this regard, canceling credit for users with unsavory political beliefs.
    - AlexandrB 8y ago
      > I don't think they are all the same. Anyone can live fine without Facebook. Being banned from Google services would be very inconvenient... You're not thinking big enough. Already, even details like mobile location information is leaking into the hands of bounty hunters[1], which means such information is probably easily available to less controversial operations like insurance companies. Wait until a "background check" for housing means asking Facebook if you've ever expressed an interest in smoking. [1] https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/08/companies-resell-us-carrier-data/ https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/08/companies-resell-us-carr...
Wowfunhappy 8y ago
The difference to me is that in China, you can lose social credit by "spreading rumors online," and we all know what that's code for. More generally, there's a big difference between "we won't let you do X because we don't trust you" versus "we won't let you do X because we have moral objections to something you've done." China's social credit system takes the latter into account. Edit: Frankly, I'm getting pretty tired of this "the US is no better" discussion every time there's a news story about China's social credit system. The US has some major problems, but conflating the two is a false equivalence. When CNN reporters are banned from flying because the president thinks they're "fake news", we can have this discussion again.
- fixermark 8y ago
  It gets a little muddy (there's definitely a train of thought that goes "We don't trust you because we have moral objections so something you've done," witness the boycott of Gillette for their toxic masculinity ad, or of Chik-fil-a for their support of "conversion therapy"), but to a first approximation I agree with your take.
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    There is a separate conversation to be had around how quick some people are to "blacklist" individuals and organizations they think did something objectionable. But at least in that case, it's a bunch of individuals voting with their wallets and/or time, as opposed to a central authority. Put another way, there's a reason free speech (as it's defined in the US) applies to the government and not private entities.

akhilcacharya 8y ago

Comparing the SPLC, a legitimate anti-racist organization, with the Chinese Communist Party is absolutely ridiculous.

BurningFrog 8y ago
Many say the SPLC has lost its credibility of late. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-southern-poverty-law-center-has-lost-all-credibility/2018/06/21/22ab7d60-756d-11e8-9780-b1dd6a09b549_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-southern-poverty...
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Is there any rights/liberties special interest organization that hasn't been turned into political crap? The ACLU and NRA are basically the DNC and RNC at this point.
- fixermark 8y ago
  I'd recommend against using weasel-words like "many" if you're going to dump as your source the author of "Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack." If what you're trying to say is "The American political right wing has grown to distrust the SPLC," I'd agree, but I'd note it's the same right wing that couldn't seem to find its voice to condemn a political rally where participants shouted "Jews will not replace us" and "Blood and soil," a rally that resulted in the death of one counter-protester due to vehicular homicide. Given the evidence I see, sadly, it's not the SPLC I'm leaning towards distrusting.
cat199 8y ago
I dunno, here's the generally slightly left leaning washington post allowing publication of an OP-ed entitled "The Southern Poverty Law Center has lost all credibility": https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-southern-poverty-law-center-has-lost-all-credibility/2018/06/21/22ab7d60-756d-11e8-9780-b1dd6a09b549_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-southern-poverty... agreed, not the CP of china, but some of the facts detailed in that article, even if selectively curated to prove a point, seem a bit egregious and wacky..

ceejayoz 8y ago

Predictably, the "I shouldn't have to bake a cake for a gay wedding" folks are very incensed by PayPal's "I shouldn't have to host a bank account for a homophobic organization".

leereeves 8y ago
The same First Amendment that protects that baker also protects the rest of us from being forced to say things we don't believe, which is why the Supreme Court ruled in the cakeshop's favor. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man's laws, not God's — and if you cut them down, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  That's not true - the decision was not on any sort of free speech basis. https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/06/opinion-analysis-court-rules-narrowly-for-baker-in-same-sex-wedding-cake-case/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/06/opinion-analysis-court-ru... > The opinion seemed to leave open the possibility that, in a future case, a service provider’s sincere religious beliefs might have to yield to the state’s interest in protecting the rights of same-sex couples, and the majority did not rule at all on one of the central arguments in the case – whether compelling Phillips to bake a cake for a same-sex couple would violate his right to freedom of speech.
  - leereeves 8y ago
    The First Amendment protects both freedom of speech and religion. But even if you insist on limiting the argument to free speech: > Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately, in an opinion joined by Gorsuch, to address an issue that the court did not decide: whether an order mandating that Phillips bake cakes for same-sex weddings violates his right to free speech. In Thomas’ view, Phillips’ creation of custom wedding cakes is exactly the kind of “expressive” conduct protected by the First Amendment. Requiring Phillips to make such cakes for same-sex marriage, even when it will convey a message that “he believes his faith forbids,” violates his First Amendment rights.

xamuel 8y ago

We're witnessing the inevitable consequences of believing it's possible to be a good person through human willpower alone. (Pro-tip: It's not.) Whether it's done directly through well-intending bureaucrats, or indirectly through well-intending FAANG censors, the end result is the same: the mark of the beast. "And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." (Revelation 13:16-17)

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
Well it's not like it's a new tendency. We just changed "they look like a bad sort", to "they look like a bad sort, to the algorithm".
creaghpatr 8y ago
Perhaps, but I wouldn't call it...apocalyptic.

intopieces 8y ago

PayPal is preventing people from buying travel tickets?