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Anytime a criticism of China's social credit score is brought up, there's always a "yeah but US credit score", yet I still don't understand how the two are even

Anytime a criticism of China's social credit score is brought up, there's always a "yeah but US credit score", yet I still don't understand how the two are even in the same ballpark. The social credit score in China is far more invasive and penalizes you for associating yourself with individuals who have low scores. To compare the two is disingenuous and reaks of whataboutism

moosey 8y ago
But do you deny that felons have the same issue? How many felons do we have today that were punished by non-violent drug crimes, by design as far as I can tell. As a US citizen, I don't believe that pointing out my own faults is "whataboutism". It is self-criticism. "Whataboutism" is a defense. I am not defending China, what they are doing is awful, and we should work to make sure that the systems that we have in our country don't replicate it whatsoever. Basically, I am taking "Appeal to Hypocrisy" and flipping it on its head. For the most part, I do not have the ability, power, or vote to alter the course of Chinese politics. However, most people on here have the opportunity to do so in the US.
- pdonis 8y ago
  > How many felons do we have today that were punished by non-violent drug crimes, by design as far as I can tell. Yes, but the fix for this problem is not to stop allowing people to consider a past felony conviction when determining what sort of business to do with a person. The fix for this problem is to stop criminalizing things that shouldn't be criminalized, like non-violent possession or use of drugs.
- cinquemb 8y ago
  >However, most people on here have the opportunity to do so in the US. Good on you for fighting the good fight, I've abandoned all hope: I'll let our societies figure out where this winding path goes itself and hedge accordingly…
- sgustard 8y ago
  >I do not have the ability, power, or vote to alter the course of Chinese politics. Nor do Chinese citizens.
r00fus 8y ago
The US had the social credit system up and running for years before China did. You can think of China's currently state of totalitarianism as a metastasis of what started in the US.
- godelski 8y ago
  What's the US's social credit system? I mean the social part.
  - vetrom 8y ago
    Credit score bureaus. A surprising array of services and accessibility is tied to the credit score.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      Yes, but only your ability to repay loans is considered by those, not you ur social behavior or connections.
      - ceejayoz 8y ago
        For now.
        godelski 8y ago
        I know you're not the person I was responding to, but the point I was responding to was this one > The US had the _social_ credit system up and running for years...
ceejayoz 8y ago
> The social credit score in China is far more invasive and penalizes you for associating yourself with individuals who have low scores. The US is toying with going in that direction. https://money.cnn.com/2013/08/26/technology/social/facebook-credit-score/ https://money.cnn.com/2013/08/26/technology/social/facebook-... > One such company, Lenddo, determines if you're friends on Facebook (FB) with someone who was late paying back a loan to Lenddo. If so, that's bad news for you. It's even worse news if the delinquent friend is someone you frequently interact with. Fully expect to see this sort of thing incorporated in credit scores barring legislation to restrict it. We've got even less ability as individuals to stop Equifax from doing this sort of stuff than we would versus a government.
- peteretep 8y ago
  > Fully expect to see this sort of thing incorporated in credit scores barring legislation to restrict it. I fully expect to see an enterprising lawyer bringing a class action suit and taking the money of the companies who invested in this one
Aunche 8y ago
> The social credit score in China... penalizes you for associating yourself with individuals who have low scores. This isn't the same social credit that is mentioned in this article. What you're describing is a speculated feature of a social credit system that doesn't even exist yet.
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  Yeah, but I've got a bucket of ominous adjectives here and a wheelbarrow full of otherism. What else you want me to do with it?
- alanwong 8y ago
  OP and Inkstone editor here. You're right. As scary as it may sound, there's no nation-wide social credit SCORE system in China. Right now blacklists run by the Supreme Court and other government organs make up the bulk of the social credit system. Our team of journalists have been closely monitoring and reporting on-the-ground reality of the system, and what we've found so far isn't quite "Black Mirror" yet.
- ddeokbokki 8y ago
  Doesn't exist but is well under way already like seen in this Vice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkw15LkZ_Kw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkw15LkZ_Kw
dragonwriter 8y ago
