China’s "Social Credit System" Has Caused More Than Just Public Shaming [Vice]

[Koozek]

China is testing a new plan to urge its citizens to do more good and be more trustworthy - the Social Credit System. It's kind of like the American credit score, except it tracks far more than financial transactions. It tracks good — and bad — deeds. Part of the system is a neighbor watch program that's being piloted across the country where designated watchers are paid to record people's behaviors that factor into their social credit score. A high score could bring you lower interest loans and discounted rent and utility bills, but if your score is low, you can be subjected to public shaming or even banned from certain kinds of travel, life gets hard. China's economy has exploded over the past decades, economic reforms required banks to be able to evaluate individuals looking to borrow money to buy houses or start new businesses. Fraud and excess borrowing were rampant because most people didn't really have much of a credit history. To measure its citizens' trustworthiness, in 2014, The State Council laid out a plan that aims to build a centralized database to evaluate individuals and organizations based on their financial and social behaviors.

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[ahoyhoy]

This is literally the plot of Brazil.

Stop resisting you're going to ruin your credit score!

 

[Maneil99]

I was told by the Chinese apologists this was fake news

 

[BocoDragon]

She seems like a nice lady but we just know there are probably 1000s of little tyrannical scorekeepers who will lord their power over people and make people's lives hell.

I'm reminded of the early days of the Chinese revolution where people in the villages would browbeat one another over their knowledge of Marxism and they were little fucking snakes doling out rewards and punishments for their personal gain.

And that's not even taking into account all the other consequences this score is going to have for people. Reducing people to numbers ALWAYS has weird unforeseen effects even beyond their dubious aims. Western businesses have reduced their goals to "performance targets" and when people chase them to a fault, it's not necessarily been the best service or even most lucrative for the business. People cut weird corners and cook the books. And then there's performance metrics in war which have been disastrous (ie Vietnam war body counts).

 

[Vulcano's Assistant]

I was low key on board until the charity payments bit. That's one taken out of the Medieval Catholic Church rulebook.

 

[Merv]

Thats watcher shit sounds like North Korea. Only difference is in North Korea you meet with your neighbors and are encouraged to rat each other out.

 

[entremet]

This is crazy. I can't believe this is happening today. Why can't they use regular credit scoring? Why involve other people like neighbors?

It seems China is growing so fast economically, that they don't know how to adjust, so they're creating these strange measures.

 

[Koozek]

Yeah, it's terrifying. Straight-up that Black Mirror episode.

There are so many ways how this will be abused or will hit certain groups and minorities the hardest (how long until Uighur people will get their score reduced just for "living non-conforming" lifestyles and re-education is their only way to clear their score again?). Fucking ugh...

 

[Wilsongt]

This is crazy. I can't believe this is happening today. Why can't they use regular credit scoring? Why involve other people like neighbors?

It seems China is growing so fast economically, that they don't know how to adjust, so they're creating these strange measures.

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Really? Have you not been watching the global news for the last 10 years?

This is unsurprising.

 

[entremet]

Really? Have you not been watching the global news for the last 10 years?

This is unsurprising.

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I'm aware of China's tendencies on these matters. I just didn't know they would go so drastic here. Credit scoring systems have been done in many countries for decades. If they fear fraud, regular credit scoring systems have proven to be effective.

I have no idea why they want to create such a punitive and all encompassing system.

 

[Dragoon]

I was told by the Chinese apologists this was fake news

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On era lol?

 

[Sephzilla]

I'm pretty sure The Orville had an episode that demonstrated how fucking terrifying this can be

 

[Pancracio17]

I'm aware of China's tendencies on these matters. I just didn't know they would go so drastic here. Credit scoring systems have been done in many countries for decades. If they fear fraud, regular credit scoring systems have proven to be effective.

I have no idea why they want to create such a punitive and all encompassing system.

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They dont really fear fraud. They just want more control really.

 

[Kareha]

Isn't Tencent helping to build this system?

 

[AcademicSaucer]

Having neighbors watch each other is genius if you want to keep control of the population

 

[Omegasquash]

They dont really fear fraud. They just want more control really.

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Agreed.

The system is positioned as a way to make people act better (to dumb it down), but it's this close to being Orwellian, and it's put in place with a head of state that's this close to authoritarian. Connecting the dots isn't that difficult.

