17 ms·

China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

131 points by Santosh83 6y ago

HashingtheCode 6y ago
Nice summary on their website about the privacy restrictions and surveillance of the population due to their dystopian Social Credit System. If people aren't that familiar with SCS, this should bring them up to speed. I understand that this SCS is not yet fully active and in varying parts being tested throughout the country, but, at some point it will be ready and go live nationally. What's really worrying is that the SCS is in some parts, bits and pieces already in Western countries and there is a tendency for this privacy encroachment and surveillance creep to continue in the name of "safety" and "national security". We should be ever more vigilant and actively oppose this type of draconian nightmare that George Orwell envisioned in 1984 and which is being perfected by the CCP and brother #1 Xi Jinping.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  in the name of "safety" and "national security". And, paradoxically enough, in the name of suppression of foreign interference.
- disown 6y ago
  My god, you sound exactly like the mindless drones that george orwell described in 1984. Instead of the "2 minute hate", you just participate online in a "2 minute rant". And instead of "eurasia/eastasia was always the enemy", you have "china is always the enemy". And instead of sneering at "Emmanual Goldstein", you sneer at "Xi Jinping". What is more orwellian than your comment: "We should be ever more vigilant and actively oppose this type of draconian nightmare that George Orwell envisioned in 1984 and which is being perfected by the CCP and brother #1 Xi Jinping." Do you realize how crazy you sound? Your comment reads like a caricature of a propaganda slogan straight from the novel. It's almost like you are part of a propaganda campaign. But I may be wrong. Every china related thread, you have a bunch of throwaways repeating the same nonsense over and over again.
  - dang 6y ago
    Please don't break the site guidelines like this. I realize that it can be extremely frustrating to encounter comments that are so wrong from your perspective, especially when you're representing a minority viewpoint in the community. But we simply can't have commenters doing this sort of flamewar on the site—the community won't survive it. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful. If you want to read moderation explanations where this kind of thing has come up in the past about China-related topics, there are a bunch here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20-recycling%20chin&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... And here are explanations about the problem of arguing a contrary or minority position on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20contrarian%20-dynamic&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=truth%20discredit%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
    - disown 6y ago
      > Please don't break the site guidelines like this. You were right to flag the comment in this instance. I realized I went a bit too far and actually went to delete/edit my comment soon after I submitted it but saw that it was already correctly flagged. I then was about to write an apology but was rate limited. So I just moved on. > I realize that it can be extremely frustrating to encounter comments that are so wrong from your perspective It was not just that it is wrong. It was that it read like plain propaganda. "We should be ever more vigilant and actively oppose this type of draconian nightmare that George Orwell envisioned in 1984 and which is being perfected by the CCP and brother #1 Xi Jinping." Normal people do not talk like this. You don't, I don't, nobody does. Not only that, the guy twisted 1984 for his agenda when 1984 truly warned us about he was doing. 1984 wasn't a warning about "the CCP" or "brother #1 Xi Jinping". On the surface it may appear to be a warning about the other. But fundamentally, it was a warning about people who exploit "the other", "the enemy", etc to instill fear and control within one's society. It's not about them, it's about us. I definitely slipped up there and will stay within the guidelines. Not a fan of flamewars either.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
rvz 6y ago
A dystopian and Orwellian trend.
- Fricken 6y ago
  Well, we already have a social credit system that's far more Orwellian and 1000s of years old. Your bank account dictates where you can travel, what kind of education you can get, and where you can live. In fact, if it's low enough, you don't even get to eat. Keep your credit score high. To get uppity about China's social credit system you really have to ignore the elephant in the room.
  - ddnb 6y ago
    This is not the case in China?
vmception 6y ago
Like the article mentions, private sector credit systems have the same or similar result in dictating outcomes, but as long as its not from the state, nobody in the west will care about it. Which is very weird because it is exactly how people end up living in worse neighborhoods even if they have enough money to pay rent elsewhere, leading to worse and worse outcomes and no way to change that. A state sanctioned one having more immediate effects and denial of service just is too convenient for us to express our opinion about. But as the article itself and commenters mention, credit bureaus in a variety of countries have the same effect. We should use China's system to galvanize support in addressing our own private sector systems at home.
- AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
  A standard US credit score system may seem to be similar, but there are some important differences: - a person has access to their file - there are ways to correct mistakes on file, should any be found - scoring algorithm is more or less known
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > A standard US credit score system may seem to be similar, but there are some important differences: Also: - it's limited in scope to financial accounts. The end goal of the Chinese system appears to be to rate you on nearly every aspect of your life, which is quite different.
    - chillacy 6y ago
      If you look at the history of the US credit system, it used to be about other aspects of like (a bank employee factored in if you went to church, were an alcoholic, etc) and it resulted in low access to credit, especially to minorities. That it eventually became regulated and limited to the financial domain was actually a huge feature of the credit system in America that unlocked a lot of good things. So from the US point of view, a "social credit system" seems backwards in a "been there, tried that" kind of thing.