> The social credit score in China is far more invasive and penalizes you for associating yourself with individuals who have low scores. Social network-influenced credit scores are becoming common internationally, including by US lenders, but do not appear to be used yet by the major credit reporting agencies in the US due to uncertainty over status under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (just a few of many articles): https://www.badcredit.org/consequences-using-social-network-data-credit-scores/ https://www.badcredit.org/consequences-using-social-network-... https://www.creditinfocenter.com/creditreports/scoring/social-media-scoring.shtml https://www.creditinfocenter.com/creditreports/scoring/socia... https://qz.com/1276781/algorithms-are-making-the-same-mistakes-assessing-credit-scores-that-humans-did-a-century-ago/ https://qz.com/1276781/algorithms-are-making-the-same-mistak...
- Teknoman117 8y ago
  Wow. I hadn't heard that credit companies were seriously looking into this in the US. Very scary. What about all those high school friends we still have on Facebook who never did anything with their lives?
threatofrain 8y ago
If American creditors are materially interested in efficient ways of modelling customers, and so are Chinese creditors, eventually they should converge on technique after having tested and eliminated more superstitious predictors. Basically, if social network analysis helps creditors, then it will be done unless the state or some external force provides sufficient counter-incentive.
dang 8y ago
Please keep the "whataboutism" trope off HN. It's a tired cliché that's only used to delegitimize discussion. Your comment would be just fine without the last sentence. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20whataboutism https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
- thatoneuser 8y ago
  True. Can't stand when people use that against me, so even if it fits I dislike the term. It's so common in ad hominem fallacy.
- gnaritas 8y ago
  You moron, he didn't do that at all, he was literally heading off any whataboutism.
Cookingboy 8y ago
>and penalizes you for associating yourself with individuals who have low scores. Citation Needed. As far as I know that's a possible, but still speculated feature.
- powerapple 8y ago
  As a general risk management practice, say, if you are associated with a low score post code, your insurance cost will go up and may affect your credit score. It is as simple as that. If all your friends are criminals, I am sorry that you might be on the watch list as well.
csomar 8y ago
There are 13million in China social credit system. That's around 1% of the population. On the other hand, the US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Which would you prefer? Be thrown in jail; or be limited some freedoms/privileges? I'll take limited freedom. Maybe, then, I'll have a simple chance to prove my case. From Wikipedia, 21% of prisoners in the US are unsentenced. That's roughly 400,000 persons. It's as crazy to think that close to a half million people are sitting behind bar with no sentence and probably no resources to fight back. Yes, China is bad. But I think it is doing better than the US given the resources it has and the population challenges.
- learc83 8y ago
  >I'll take limited freedom. Maybe, then, I'll have a simple chance to prove my case. Tell that to the between 1 and 3 million people who are in Chinese concentration camps because of their religion. >From Wikipedia, 21% of prisoners in the US are unsentenced. I'm not sure about the number you came up with, but those are people are awaiting trial, and there are constitutional limitations on how long they can be held. There are no such safeguards in China.
- zanny 8y ago
  I'd prefer neither, and as a US citizen reserve the right to criticize the totalitarian practices of both my and foreign governments. Criticizing evil does not implicitly mean you endorse your own localized evil. The rampant systemic and structural racism and classism built into American society is heinous, but all I can realistically do about it from my vantage point of poor 20 something living in rural PA is vote and advocate for politicians I put my trust in to right the wrongs.
- kjs3 8y ago
  You really need to look up 'false equivalence' and ponder it for a while.
- andreilys 8y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/world/asia/xinjiang-china-forced-labor-camps-uighurs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/world/asia/xinjiang-china...
P_I_Staker 8y ago
I think it's fair to look inward at similar issues in our society. No it's not the same, but social trust systems and Scarlett letters are big in the USA. They can be very hard to recover from, their pervasiveness, and impact have only grown. You do not want to be on the list of undesirables. Not in the same ballpark though.
powerapple 8y ago
Credit score is worse. When people need to borrow money to lift them above the ground, they are forbidden to have their life changed. If I had a failure business, I don't mind travel on slower trains and take not so comfortable journeys effort to get my business back. But not being able to borrow money is a death penalty worse than banning on 5-star hotels and high-speed rails.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