 

[HStallion]

The Cultural Revolution 2.0 is going to get real ugly real fast

 

[ryutaro's mama]

I'm pretty sure The Orville had an episode that demonstrated how fucking terrifying this can be

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Nosedive, the Black Mirror episode was far worse.

 

[Deleted member 135]

China wishes they could turn their population into Borg drones.

 

[Maneil99]

On era lol?

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Haha yes. We have alot here.

This is some Sci Fi novel level shit they are heading towards.

 

[KNTomg]

Oh man. That "donate to some charity" thing gives me the chills. I have no words towards it...

 

[Deleted member 2426]

"The orientals are at it again!" should be a sub forum at this point. I mean, its not like social / moral shaming isn't a thing in The West, nope!

Both stupid and unfair approaches.

Before anyone quotes me: I am not defending this shit. China is getting more capitalistically authoritarian and that ain't good for anyone on this Earth.

 

[WaffleTaco]

I'm curious as to the consequences of this. From an intellectual standpoint, it's quite interesting, but from a humanity perspective it's very terrifying. Essentially, I am glad I am not responsible for this.

"The orientals are at it again!" should be a sub forum at this point. I mean, its not like social / moral shaming isn't a thing in The West, nope!

Both stupid and unfair approaches.

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Why are you defending this?

 

[El_TigroX]

Having neighbors watch each other is genius if you want to keep control of the population

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And just wait until 2.0 of the plan is put in, when cities and towns receive a score, so people REALLY put the pressure on each other to stay in line.

 

[Steel]

On era lol?

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Well:

"The orientals are at it again!" should be a sub forum at this point. I mean, its not like social / moral shaming isn't a thing in The West, nope!

Both stupid and unfair approaches.

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What do you think?

 

[Raguel]

Where are the Chinese apologists in this thread? Edit Hah NVM. Right above me.

 

[Pet]

I hope they implement something that tanks rich people's credit if they don't pay their fair share of taxes.

I mean, obviously not, because this, and most systems, are created by the elite to remain the elite, hold onto their power, and have the poor (yes, including middle class folk) fight each other.

Where are the Chinese apologists in this thread? Edit Hah NVM. Right above me.

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As evidenced by the family style restaurant thread, naw, he has a point.

It must be easy and convenient to write off as criticism of the subtle and not so subtle racism as "lol China apologists," but that's a coping technique y'all use because y'all can't bear to think that maybe y'all have bigoted and prejudiced views of others.

But please, go ahead and assume we're all just China apologists or whatever.

 

[entremet]

"The orientals are at it again!" should be a sub forum at this point. I mean, its not like social / moral shaming isn't a thing in The West, nope!

Both stupid and unfair approaches.

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A few things here.

You don't see such pushback from other East Asian countries, such as South Korea and Japan. They're managed strong economic growth while not severely curtailing privacy rights. It's more than racism here.

China is a huge power and has become very influential. Although many Western democracies have constitutional protections from similar policies, I would not be surprised at some getting ideas and trying similar implementations.

China is going to get a lot of press because it is a huge and rising economy, so there will be more reporting on China and Chinese actions.

And finally, I don't deny that racism can be a motivator here. Same thing happened during Japan's rise in the 80s. Lots of fear mongering about Japan buying up the US.

 

[tsampikos]

Who watches the watchmen?

"The orientals are at it again!" should be a sub forum at this point. I mean, its not like social / moral shaming isn't a thing in The West, nope!

Both stupid and unfair approaches.

Before anyone quotes me: I am not defending this shit. China is getting more capitalistically authoritarian and that ain't good for anyone on this Earth.

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A sub forum? Really?

What a hostile and stupid take.

There is nothing that is free from criticism on this board. And since you whatabouted the west already you need to remember that the west gets mercilessly criticized on this board. If anything we need a western politics board to keep it all from cluttering OT... but I digress. The picture you painted of this board being anti 'oriental' (you're fucking word, shame on you) is a direct attack on us and I don't know why you're getting so defensive.

 

[VectorPrime]

Wow who could have seen this coming.