  - 6y ago
gumby 6y ago
I’m pretty sure Equifax et al aggregate this info as well (well perhaps not yet your trash-sorting) such as arrest records and probably social media activity as an option, or future option, to swizzle into credit rating.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Your credit rating doesn't affect your ability to go to a concert or buy an airline ticket.
  - hackstack 6y ago
    Not today— it doesn’t seem like a terrible stretch to imagine that it could in a decade or two though.
  - sega_sai 6y ago
    But it affects a possibility of getting a job or renting an apartment. I'm afraid there is a trend of trying to use the credit rating for more and more...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - gumby 6y ago
    Well, the explicitly obscure social credit system “terrorism watch list” keeps you from flying with (almost) no recourse. I’m pretty sure it will be privatized. And it’s only a matter of time before your arrest record will affect your ability to attend a concert or sporting event — this is already the case in the UK.
    - mcguire 6y ago
      And it's been the subject of much criticism, such as yours, although none have really stuck. I wonder if the same can be said within China?
      - 6y ago
11thEarlOfMar 6y ago
Ultimately, what would such a system be optimized for? The goals will be modulated by the persons or groups in power. From what I've seen, the powerful in China seek a stable, well behaved, productive workforce such that the profit from their labor can accrue to the benefit of the ruling class. A data collection system as pervasive as the social credit system that feeds into a self-optimizing control center that can influence the behavior of the ruled, is economically potent. Make the goals to get the most profit from the least investment into the work force, coerce their productivity with increasing restrictions and penalties, and you're moving towards virtual enslavement.
- HashingtheCode 6y ago
  > what would such a system be optimized for? Power and control of the population at large. The SCS willbe the largest spy network and intelligence gathering system outside of the NSA. Through its massive data collection ability, the CCP will be able to spy on dissidents, minority groups such as the Uighur, protestors of the party regime, political opponents, and any other undesirables the party so chooses. Anyone can be a target and will be punished by disobeying the party rules both financially (directly through the score) and also physically with imprisonment. What is the Social Credit Score at its most basic level? Control. It is a computer generated prison built to keep people under control in order to change a once free human being into a slave.
- AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
  At least on paper it's optimized for all good things. From the article above: Negative factors: dishonest and fraudulent financial behavior, playing loud music, violating traffic rules, making reservations at restaurants and not showing up, failing to correctly sort your waste, fraudulently using other people's public transportation ID cards Positive factors, on the other hand, include: donating blood, donating to charity, volunteering to community services But the lack of transparency means that what's promised may be different from what's actually done.
  - HashingtheCode 6y ago
    > At least on paper it's optimized for all good things.... Tell that to Liu Hu. Liu Hu is a journalist in China, writing about censorship and government corruption. Because of his work, Liu has been arrested and fined — and blacklisted. Liu found he was named on a List of Dishonest Persons Subject to Enforcement by the Supreme People's Court as "not qualified" to buy a plane ticket, and banned from travelling some train lines, buying property, or taking out a loan. "There was no file, no police warrant, no official advance notification. They just cut me off from the things I was once entitled to," he told The Globe and Mail. "What's really scary is there's nothing you can do about it. You can report to no one. You are stuck in the middle of nowhere."
AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
What's about the scoring system which bans people from posting on forums?
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  forums have accounts, not people
- wmeredith 6y ago
  > What's about the scoring system which bans people from posting on forums? This is blatant "What's aboutism"
- yborg 6y ago
  If said forum was the only one available and posting on this forum was the only way to get a loan or a train ticket then maybe you'd have an analogy.
zarkov99 6y ago
I am glad this is being tried out, perhaps it will lead to happier communities. I just wish it was done in a smaller and freer society.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  conformism has and still is being practiced by many societies. debateable if they are happier - they are mostly more suicidal
lgxz 6y ago
It’s of the government by the government and for the government
rfwhyte 6y ago
The truly terrifying thing to me about the Chinese social credit system is that the CCP is actively trying to package and sell it to other autocratic states. They're testing it out and optimizing it on their own populace, but the eventual endgame is to sell it to a bunch of Asian, African, and Eastern European dictators and build themselves a nearly omnipotent back door to coerce and control the lives of people the world over.
- disown 6y ago
  > The truly terrifying thing to me about the Chinese social credit system is that the CCP is actively trying to package and sell it to other autocratic states. Such as? How many communist states did china create? > but the eventual endgame is to sell it to a bunch of Asian, African, and Eastern European dictators and build themselves a nearly omnipotent back door to coerce and control the lives of people the world over. I think you are projecting here. The only ones out for world domination is us, not them. As far as I can tell, we are the ones telling the rest of the world, including china, how they should behave, what kind of government they should have, etc. China isn't going around the world trying to overthrow venezuela, iran, syria, etc. If you are going to spread propaganda, at least make it believable. Not something that can be dismissed outright.
  - timwaagh 6y ago
