11 ms·

This is not a new take, but I think "the west" is effectively building their own version of China's social credit. It's just distributed among a range of privat

This is not a new take, but I think "the west" is effectively building their own version of China's social credit. It's just distributed among a range of private companies and accessed via subpoena or contract. The fact that the government doesn't operate most of it directly is largely irrelevant to those negatively affected by it and in some ways makes the situation worse (who do you even contact to correct inaccurate information?).

wongarsu 5y ago
Being able to correct inaccurate information is an often underappreciated but important part of the GDPR. It's also probably the biggest motivation why you have a right to ask any company what data they have stored about you: so you can spot mistakes in the data of rating agencies. The other use cases are more of a nice bonus.
- Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
  While i completely agree that the right to correct data is an underappreciated aspect, the biggest motivation is the fundamental right to your own personal data. It motivates the more detailed ones like the right to know who processes your personal data, for what purpose, which data they have, and to correct that data. Not to forget the right to be informed and asked for consent. The "why" of these rights is not found in the robber barons wish to improve the quality of their data swamps. It is found in the wish of the european people to preserve their freedom in the digital age against surveillance capitalism and/or totalitarian governments. I can only hope our brothers and sisters worldwide will one day understand that and demand such a fundamental right as well.
tehjoker 5y ago
Wait until the US public finds out about the concept of a credit score (new in the 1980s).
- mc32 5y ago
  Credit score for ghee most part tries to assure lenders you can repay your debts. Social credit score is about how close you hew to proscribed behavior at large.
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    Credit scores are used as a proxy for Ideal Citizenship. It just so happens to have baked into it enough plausible deniability as to not run afoul of anti-discrimination laws. Turns out, a lot of "bad" actions result in missed bill payments.
    - mc32 5y ago
      In a semi anonymous society how else do you suppose one should determine the creditworthiness of someone? It used to be the merchant had to know you and you had to build up your credit with each merchant over time. Credit scoring made it easier for merchants and customers to issue and leverage we credit.
      - mywittyname 5y ago
        My comment might come off as an indictment of credit scores. But it really isn't. They absolutely solve the problem that you are pointing out. But they also serve to kind of solve a whole class of other problems around identifying behaviors that correlate with bad credit scores. For example, if you're a land lord who vehemently opposes divorce, it's possible to use a poor credit score as cover to deny renting to this middle-aged guy who is clearly just gone through one.
        mc32 5y ago
        Sure but previous to credit scores what was the option? References from friends and business acquaintances? Sure credit scores aren’t perfect but they are better than the legacy alternative.
the-dude 5y ago
First thing I was told when I arrived in the US in 2001 and was picked up by a friend from the airport : "If the police says pull over to the shoulder, stop at the side of the road". Second thing : "Credit score is really important".
- edgyquant 5y ago
  Credit score isn’t that important really. I have terrible credit (low 600s) and I was able to finance a car and live in a nice apartment. It might make buying a house more expensive, but I’ve also been able to raise it from the low 500s in the last year.
Sevastopol 5y ago
> "the west" is effectively building their own version of China's social credit. China's social credit system allegedly assigns (or will assign?) all citizens scores and punishes them for social wrongdoings. The IRS has always been tasked with auditing and catching tax cheats, the Treasury always went after people who violate economic sanctions. What's the similarity other than data collection?
- travoc 5y ago
  Why do you need more similarities? The mass data collection completes the system.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    Because we need to understand the purpose of the data collection and what bad things might happen because of it. If Treasury is using this data to catch people who violate economic sanctions, ok. If the IRS is using this data to catch people who cheat on their taxes, ok. I don't love either of those things, but they are using the data only to do things that have been defined as their job to do for a long time now. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that any of this data is going to be used to penalize people financially/economically for "social infractions", or to penalize people in unrelated ways (like, you missed payments on your credit card so you aren't allowed to ride on a train). If there was, then sure, that's cause for worry.
    - artificialLimbs 5y ago
      >> There doesn't seem to be any evidence that any of this data is going to be used to penalize people financially/economically for "social infractions" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy
      - kelnos 5y ago
        That's bad, but is not what we're talking about here. Not to mention it was a big scandal and that practice (which was not supported by any law or legal policy) has stopped. The China-style social credit system people worry about is something done on purpose, as designed, out in the open. Can we stop taking isolated incidents and framing them as official policy?
wmf 5y ago
From what I've read China's social credit system does not yet incorporate any non-financial information; that part is more aspirational.
- azekai 5y ago
  That is the narrative the CCP pushes. 'It is just like a government run checking score.' But it isn't. Crimes, including political ones, will penalize your social credit score. If your score falls too low, you and your children will become ineligible for government programs and assistance.
  - trasz 5y ago
    [citation needed] What you describe is something that is often said, but I'm yet to see any reliable sources; everything turns out to be editorials based on some plans that never got implemented.
kelnos 5y ago
I don't think I really see evidence of this. I mean, the IRS wants to catch people who cheat on their taxes. That's something they've been empowered to do for a long time. And when they catch people for that, they audit them, perhaps take them to court, and fine them. Which seems reasonable. If the IRS is going to start telling people they aren't allowed to ride trains or get on airplanes because they applied a deduction to their taxes in a way that's not allowed, then we should worry; that sounds like the China-style social credit system people talk about. But I don't see that as being realistic; the IRS doesn't have that kind of power.
- burnafter185 5y ago
  Well, I think to be fair to this, we had ought to look at the expansion of government agencies. The ATF, NSA, CIA, FBI, FDA, and so on and so forth are all additions to power. It's not a far reach to assume that granted some new ability to "remedy" some social ill, that establishment of some new agency is probable with implied powers and the necessary and proper clause. And it's really not necessarily just the IRS, but setting a precedent, there are various agencies that have been leveraging data-broker deals to track individuals. The more agencies jump on this the closer we get to crystallizing the behavior. If that's the case, it seems like a considerable hazard, which in the end could lead to some real consequences in the future. We've seen democracies turn into empires, and emperors of all kinds inherit those powers. This is the sort of gravitas no man, nor government had ought to be permitted to wield.
gred 5y ago
Has anybody studied or quantified the evolution of "effective liberty" over time in the US? Say you buy groceries once per week. That activity might have triggered 1 governmental control touchpoint in 1800 (sales tax?), but in 2020 it might have triggered many more due to increased automation, logging and third-party delegation. All of this, of course, without fundamental changes to the Law of the Land -- simply because some of the assumptions built into our core restrictions on governmental power no longer hold.
- ectopod 5y ago
  Sales taxes weren't a thing then. Before the 20th century government played pretty much no part in the average person's life.
  - gred 5y ago
    Wow, I didn't realize that. It does look like retail sales taxes were first introduced in the US during the 1930s.
stonepresto 5y ago
We're doing it to ourselves. We're the ones who keep clicking "I agree", who keep feeding these companies. Of course they're going to look to make a profit off of your data, there's nothing stopping them because we willingly gave it up.
- tremon 5y ago
  So your suggestion is for everyone to become digital hermits? Start sending snail mail invoices and writing checks again?
  - Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
    Vote with your money and buy from a competitor that sells the same product/service but privacy friendly.
deleted 5y ago
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m0zg 5y ago
Utah released plans for the new electronic ID a couple of weeks back which, among other things, would contain your "vaccination status" and "social credit scoring". Conservative press is abuzz with this (including photos of the promo leaflet), liberal press is dead silent. Since nobody on this site will believe a conservative news source, I'm not even going to bother providing a link. If you're in Utah, ask your local government to put an end to this horseshit before it's too late.
deleted 5y ago
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- deleted 5y ago
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wongarsu 5y ago