 

[Deleted member 44129]

This is a terrifying way for the world to go. Just wait until you've got facial recognition software monitoring you wherever you go. Took too long to get home from work? Suspicious. Points removed. Seen crossing the road when the light says not to? Points removed. Said something bad about the government near a microphone in your phone, laptop, or that little mic in the wall of the office? Voice recongition. Points removed.

Plus some busybody walking around your neighbourhood noticing that they don't like your curtains, so you're probably an enemy of the state....

 

[Einchy]

Who watches the watchmen?

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Not bald Scottish comic book writers, that's for sure.

 

[More_Badass]

I'm aware of China's tendencies on these matters. I just didn't know they would go so drastic here. Credit scoring systems have been done in many countries for decades. If they fear fraud, regular credit scoring systems have proven to be effective.

I have no idea why they want to create such a punitive and all encompassing system.

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This isn't about fraud or credit scores

 

[sphagnum]

This is crazy. I can't believe this is happening today. Why can't they use regular credit scoring? Why involve other people like neighbors?

It seems China is growing so fast economically, that they don't know how to adjust, so they're creating these strange measures.

Click to shrink...

China's growth is going to stop at some point. The reason the populace goes along with the CCP is because it has genuinely brought stability and prosperity. What happens when that falters? Xi is laying the groundwork to ensure that his rule and the party's rule can't be challenged.

 

[Pet]

This isn't about fraud or credit scores

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Yeah, this is reads to me as Mao's Revolution part 2.0.

I wouldn't want to be a Chinese citizen, honestly. I have a good job, don't commit crimes, donate a lot of my money/time (relatively) to charity, and help others, but I just don't like this idea of a social credit score and rewarding "good" behavior.

It's never safe to give power to a despotic few (see, monarchies, the US, China, Russia), because it results in a fear and lack of ability to speak out or affect change. Plus, as tides turn, you can get caught up in it even if you're "innocent."

China's growth is going to stop at some point. The reason the populace goes along with the CCP is because it has genuinely brought stability and prosperity. What happens when that falters? Xi is laying the groundwork to ensure that his rule and the party's rule can't be challenged.

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The NYT released a multi series on China, and when it got brought it up in this forum it was brushed off as "China apologists" or whatever.

However, I read the articles, and they were fascinating. They weren't critical enough of China as this forum wanted it to be, but I think that's a function of how people here often act - purity tests, and managing to miss the entire forest.

What this forum ought to take away is that our Western ideals about government/free speech/individualism/democracy being necessary to produce "freedom" (and the implication of a better life, both financially and socially), to everyone's bewilderment, didn't hold true for China.

In the past, these kinds of Draconian/non-democratic measures have always failed and resulted in ruin and catastrophe, as well as economic depression.

China has so far defied the odds, and I think most of us are waiting to see what will happen. Will they be able to survive?

I hope not, because I don't want other countries to try and imitate all their models/systems of government, but it's also incredibly foolish and ignorant to just blindly parrot "it'll never work" because... it HAS been working.... to every Western economist/philosopher's astonishment and disbelief. And we're all kinda hoping it crashes because we don't want to encourage them, but if it crashes we're all fucked too and we don't know how bad it'll be so... it's a shitty situation.

The best hope we had was that China would slowly democratize on its own but that's not happening apparently.

 

[BocoDragon]

"The orientals are at it again!" should be a sub forum at this point. I mean, its not like social / moral shaming isn't a thing in The West, nope!

Both stupid and unfair approaches.

Before anyone quotes me: I am not defending this shit. China is getting more capitalistically authoritarian and that ain't good for anyone on this Earth.

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I find reducing this very interesting and important topic of the world's largest single-party authoritarian regime to racism to be extremely unhelpful. It's a rush straight into the gutter.

 

[Deleted member 9986]

A few things here.

You don't see such pushback from other East Asian countries, such as South Korea and Japan. They're managed strong economic growth while not severely curtailing privacy rights. It's more than racism here.

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Ehm South Korea and no misdeeds during economic growth...? They are doing better today, especially with recent developments and the current admin but they did have a dictator.

 

[entremet]

Ehm South Korea and no misdeeds during economic growth...? They are doing better today with recent developments and the current admin but they did have a dictator.

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I'm just saying that they don't get as much media pushback as a China for example.

 

[Pet]

I'm just saying that they don't get as much media pushback as a China for example.