    To answer the question, China at the very least had a hand in the creation of Vietnam and north korea. They could be trying to export the system for different reasons than world domination. Perhaps just to make some money or befriend the neighbors. Russia sells its technology to anyone who wants it. Why wouldn't china?
    - mamborambo 6y ago
      The reality is that autocracy exists everywhere not just at the state level. A private property, private company, within a family, even a military organisation. Pieces of CCP "technology" used for surveillance, recognition, tracking, scoring, analyzing, censoring, etc can become saleable to the right customers, and since China is searching for its own export niche.
sleepysysadmin 6y ago
The chinese system should be renamed to 'Social Control System' because that's what it does. It's intention is to control the masses. The problem with governments is size and reach. Governments attempt and do usually keep growing. The government ends up with laws like: https://library.municode.com/ar/little_rock/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=COOR_CH18MIPROF_ARTIIOFINPUPEOR_S18-54SOHOSASH https://library.municode.com/ar/little_rock/codes/code_of_or... Why does a government care if you honk a horn near a sandwich shop after 9pm? How many places also make adultery illegal? How about ever decreasing speed limits? https://www.brusselstimes.com/brussels/107383/coronavirus-city-of-brussels-lowers-speed-limit-to-20-km-h/ https://www.brusselstimes.com/brussels/107383/coronavirus-ci... Government wants to grow, but how many of these laws are really enforced? However, if you had a social control system. It might be much more possible. That's the problem with robot cops. Which are coming eventually. The size of the police force will increase and the government will start to be able to enforce these laws. There will be a robot outside of every sandwich shop and you will be punished for honking your horn.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > The problem with governments is size and reach. Governments attempt and do usually keep growing. The government ends up with laws like: https://library.municode.com/ar/little_rock/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=COOR_CH18MIPROF_ARTIIOFINPUPEOR_S18-54SOHOSASH https://library.municode.com/ar/little_rock/codes/code_of_or... >> Sec. 18-54. - Sounding of horns at sandwich shops. >> No person shall sound the horn on a vehicle at any place where cold drinks or sandwiches are served after 9:00 p.m. >> (Code 1961, § 25-74) Governments don't go around passing weird laws like the above for no reason. I betcha $1 that there's a good story behind that ordinance. There usually is in cases like that. Some thing with contract terms. Probably someone was doing something obnoxious, which was technically legal under then-current law. The local government did what it was supposed to do, and solved the problem (in this case, with a narrow ordinance).
  - sleepysysadmin 6y ago
    No doubt some Karen complaining. That's an example, but the reality is that laws are tremendously extensive. Yet generally unenforced. When the government can start enforcing. Government will grow even larger and more specific.
digdigdag 6y ago
How is this, in principle, different from the credit scoring system in western states? Lenders, banks, landlords, employers, insurance companies, utilities and hell even your cable company can assess the level of service rendered to you based on your score. I'm not saying China's system is identical to a FICO score -- but one would be remiss to not see the parallels in the intention of both systems.
- free_rms 6y ago
  A few years back, I remember a bunch of SV startups trying to invent... a social credit system... for underbanked countries without credit systems. We'll just hook up to the facebook API to find who's creditworthy. Everyone clapped them on the back for it, maybe YC funded one or two.
- x3n0ph3n3 6y ago
  FICO is not currently weaponized against political opponents and there's some level of recourse against inaccurate information in your credit report.
- s3r3nity 6y ago
  You can't lose FICO score points simply because you missed a dinner reservation, or gave a negative political opinion against the political party in power. This is a weak equivalency, akin to saying they're equivalent to school grading systems, simply because they assess a level of service in regards to studying. FICO is a financial measure meant to assess risk for certain financial transactions - the domain is pretty limited.
Chad01 6y ago
The SCS is the wet dream of every State and Covid-1984 is playing a big part at making it possible to make meassures possible all over the globe, i.e. AUS. A very concerning development and a frightening outlook of the future. Black Mirror is becoming reality.
cblconfederate 6y ago
China seems to be structured well for the use of such a system. It doesnt have term limits, so its Elite can make a long term plan about what their society wants to be decades ahead. So it can treat its citizens like poultry until those levels are achieved. Most of the "free world" doesn't make such teleological plans, democracies are rather short-sighted , hence why something like this hasn't been needed and probably won't, aside from cooperation in crime or tax evasion (things in which all governments, future and past, north and south agree on). The need for such projects would arise if there was an imminent threat -- and there isn't one yet. What will happen however if automation takes over most of production and we reach abundance societies? The need for such systems even in an autocracy like China will be diminished. But then i guess there will be other manufactured ideals
nine_zeros 6y ago
A government system is only good as the governance. In China's case, it is only as good as the CCP dictator. What if the next leader of CCP is corrupt or even worse, incompetent af? On the other hand, in a democracy that accepts and markets social score is pretty bad as well. This black mirror episode captures the social score society really well https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/ One might say, oh this is just scoring minor misdemeanor-type activity. Misdemeanors are also only as good as the law classifying crime. Here are some weird US misdemeanors https://www.teenvogue.com/story/7-federal-misdemeanors-worse-than-illegally-crossing-border https://www.teenvogue.com/story/7-federal-misdemeanors-worse... I'm no fan of US politics. But I am strongly for the principle that the government serves the people and not the other way around. And in that, I don't want the government )or some bureaucrats) deciding the future of a human.
- abc-xyz 6y ago