Being able to correct inaccurate information is an often underappreciated but important part of the GDPR. It's also probably the biggest motivation why you have a right to ask any company what data they have stored about you: so you can spot mistakes in the data of rating agencies. The other use cases are more of a nice bonus.

Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
While i completely agree that the right to correct data is an underappreciated aspect, the biggest motivation is the fundamental right to your own personal data. It motivates the more detailed ones like the right to know who processes your personal data, for what purpose, which data they have, and to correct that data. Not to forget the right to be informed and asked for consent. The "why" of these rights is not found in the robber barons wish to improve the quality of their data swamps. It is found in the wish of the european people to preserve their freedom in the digital age against surveillance capitalism and/or totalitarian governments. I can only hope our brothers and sisters worldwide will one day understand that and demand such a fundamental right as well.

tehjoker 5y ago

Wait until the US public finds out about the concept of a credit score (new in the 1980s).

mc32 5y ago
Credit score for ghee most part tries to assure lenders you can repay your debts. Social credit score is about how close you hew to proscribed behavior at large.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  Credit scores are used as a proxy for Ideal Citizenship. It just so happens to have baked into it enough plausible deniability as to not run afoul of anti-discrimination laws. Turns out, a lot of "bad" actions result in missed bill payments.
  - mc32 5y ago
    In a semi anonymous society how else do you suppose one should determine the creditworthiness of someone? It used to be the merchant had to know you and you had to build up your credit with each merchant over time. Credit scoring made it easier for merchants and customers to issue and leverage we credit.
    - mywittyname 5y ago
      My comment might come off as an indictment of credit scores. But it really isn't. They absolutely solve the problem that you are pointing out. But they also serve to kind of solve a whole class of other problems around identifying behaviors that correlate with bad credit scores. For example, if you're a land lord who vehemently opposes divorce, it's possible to use a poor credit score as cover to deny renting to this middle-aged guy who is clearly just gone through one.
      - mc32 5y ago
        Sure but previous to credit scores what was the option? References from friends and business acquaintances? Sure credit scores aren’t perfect but they are better than the legacy alternative.

the-dude 5y ago

First thing I was told when I arrived in the US in 2001 and was picked up by a friend from the airport : "If the police says pull over to the shoulder, stop at the side of the road". Second thing : "Credit score is really important".

edgyquant 5y ago
Credit score isn’t that important really. I have terrible credit (low 600s) and I was able to finance a car and live in a nice apartment. It might make buying a house more expensive, but I’ve also been able to raise it from the low 500s in the last year.