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South Korea was never a threat to American democracy or to American global/soft power.

 

[BocoDragon]

Ehm South Korea and no misdeeds during economic growth...? They are doing better today, especially with recent developments and the current admin but they did have a dictator.

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I think he's saying more that SK isn't a country that regularly gets met with worried noises on ResetEra, so saying there's some blanket fear and mistrust of Asian nations on here is a bunk theory.

There's an obvious reason why people here express concern about countries like China and North Korea. If someone assumes it's racist Orentalism I think they get zero points....

 

[Rassilon]

Beware the savage jaw
Of 1984

 

[FliX]

This is truly distopian...

It's terrifying.



I wonder if government corruption will cause point deductions... /s as if, lol

 

[Pet]

I think he's saying more that SK isn't a country that regularly gets met with worried noises on ResetEra, so saying there's some blanket fear and mistrust of Asian nations on here is a bunk theory.

There's an obvious reason why people here express concern about countries like China and North Korea on here. If someone assumes it's racist Orentalism I think they get zero points....

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It's still a form of bigotry and prejudice, just against one particular ethnicity rather than an entire race.

Shorthand I'd argue that something like the Rwandan genocide or Armenian genocide was based on "racism," even though they happened within the same "race."

There's not a better way to describe it, but it's always been referred to as Yellow Peril, regardless of which particular Asian group it centered around. So "orientialism" isn't technically correct, but historically is. Fear of particular kind of Asians, in American history, has always ultimately boiled down to the fact they are Asian (Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese, etc).

 

[Mullet2000]

"The orientals are at it again!" should be a sub forum at this point. I mean, its not like social / moral shaming isn't a thing in The West, nope!

Both stupid and unfair approaches.

Before anyone quotes me: I am not defending this shit. China is getting more capitalistically authoritarian and that ain't good for anyone on this Earth.

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Why is it that every time we have a thread on the oppresive/orwellian state of the Chinese government there's a bunch of posters who come in and claim it's based on racism?

Like seriously, I've seen it in virually every thread about the Chinese government for the past few months. Why pretend it's based in racism when it's clearly not? It just drives discussion into a ditch and feels like handwaving.

 

[BocoDragon]

It's still a form of bigotry and prejudice, just against one particular ethnicity rather than an entire race.

Shorthand I'd argue that something like the Rwandan genocide or Armenian genocide was based on "racism," even though they happened within the same "race."

There's not a better way to describe it, but it's always been referred to as Yellow Peril, regardless of which particular Asian group it centered around.

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With all due respect, you're wearing the wrong lenses entirely.

If you want to say that we have a bias against non-democratic, non-pure free market capitalism nations, you might have a point.

"Yellow Peril" is driving off the path into the ditch of misunderstanding. People have the exact same fears and criticisms of China and North Korea in South Korea and Japan!

 

[NoReasonReally]

"The orientals are at it again!" should be a sub forum at this point. I mean, its not like social / moral shaming isn't a thing in The West, nope!

Both stupid and unfair approaches.

Before anyone quotes me: I am not defending this shit. China is getting more capitalistically authoritarian and that ain't good for anyone on this Earth.

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Because no one ever criticized the american government in this forum, nope. Not at all.

 

[MilesQ]

Yooo, we gonna breeze the part where the lady says brutal domestic violence is just a family issue and it caused a bad influence?

 

[anthro]

I was told by the Chinese apologists this was fake news

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It's not "fake news" in the sense that it is totally false, it is that it is being misrepresented, presumably because it is easier to understand for westerners if it is put in terms of the "credit score" thing. For instance, it seems to me as though they are implying the points system here is a broad national program. It isn't, these are local pilot programs that are often run on the municipal level. They're experimental and have sometimes experienced criticism by Chinese state media. This kind of lack of consensus on social credit isn't presented much in our media, it is presented as though it is this totalized, top down and efficient techno-dystopian system. I think this gives too much credit to the Chinese state, though maybe somewhat ironically we can already see that with this example of the woman walking around town filling up notebooks by hand with people leaving their garbage out or finding wallets on the ground. The national "social credit" initiative is more like a vague party directive for very broad goals going forward that are specific to China's political conditions. And just to clarify, I get the sense that could be considered apologia but it isn't. China doesn't have rule of law like we do, it has many administrative and bureaucratic fiefdoms that run segments of Chinese life. These bureaucracies often do no cooperate and follow their own rules in what can be considered an unpredictable manner, and this sort of administrative anarchy is being considered partially to blame for a sense of "mistrust" in Chinese institutions. Social credit was presented as a means to ameliorate this using written agreements between these administrative branches of government to cooperate on enforcing their own rules between each other, by each assigning their own forms of punishment if an individual or entity (which is also not mentioned much, social credit is also propagandized a lot to be a means of reigning in businesses) breaks the rules in the jurisdiction of a separate bureaucracy.