  > In China's case, it is only as good as the CCP dictator. What if the next leader of CCP is corrupt or even worse, incompetent af? You make it sound like their current leader, who’s no better than Hitler, isn’t corrupt and incompetent af. His incompetence just caused a pandemic that has killed millions of people.
  - avaldeso 6y ago
    Covid 19 death toll as September 28 is 1 million [1]. Not millions. Please, don't spread misinformation. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus
    - abc-xyz 6y ago
      You’d have to be a fool to believe the numbers coming out of China, there’s also been a great increase in suicides and job losses (especially in countries like Thailand and the Philippines). But you’re right, we have a million deaths that can directly be linked to the Wuhan Virus.
tehwebguy 6y ago
We have the exact same thing here, we just call the points “dollars”
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  If by "here" you mean the USA, consider this observation written by Neil Postman in 1985: “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumble puppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists, who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny, “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.” -- Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
mcguire 6y ago
"The idea behind this is understandable: As social networks decline and anonymity in cities rises, the social pressure to behave in an acceptable way declines as well. China now replaces this social pressure with the Social Credit System so that people even when living anonymously in any city behave in an acceptable way." Holy sh*t. That's some straight up Orwellian thought, there.
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  Contrast that with these words: I pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.
  - droobles 6y ago
    Pretty stark contrast...
  - Matticus_Rex 6y ago
    Also (almost) no one has to say the pledge, though.
- chrischen 6y ago
  Could you elaborate?
  - mpalmer 6y ago
    Social pressure to modify behavior happens organically and not for anyone's particular ends. But such pressure applied by a government system is automatically suspect and rightly so. Especially if the government is of the sort where nothing exists to serve as a check on the policymakers.
    - mcguire 6y ago
      Additionally, * People will not behave "acceptably" without constant social monitoring. This is similar to the Puritan belief that, if you didn't live in a town where your neighbors could watch you, you could be assumed to be worshiping Satan. * That the best modern form of that social monitoring is 24/7 surveillance with merits and demerits for trivial things.
nitrobeast 6y ago
One thing that surprised me in the US while applying for credit card: private companies can get access to my past addresses and many other personal info of me. I don’t ever want these information provided to profit companies, joined with facebook’s ad network etc. Having the government as the sole guardian of credit history and other related data might not be a bad idea.
asgard1024 6y ago
The West also has social credit system, it's called money. If you do something useful for society, you will get them. If you don't do something useful, you will not get them and die of hunger. And if you do something wrong, you can often use money to avoid harsher punishment. I think social credit systems are wrong, the moral behavior shouldn't be tradeable. But let's face it, almost all societies have them, and they have many flaws.
ddxv 6y ago
Something worth noting, is that there are many social credit systems active in China. The majority of the rules are placed at the provincial level where the person's household registration is located. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System#Social_credit_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System#Social_cr...
known 6y ago
Doesn't work in Caste based society like in India https://archive.is/VWFSC https://archive.is/VWFSC
- jhvkjhk 6y ago
  India is way too different with any other modern society. Things in there can't become a global trend, and the global trend won't affect them.
vkaku 6y ago
I'm wary of such articles praising this system. My opinion: Nobody can truly benefit from a system that promotes mass surveillance. It just turns people into sheep.
alphawong 6y ago
I just want to share the news in Hong Kong. The intention for all those solutions just aim to reinforce the authorizatism from CCP. People will get arrested by storing an image, a slogan, or flag. You do not have right to conduce bailment or see your lawyer. All those tools or systems be a powerful weapon to supervising the mind in their national.
auganov 6y ago
People are giving the CCP too much credit in believing how far ahead they are in rolling this out. The social credit system is an idea and an initiative. Some systems try to implement some of its ideas on various levels. But there is no one social credit system. Most articles do a pretty bad job at separating CCP's ambitions from the actual implementation. Basically any data driven tracking effort in China will be presumed to be part of the "social credit system" effort. But one has to understand that doesn't mean they are actually part of a coherently connected and integrated system. Many articles often talk about there being a "score" in the system but they're just talking about a score in one of the many systems out there. Usually they mean Alibaba's.
White_Wolf 6y ago
I might be wrong but this thing China is doing is just like credit scoring that also takes into account behaviour? I mean... It's stuff that, at least in UK, is already done one way or another. Examples: I book a retaurant table and don't show up - I have to pay a fee or like most decent clubs have that unified database with trouble makers and some people are refused entry. Edit: Just to clarify I'm not a fan of a system like this. I can see it going wrong and being abused in pretty much any country in the world.
AtomicOrbital 6y ago
innovation is the main driver of economic liftoff and when folks are punished for deviating from accepted norms they are squashing those same fountainhead people who sprout breakthroughs ... a smothering government is killing the golden goose ... such short leash monitoring and punishment may sound good in the short run however china elite know their authoritarian approach is doomed and are scrambling to forestall their downfall
chillacy 6y ago
This article is content marketing for a VPN service, not so much interesting content as much as demand generation for their product.