Sevastopol 5y ago

> "the west" is effectively building their own version of China's social credit. China's social credit system allegedly assigns (or will assign?) all citizens scores and punishes them for social wrongdoings. The IRS has always been tasked with auditing and catching tax cheats, the Treasury always went after people who violate economic sanctions. What's the similarity other than data collection?

travoc 5y ago
Why do you need more similarities? The mass data collection completes the system.
- kelnos 5y ago
  Because we need to understand the purpose of the data collection and what bad things might happen because of it. If Treasury is using this data to catch people who violate economic sanctions, ok. If the IRS is using this data to catch people who cheat on their taxes, ok. I don't love either of those things, but they are using the data only to do things that have been defined as their job to do for a long time now. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that any of this data is going to be used to penalize people financially/economically for "social infractions", or to penalize people in unrelated ways (like, you missed payments on your credit card so you aren't allowed to ride on a train). If there was, then sure, that's cause for worry.
  - artificialLimbs 5y ago
    >> There doesn't seem to be any evidence that any of this data is going to be used to penalize people financially/economically for "social infractions" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy
    - kelnos 5y ago
      That's bad, but is not what we're talking about here. Not to mention it was a big scandal and that practice (which was not supported by any law or legal policy) has stopped. The China-style social credit system people worry about is something done on purpose, as designed, out in the open. Can we stop taking isolated incidents and framing them as official policy?

wmf 5y ago

From what I've read China's social credit system does not yet incorporate any non-financial information; that part is more aspirational.

azekai 5y ago
That is the narrative the CCP pushes. 'It is just like a government run checking score.' But it isn't. Crimes, including political ones, will penalize your social credit score. If your score falls too low, you and your children will become ineligible for government programs and assistance.
- trasz 5y ago
  [citation needed] What you describe is something that is often said, but I'm yet to see any reliable sources; everything turns out to be editorials based on some plans that never got implemented.

kelnos 5y ago

I don't think I really see evidence of this. I mean, the IRS wants to catch people who cheat on their taxes. That's something they've been empowered to do for a long time. And when they catch people for that, they audit them, perhaps take them to court, and fine them. Which seems reasonable. If the IRS is going to start telling people they aren't allowed to ride trains or get on airplanes because they applied a deduction to their taxes in a way that's not allowed, then we should worry; that sounds like the China-style social credit system people talk about. But I don't see that as being realistic; the IRS doesn't have that kind of power.

burnafter185 5y ago
Well, I think to be fair to this, we had ought to look at the expansion of government agencies. The ATF, NSA, CIA, FBI, FDA, and so on and so forth are all additions to power. It's not a far reach to assume that granted some new ability to "remedy" some social ill, that establishment of some new agency is probable with implied powers and the necessary and proper clause. And it's really not necessarily just the IRS, but setting a precedent, there are various agencies that have been leveraging data-broker deals to track individuals. The more agencies jump on this the closer we get to crystallizing the behavior. If that's the case, it seems like a considerable hazard, which in the end could lead to some real consequences in the future. We've seen democracies turn into empires, and emperors of all kinds inherit those powers. This is the sort of gravitas no man, nor government had ought to be permitted to wield.

gred 5y ago

Has anybody studied or quantified the evolution of "effective liberty" over time in the US? Say you buy groceries once per week. That activity might have triggered 1 governmental control touchpoint in 1800 (sales tax?), but in 2020 it might have triggered many more due to increased automation, logging and third-party delegation. All of this, of course, without fundamental changes to the Law of the Land -- simply because some of the assumptions built into our core restrictions on governmental power no longer hold.

ectopod 5y ago
Sales taxes weren't a thing then. Before the 20th century government played pretty much no part in the average person's life.
- gred 5y ago
  Wow, I didn't realize that. It does look like retail sales taxes were first introduced in the US during the 1930s.

stonepresto 5y ago

We're doing it to ourselves. We're the ones who keep clicking "I agree", who keep feeding these companies. Of course they're going to look to make a profit off of your data, there's nothing stopping them because we willingly gave it up.

tremon 5y ago
So your suggestion is for everyone to become digital hermits? Start sending snail mail invoices and writing checks again?
- Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
  Vote with your money and buy from a competitor that sells the same product/service but privacy friendly.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

m0zg 5y ago

Utah released plans for the new electronic ID a couple of weeks back which, among other things, would contain your "vaccination status" and "social credit scoring". Conservative press is abuzz with this (including photos of the promo leaflet), liberal press is dead silent. Since nobody on this site will believe a conservative news source, I'm not even going to bother providing a link. If you're in Utah, ask your local government to put an end to this horseshit before it's too late.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

deleted 5y ago
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