moosey 8y ago

But do you deny that felons have the same issue? How many felons do we have today that were punished by non-violent drug crimes, by design as far as I can tell. As a US citizen, I don't believe that pointing out my own faults is "whataboutism". It is self-criticism. "Whataboutism" is a defense. I am not defending China, what they are doing is awful, and we should work to make sure that the systems that we have in our country don't replicate it whatsoever. Basically, I am taking "Appeal to Hypocrisy" and flipping it on its head. For the most part, I do not have the ability, power, or vote to alter the course of Chinese politics. However, most people on here have the opportunity to do so in the US.

pdonis 8y ago
> How many felons do we have today that were punished by non-violent drug crimes, by design as far as I can tell. Yes, but the fix for this problem is not to stop allowing people to consider a past felony conviction when determining what sort of business to do with a person. The fix for this problem is to stop criminalizing things that shouldn't be criminalized, like non-violent possession or use of drugs.
cinquemb 8y ago
>However, most people on here have the opportunity to do so in the US. Good on you for fighting the good fight, I've abandoned all hope: I'll let our societies figure out where this winding path goes itself and hedge accordingly…
sgustard 8y ago
>I do not have the ability, power, or vote to alter the course of Chinese politics. Nor do Chinese citizens.

r00fus 8y ago

The US had the social credit system up and running for years before China did. You can think of China's currently state of totalitarianism as a metastasis of what started in the US.

godelski 8y ago
What's the US's social credit system? I mean the social part.
- vetrom 8y ago
  Credit score bureaus. A surprising array of services and accessibility is tied to the credit score.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Yes, but only your ability to repay loans is considered by those, not you ur social behavior or connections.
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      For now.
      - godelski 8y ago
        I know you're not the person I was responding to, but the point I was responding to was this one > The US had the _social_ credit system up and running for years...

ceejayoz 8y ago

> The social credit score in China is far more invasive and penalizes you for associating yourself with individuals who have low scores. The US is toying with going in that direction. https://money.cnn.com/2013/08/26/technology/social/facebook-credit-score/ https://money.cnn.com/2013/08/26/technology/social/facebook-... > One such company, Lenddo, determines if you're friends on Facebook (FB) with someone who was late paying back a loan to Lenddo. If so, that's bad news for you. It's even worse news if the delinquent friend is someone you frequently interact with. Fully expect to see this sort of thing incorporated in credit scores barring legislation to restrict it. We've got even less ability as individuals to stop Equifax from doing this sort of stuff than we would versus a government.

peteretep 8y ago
> Fully expect to see this sort of thing incorporated in credit scores barring legislation to restrict it. I fully expect to see an enterprising lawyer bringing a class action suit and taking the money of the companies who invested in this one

Aunche 8y ago

> The social credit score in China... penalizes you for associating yourself with individuals who have low scores. This isn't the same social credit that is mentioned in this article. What you're describing is a speculated feature of a social credit system that doesn't even exist yet.

yourbandsucks 8y ago
Yeah, but I've got a bucket of ominous adjectives here and a wheelbarrow full of otherism. What else you want me to do with it?
alanwong 8y ago
OP and Inkstone editor here. You're right. As scary as it may sound, there's no nation-wide social credit SCORE system in China. Right now blacklists run by the Supreme Court and other government organs make up the bulk of the social credit system. Our team of journalists have been closely monitoring and reporting on-the-ground reality of the system, and what we've found so far isn't quite "Black Mirror" yet.
ddeokbokki 8y ago
Doesn't exist but is well under way already like seen in this Vice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkw15LkZ_Kw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkw15LkZ_Kw

dragonwriter 8y ago

> The social credit score in China is far more invasive and penalizes you for associating yourself with individuals who have low scores. Social network-influenced credit scores are becoming common internationally, including by US lenders, but do not appear to be used yet by the major credit reporting agencies in the US due to uncertainty over status under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (just a few of many articles): https://www.badcredit.org/consequences-using-social-network-data-credit-scores/ https://www.badcredit.org/consequences-using-social-network-... https://www.creditinfocenter.com/creditreports/scoring/social-media-scoring.shtml https://www.creditinfocenter.com/creditreports/scoring/socia... https://qz.com/1276781/algorithms-are-making-the-same-mistakes-assessing-credit-scores-that-humans-did-a-century-ago/ https://qz.com/1276781/algorithms-are-making-the-same-mistak...