131 points by Santosh83 6y ago

Nice summary on their website about the privacy restrictions and surveillance of the population due to their dystopian Social Credit System. If people aren't that familiar with SCS, this should bring them up to speed. I understand that this SCS is not yet fully active and in varying parts being tested throughout the country, but, at some point it will be ready and go live nationally. What's really worrying is that the SCS is in some parts, bits and pieces already in Western countries and there is a tendency for this privacy encroachment and surveillance creep to continue in the name of "safety" and "national security". We should be ever more vigilant and actively oppose this type of draconian nightmare that George Orwell envisioned in 1984 and which is being perfected by the CCP and brother #1 Xi Jinping.

inglor_cz 6y ago
in the name of "safety" and "national security". And, paradoxically enough, in the name of suppression of foreign interference.
disown 6y ago
My god, you sound exactly like the mindless drones that george orwell described in 1984. Instead of the "2 minute hate", you just participate online in a "2 minute rant". And instead of "eurasia/eastasia was always the enemy", you have "china is always the enemy". And instead of sneering at "Emmanual Goldstein", you sneer at "Xi Jinping". What is more orwellian than your comment: "We should be ever more vigilant and actively oppose this type of draconian nightmare that George Orwell envisioned in 1984 and which is being perfected by the CCP and brother #1 Xi Jinping." Do you realize how crazy you sound? Your comment reads like a caricature of a propaganda slogan straight from the novel. It's almost like you are part of a propaganda campaign. But I may be wrong. Every china related thread, you have a bunch of throwaways repeating the same nonsense over and over again.
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't break the site guidelines like this. I realize that it can be extremely frustrating to encounter comments that are so wrong from your perspective, especially when you're representing a minority viewpoint in the community. But we simply can't have commenters doing this sort of flamewar on the site—the community won't survive it. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful. If you want to read moderation explanations where this kind of thing has come up in the past about China-related topics, there are a bunch here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20-recycling%20chin&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... And here are explanations about the problem of arguing a contrary or minority position on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20contrarian%20-dynamic&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=truth%20discredit%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
  - disown 6y ago
    > Please don't break the site guidelines like this. You were right to flag the comment in this instance. I realized I went a bit too far and actually went to delete/edit my comment soon after I submitted it but saw that it was already correctly flagged. I then was about to write an apology but was rate limited. So I just moved on. > I realize that it can be extremely frustrating to encounter comments that are so wrong from your perspective It was not just that it is wrong. It was that it read like plain propaganda. "We should be ever more vigilant and actively oppose this type of draconian nightmare that George Orwell envisioned in 1984 and which is being perfected by the CCP and brother #1 Xi Jinping." Normal people do not talk like this. You don't, I don't, nobody does. Not only that, the guy twisted 1984 for his agenda when 1984 truly warned us about he was doing. 1984 wasn't a warning about "the CCP" or "brother #1 Xi Jinping". On the surface it may appear to be a warning about the other. But fundamentally, it was a warning about people who exploit "the other", "the enemy", etc to instill fear and control within one's society. It's not about them, it's about us. I definitely slipped up there and will stay within the guidelines. Not a fan of flamewars either.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

rvz 6y ago

A dystopian and Orwellian trend.

Fricken 6y ago
Well, we already have a social credit system that's far more Orwellian and 1000s of years old. Your bank account dictates where you can travel, what kind of education you can get, and where you can live. In fact, if it's low enough, you don't even get to eat. Keep your credit score high. To get uppity about China's social credit system you really have to ignore the elephant in the room.
- ddnb 6y ago
  This is not the case in China?

vmception 6y ago

Like the article mentions, private sector credit systems have the same or similar result in dictating outcomes, but as long as its not from the state, nobody in the west will care about it. Which is very weird because it is exactly how people end up living in worse neighborhoods even if they have enough money to pay rent elsewhere, leading to worse and worse outcomes and no way to change that. A state sanctioned one having more immediate effects and denial of service just is too convenient for us to express our opinion about. But as the article itself and commenters mention, credit bureaus in a variety of countries have the same effect. We should use China's system to galvanize support in addressing our own private sector systems at home.

AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
A standard US credit score system may seem to be similar, but there are some important differences: - a person has access to their file - there are ways to correct mistakes on file, should any be found - scoring algorithm is more or less known
- ardy42 6y ago
  > A standard US credit score system may seem to be similar, but there are some important differences: Also: - it's limited in scope to financial accounts. The end goal of the Chinese system appears to be to rate you on nearly every aspect of your life, which is quite different.
  - chillacy 6y ago
    If you look at the history of the US credit system, it used to be about other aspects of like (a bank employee factored in if you went to church, were an alcoholic, etc) and it resulted in low access to credit, especially to minorities. That it eventually became regulated and limited to the financial domain was actually a huge feature of the credit system in America that unlocked a lot of good things. So from the US point of view, a "social credit system" seems backwards in a "been there, tried that" kind of thing.
- 6y ago