The most widely publicized form of agreement, and also the one with the most signatories, has been related to criminal and financial cases, overseen by the court system. These are the famous travel restrictions. A bunch of bureaucracies basically agreed to impose punishments for people found to be in breach of some kind of court injunction. This was considered particularly important because before this, the other parts of government had no particular reason to respect court injunctions. If an individual was fined for something, for instance, lets say they just ignored the fine. The specifics of this may be wrong but this is just a hypothetical based on examples I've read about. The court may decide to go to their place of business and encourage them to pay some of the employee's wages to the court for the fine. The business may just deny this request, and the court may decide then to go to the bureaucracy that was closer in authority to the business. That bureaucracy may also deny their request. If that is the case, the court simply can't enforce its ruling. This would be considered a black mark on the party members in that court by the party itself, who are supposed to judge advancement up party ranks by some kind of objective measures of performance. Because of this desire not to have black marks for ineffectiveness, courts simply would reject certain kinds of cases, including many civil cases brought against companies who may have done something to hurt consumers, because they felt that enforcement of a ruling would be very difficult.

But something that sound blatantly misrepresented to me in this Vice piece, though I could be wrong, is the man saying that his low score made him unable to travel. His breached loan was what made him unable to travel, though it may be the case that also hurt his score in this local pilot. The breached loan could have put him on a blacklist, which is the explicit means by which one is actually punished through the governmental agreements made as a part of social credit. Points systems are limited in scope and don't represent "social credit" in total. They're also rarely supposed to punish you, rather to give you rewards for good behavior, as the local points systems that have included punishment have gotten some criticism from state media for over-reach, including Alibaba's comments about "buying diapers gets you more points" or whatever for their system, which I think they ultimately backed down on due to anger. I'm also pretty sure when the central government first described social credit as a policy to be achieved going forward, they never mentioned points systems at all. As it is right now, social credit is an expansion of the means to enforce already existing rules. It could become something else, but it's not Black Mirror right now.

Also, this points program sounds like it might have been based on this one:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/03/life-inside-chinas-social-credit-laboratory/

 

[BocoDragon]

Why is it that every time we have a thread on the oppresive/orwellian state of the Chinese government there's a bunch of posters who come in and claim it's based on racism?

Like seriously, I've seen it in virually every thread about the Chinese government for the past few months. Why pretend it's based in racism when it's clearly not? It just drives discussion into a ditch and feels like handwaving.

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I think it's both a conscious tactic on the part of the Chinese government and those who are sufficiently captured by it, as well as being an organic response from the well-meaning but misguided liberal who cries racism any time a cross-border criticism of government, law, ideology, religion, etc is attempted.

 

[Steeped in a Sea of Games]

She seems like a nice lady but we just know there are probably 1000s of little tyrannical scorekeepers who will lord their power over people and make people's lives hell.

I'm reminded of the early days of the Chinese revolution where people in the villages would browbeat one another over their knowledge of Marxism and they were little fucking snakes doling out rewards and punishments for their personal gain.

And that's not even taking into account all the other consequences this score is going to have for people. Reducing people to numbers ALWAYS has weird unforeseen effects even beyond their dubious aims. Western businesses have reduced their goals to "performance targets" and when people chase them to a fault, it's not necessarily been the best service or even most lucrative for the business. People cut weird corners and cook the books. And then there's performance metrics in war which have been disastrous (ie Vietnam war body counts).

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Honestly, this is just like the cultural revolution. The chinese have had to worry about their neighbors ratting them out or having shit made up about them for nigh on 50 years. At least they're not beating people publicly or straight up murdering them, I guess.

China still pretty at home with Maoist ideals.