Teknoman117 8y ago
Wow. I hadn't heard that credit companies were seriously looking into this in the US. Very scary. What about all those high school friends we still have on Facebook who never did anything with their lives?

threatofrain 8y ago

If American creditors are materially interested in efficient ways of modelling customers, and so are Chinese creditors, eventually they should converge on technique after having tested and eliminated more superstitious predictors. Basically, if social network analysis helps creditors, then it will be done unless the state or some external force provides sufficient counter-incentive.

dang 8y ago

Please keep the "whataboutism" trope off HN. It's a tired cliché that's only used to delegitimize discussion. Your comment would be just fine without the last sentence. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20whataboutism https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

thatoneuser 8y ago
True. Can't stand when people use that against me, so even if it fits I dislike the term. It's so common in ad hominem fallacy.
gnaritas 8y ago
You moron, he didn't do that at all, he was literally heading off any whataboutism.

Cookingboy 8y ago

>and penalizes you for associating yourself with individuals who have low scores. Citation Needed. As far as I know that's a possible, but still speculated feature.

powerapple 8y ago
As a general risk management practice, say, if you are associated with a low score post code, your insurance cost will go up and may affect your credit score. It is as simple as that. If all your friends are criminals, I am sorry that you might be on the watch list as well.

csomar 8y ago

There are 13million in China social credit system. That's around 1% of the population. On the other hand, the US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Which would you prefer? Be thrown in jail; or be limited some freedoms/privileges? I'll take limited freedom. Maybe, then, I'll have a simple chance to prove my case. From Wikipedia, 21% of prisoners in the US are unsentenced. That's roughly 400,000 persons. It's as crazy to think that close to a half million people are sitting behind bar with no sentence and probably no resources to fight back. Yes, China is bad. But I think it is doing better than the US given the resources it has and the population challenges.

learc83 8y ago
>I'll take limited freedom. Maybe, then, I'll have a simple chance to prove my case. Tell that to the between 1 and 3 million people who are in Chinese concentration camps because of their religion. >From Wikipedia, 21% of prisoners in the US are unsentenced. I'm not sure about the number you came up with, but those are people are awaiting trial, and there are constitutional limitations on how long they can be held. There are no such safeguards in China.
zanny 8y ago
I'd prefer neither, and as a US citizen reserve the right to criticize the totalitarian practices of both my and foreign governments. Criticizing evil does not implicitly mean you endorse your own localized evil. The rampant systemic and structural racism and classism built into American society is heinous, but all I can realistically do about it from my vantage point of poor 20 something living in rural PA is vote and advocate for politicians I put my trust in to right the wrongs.
kjs3 8y ago
You really need to look up 'false equivalence' and ponder it for a while.
andreilys 8y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/world/asia/xinjiang-china-forced-labor-camps-uighurs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/world/asia/xinjiang-china...

P_I_Staker 8y ago

I think it's fair to look inward at similar issues in our society. No it's not the same, but social trust systems and Scarlett letters are big in the USA. They can be very hard to recover from, their pervasiveness, and impact have only grown. You do not want to be on the list of undesirables. Not in the same ballpark though.

powerapple 8y ago

Credit score is worse. When people need to borrow money to lift them above the ground, they are forbidden to have their life changed. If I had a failure business, I don't mind travel on slower trains and take not so comfortable journeys effort to get my business back. But not being able to borrow money is a death penalty worse than banning on 5-star hotels and high-speed rails.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]