gumby 6y ago

I’m pretty sure Equifax et al aggregate this info as well (well perhaps not yet your trash-sorting) such as arrest records and probably social media activity as an option, or future option, to swizzle into credit rating.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
Your credit rating doesn't affect your ability to go to a concert or buy an airline ticket.
- hackstack 6y ago
  Not today— it doesn’t seem like a terrible stretch to imagine that it could in a decade or two though.
- sega_sai 6y ago
  But it affects a possibility of getting a job or renting an apartment. I'm afraid there is a trend of trying to use the credit rating for more and more...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- gumby 6y ago
  Well, the explicitly obscure social credit system “terrorism watch list” keeps you from flying with (almost) no recourse. I’m pretty sure it will be privatized. And it’s only a matter of time before your arrest record will affect your ability to attend a concert or sporting event — this is already the case in the UK.
  - mcguire 6y ago
    And it's been the subject of much criticism, such as yours, although none have really stuck. I wonder if the same can be said within China?
    - 6y ago

11thEarlOfMar 6y ago

Ultimately, what would such a system be optimized for? The goals will be modulated by the persons or groups in power. From what I've seen, the powerful in China seek a stable, well behaved, productive workforce such that the profit from their labor can accrue to the benefit of the ruling class. A data collection system as pervasive as the social credit system that feeds into a self-optimizing control center that can influence the behavior of the ruled, is economically potent. Make the goals to get the most profit from the least investment into the work force, coerce their productivity with increasing restrictions and penalties, and you're moving towards virtual enslavement.

HashingtheCode 6y ago
> what would such a system be optimized for? Power and control of the population at large. The SCS willbe the largest spy network and intelligence gathering system outside of the NSA. Through its massive data collection ability, the CCP will be able to spy on dissidents, minority groups such as the Uighur, protestors of the party regime, political opponents, and any other undesirables the party so chooses. Anyone can be a target and will be punished by disobeying the party rules both financially (directly through the score) and also physically with imprisonment. What is the Social Credit Score at its most basic level? Control. It is a computer generated prison built to keep people under control in order to change a once free human being into a slave.
AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
At least on paper it's optimized for all good things. From the article above: Negative factors: dishonest and fraudulent financial behavior, playing loud music, violating traffic rules, making reservations at restaurants and not showing up, failing to correctly sort your waste, fraudulently using other people's public transportation ID cards Positive factors, on the other hand, include: donating blood, donating to charity, volunteering to community services But the lack of transparency means that what's promised may be different from what's actually done.
- HashingtheCode 6y ago
  > At least on paper it's optimized for all good things.... Tell that to Liu Hu. Liu Hu is a journalist in China, writing about censorship and government corruption. Because of his work, Liu has been arrested and fined — and blacklisted. Liu found he was named on a List of Dishonest Persons Subject to Enforcement by the Supreme People's Court as "not qualified" to buy a plane ticket, and banned from travelling some train lines, buying property, or taking out a loan. "There was no file, no police warrant, no official advance notification. They just cut me off from the things I was once entitled to," he told The Globe and Mail. "What's really scary is there's nothing you can do about it. You can report to no one. You are stuck in the middle of nowhere."

AlexTWithBeard 6y ago

What's about the scoring system which bans people from posting on forums?

cblconfederate 6y ago
forums have accounts, not people
wmeredith 6y ago
> What's about the scoring system which bans people from posting on forums? This is blatant "What's aboutism"
yborg 6y ago
If said forum was the only one available and posting on this forum was the only way to get a loan or a train ticket then maybe you'd have an analogy.

zarkov99 6y ago

I am glad this is being tried out, perhaps it will lead to happier communities. I just wish it was done in a smaller and freer society.

cblconfederate 6y ago
conformism has and still is being practiced by many societies. debateable if they are happier - they are mostly more suicidal

lgxz 6y ago

It’s of the government by the government and for the government

rfwhyte 6y ago

The truly terrifying thing to me about the Chinese social credit system is that the CCP is actively trying to package and sell it to other autocratic states. They're testing it out and optimizing it on their own populace, but the eventual endgame is to sell it to a bunch of Asian, African, and Eastern European dictators and build themselves a nearly omnipotent back door to coerce and control the lives of people the world over.

disown 6y ago
> The truly terrifying thing to me about the Chinese social credit system is that the CCP is actively trying to package and sell it to other autocratic states. Such as? How many communist states did china create? > but the eventual endgame is to sell it to a bunch of Asian, African, and Eastern European dictators and build themselves a nearly omnipotent back door to coerce and control the lives of people the world over. I think you are projecting here. The only ones out for world domination is us, not them. As far as I can tell, we are the ones telling the rest of the world, including china, how they should behave, what kind of government they should have, etc. China isn't going around the world trying to overthrow venezuela, iran, syria, etc. If you are going to spread propaganda, at least make it believable. Not something that can be dismissed outright.
- timwaagh 6y ago
  To answer the question, China at the very least had a hand in the creation of Vietnam and north korea. They could be trying to export the system for different reasons than world domination. Perhaps just to make some money or befriend the neighbors. Russia sells its technology to anyone who wants it. Why wouldn't china?
  - mamborambo 6y ago
    The reality is that autocracy exists everywhere not just at the state level. A private property, private company, within a family, even a military organisation. Pieces of CCP "technology" used for surveillance, recognition, tracking, scoring, analyzing, censoring, etc can become saleable to the right customers, and since China is searching for its own export niche.

sleepysysadmin 6y ago

The chinese system should be renamed to 'Social Control System' because that's what it does. It's intention is to control the masses. The problem with governments is size and reach. Governments attempt and do usually keep growing. The government ends up with laws like: https://library.municode.com/ar/little_rock/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=COOR_CH18MIPROF_ARTIIOFINPUPEOR_S18-54SOHOSASH https://library.municode.com/ar/little_rock/codes/code_of_or... Why does a government care if you honk a horn near a sandwich shop after 9pm? How many places also make adultery illegal? How about ever decreasing speed limits? https://www.brusselstimes.com/brussels/107383/coronavirus-city-of-brussels-lowers-speed-limit-to-20-km-h/ https://www.brusselstimes.com/brussels/107383/coronavirus-ci... Government wants to grow, but how many of these laws are really enforced? However, if you had a social control system. It might be much more possible. That's the problem with robot cops. Which are coming eventually. The size of the police force will increase and the government will start to be able to enforce these laws. There will be a robot outside of every sandwich shop and you will be punished for honking your horn.

ardy42 6y ago
> The problem with governments is size and reach. Governments attempt and do usually keep growing. The government ends up with laws like: https://library.municode.com/ar/little_rock/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=COOR_CH18MIPROF_ARTIIOFINPUPEOR_S18-54SOHOSASH https://library.municode.com/ar/little_rock/codes/code_of_or... >> Sec. 18-54. - Sounding of horns at sandwich shops. >> No person shall sound the horn on a vehicle at any place where cold drinks or sandwiches are served after 9:00 p.m. >> (Code 1961, § 25-74) Governments don't go around passing weird laws like the above for no reason. I betcha $1 that there's a good story behind that ordinance. There usually is in cases like that. Some thing with contract terms. Probably someone was doing something obnoxious, which was technically legal under then-current law. The local government did what it was supposed to do, and solved the problem (in this case, with a narrow ordinance).
- sleepysysadmin 6y ago
  No doubt some Karen complaining. That's an example, but the reality is that laws are tremendously extensive. Yet generally unenforced. When the government can start enforcing. Government will grow even larger and more specific.

digdigdag 6y ago

How is this, in principle, different from the credit scoring system in western states? Lenders, banks, landlords, employers, insurance companies, utilities and hell even your cable company can assess the level of service rendered to you based on your score. I'm not saying China's system is identical to a FICO score -- but one would be remiss to not see the parallels in the intention of both systems.

free_rms 6y ago
A few years back, I remember a bunch of SV startups trying to invent... a social credit system... for underbanked countries without credit systems. We'll just hook up to the facebook API to find who's creditworthy. Everyone clapped them on the back for it, maybe YC funded one or two.
x3n0ph3n3 6y ago
FICO is not currently weaponized against political opponents and there's some level of recourse against inaccurate information in your credit report.
s3r3nity 6y ago
You can't lose FICO score points simply because you missed a dinner reservation, or gave a negative political opinion against the political party in power. This is a weak equivalency, akin to saying they're equivalent to school grading systems, simply because they assess a level of service in regards to studying. FICO is a financial measure meant to assess risk for certain financial transactions - the domain is pretty limited.

Chad01 6y ago

The SCS is the wet dream of every State and Covid-1984 is playing a big part at making it possible to make meassures possible all over the globe, i.e. AUS. A very concerning development and a frightening outlook of the future. Black Mirror is becoming reality.

cblconfederate 6y ago

China seems to be structured well for the use of such a system. It doesnt have term limits, so its Elite can make a long term plan about what their society wants to be decades ahead. So it can treat its citizens like poultry until those levels are achieved. Most of the "free world" doesn't make such teleological plans, democracies are rather short-sighted , hence why something like this hasn't been needed and probably won't, aside from cooperation in crime or tax evasion (things in which all governments, future and past, north and south agree on). The need for such projects would arise if there was an imminent threat -- and there isn't one yet. What will happen however if automation takes over most of production and we reach abundance societies? The need for such systems even in an autocracy like China will be diminished. But then i guess there will be other manufactured ideals

nine_zeros 6y ago

A government system is only good as the governance. In China's case, it is only as good as the CCP dictator. What if the next leader of CCP is corrupt or even worse, incompetent af? On the other hand, in a democracy that accepts and markets social score is pretty bad as well. This black mirror episode captures the social score society really well https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/ One might say, oh this is just scoring minor misdemeanor-type activity. Misdemeanors are also only as good as the law classifying crime. Here are some weird US misdemeanors https://www.teenvogue.com/story/7-federal-misdemeanors-worse-than-illegally-crossing-border https://www.teenvogue.com/story/7-federal-misdemeanors-worse... I'm no fan of US politics. But I am strongly for the principle that the government serves the people and not the other way around. And in that, I don't want the government )or some bureaucrats) deciding the future of a human.

abc-xyz 6y ago
> In China's case, it is only as good as the CCP dictator. What if the next leader of CCP is corrupt or even worse, incompetent af? You make it sound like their current leader, who’s no better than Hitler, isn’t corrupt and incompetent af. His incompetence just caused a pandemic that has killed millions of people.
- avaldeso 6y ago
  Covid 19 death toll as September 28 is 1 million [1]. Not millions. Please, don't spread misinformation. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus
  - abc-xyz 6y ago
    You’d have to be a fool to believe the numbers coming out of China, there’s also been a great increase in suicides and job losses (especially in countries like Thailand and the Philippines). But you’re right, we have a million deaths that can directly be linked to the Wuhan Virus.

tehwebguy 6y ago

We have the exact same thing here, we just call the points “dollars”

wombatmobile 6y ago
If by "here" you mean the USA, consider this observation written by Neil Postman in 1985: “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumble puppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists, who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny, “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.” -- Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

mcguire 6y ago

"The idea behind this is understandable: As social networks decline and anonymity in cities rises, the social pressure to behave in an acceptable way declines as well. China now replaces this social pressure with the Social Credit System so that people even when living anonymously in any city behave in an acceptable way." Holy sh*t. That's some straight up Orwellian thought, there.

wombatmobile 6y ago
Contrast that with these words: I pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.
- droobles 6y ago
  Pretty stark contrast...
- Matticus_Rex 6y ago
  Also (almost) no one has to say the pledge, though.
chrischen 6y ago
Could you elaborate?
- mpalmer 6y ago
  Social pressure to modify behavior happens organically and not for anyone's particular ends. But such pressure applied by a government system is automatically suspect and rightly so. Especially if the government is of the sort where nothing exists to serve as a check on the policymakers.
  - mcguire 6y ago
    Additionally, * People will not behave "acceptably" without constant social monitoring. This is similar to the Puritan belief that, if you didn't live in a town where your neighbors could watch you, you could be assumed to be worshiping Satan. * That the best modern form of that social monitoring is 24/7 surveillance with merits and demerits for trivial things.

nitrobeast 6y ago

One thing that surprised me in the US while applying for credit card: private companies can get access to my past addresses and many other personal info of me. I don’t ever want these information provided to profit companies, joined with facebook’s ad network etc. Having the government as the sole guardian of credit history and other related data might not be a bad idea.

asgard1024 6y ago

The West also has social credit system, it's called money. If you do something useful for society, you will get them. If you don't do something useful, you will not get them and die of hunger. And if you do something wrong, you can often use money to avoid harsher punishment. I think social credit systems are wrong, the moral behavior shouldn't be tradeable. But let's face it, almost all societies have them, and they have many flaws.

ddxv 6y ago

Something worth noting, is that there are many social credit systems active in China. The majority of the rules are placed at the provincial level where the person's household registration is located. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System#Social_credit_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System#Social_cr...

known 6y ago

Doesn't work in Caste based society like in India https://archive.is/VWFSC https://archive.is/VWFSC

jhvkjhk 6y ago
India is way too different with any other modern society. Things in there can't become a global trend, and the global trend won't affect them.

vkaku 6y ago

I'm wary of such articles praising this system. My opinion: Nobody can truly benefit from a system that promotes mass surveillance. It just turns people into sheep.

alphawong 6y ago

I just want to share the news in Hong Kong. The intention for all those solutions just aim to reinforce the authorizatism from CCP. People will get arrested by storing an image, a slogan, or flag. You do not have right to conduce bailment or see your lawyer. All those tools or systems be a powerful weapon to supervising the mind in their national.

auganov 6y ago

People are giving the CCP too much credit in believing how far ahead they are in rolling this out. The social credit system is an idea and an initiative. Some systems try to implement some of its ideas on various levels. But there is no one social credit system. Most articles do a pretty bad job at separating CCP's ambitions from the actual implementation. Basically any data driven tracking effort in China will be presumed to be part of the "social credit system" effort. But one has to understand that doesn't mean they are actually part of a coherently connected and integrated system. Many articles often talk about there being a "score" in the system but they're just talking about a score in one of the many systems out there. Usually they mean Alibaba's.

White_Wolf 6y ago

I might be wrong but this thing China is doing is just like credit scoring that also takes into account behaviour? I mean... It's stuff that, at least in UK, is already done one way or another. Examples: I book a retaurant table and don't show up - I have to pay a fee or like most decent clubs have that unified database with trouble makers and some people are refused entry. Edit: Just to clarify I'm not a fan of a system like this. I can see it going wrong and being abused in pretty much any country in the world.

AtomicOrbital 6y ago

innovation is the main driver of economic liftoff and when folks are punished for deviating from accepted norms they are squashing those same fountainhead people who sprout breakthroughs ... a smothering government is killing the golden goose ... such short leash monitoring and punishment may sound good in the short run however china elite know their authoritarian approach is doomed and are scrambling to forestall their downfall

chillacy 6y ago

This article is content marketing for a VPN service, not so much interesting content as much as demand generation for their product.