China's Social Credit System: An Orwellian Nightmare? (Discussion/comments)

solarz said:

As far as I'm aware, the only city that had a social credit trial was Suining. The article you linked refers to a flying blacklist due to legal issues. That's a far cry from any "social credit" system.

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Your understanding of the current state of the social credit initiatives is severely lacking.
I suggest these articles. The source blog is a welcome change from the kind of lazy reporting on China typically seen in Western media (the editor was even featured in a Xinhua/CGTN segment), although the topics are still influenced by the lurid, pseudo-pornographic fetishizing of Chinese social issues by many Western China-watchers (hence the blog's recent blocking by the GFW).






In short, the various pilot social credit initiatives, both public and private, in China have already begun impacting citizens' liberties, even though the proposed national social credit system is nowhere close to being implemented. Whether these impacts of social credit systems constitute government "overreach," "abuses," or are "unfair" is up for debate. There are certainly many unofficial institutions and programs in the West, all based in some form on one's "credit" - whether or not in the traditional financial sense - that can ruin numerous aspects of an individual's life and future (and of course not just those related to your credit score). Perhaps it is better to have the government centralize and fulfill the requirements of many different institutions within society to obtain some idea of an individual's trustworthiness. Otherwise you get how it is in the West, where many gray-area practices exist for determining various forms of "credit" that can be difficult to comprehend or even be aware of.

also interesting Mar 18, 2018

Jura said:

...
China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains

2 days ago

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Icmer said:

Your understanding of the current state of the social credit initiatives is severely lacking.
I suggest these articles. The source blog is a welcome change from the kind of lazy reporting on China typically seen in Western media (the editor was even featured in a Xinhua/CGTN segment), although the topics are still influenced by the lurid, pseudo-pornographic fetishizing of Chinese social issues by many Western China-watchers (hence the blog's recent blocking by the GFW).

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

In short, the various pilot social credit initiatives, both public and private, in China have already begun impacting citizens' liberties, even though the proposed national social credit system is nowhere close to being implemented. Whether these impacts of social credit systems constitute government "overreach," "abuses," or are "unfair" is up for debate. There are certainly many unofficial institutions and programs in the West, all based in some form on one's "credit" - whether or not in the traditional financial sense - that can ruin numerous aspects of an individual's life and future (and of course not just those related to your credit score). Perhaps it is better to have the government centralize and fulfill the requirements of many different institutions within society to obtain some idea of an individual's trustworthiness. Otherwise you get how it is in the West, where many gray-area practices exist for determining various forms of "credit" that can be difficult to comprehend or even be aware of.

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Thanks for those links.

Reading them, I get the impression that the Chinese media is focused on the practical aspects of a social credit system: being rude and disruptive on trains or flights, failure to repay debts, failure to honor legal agreements or failure to comply with legal judgments.

On the other hand, Western media is focused on lurid and imagined misuses of the system: penalizing people for their internet activities, ubiquitous surveillance, and even controlling people's thoughts.

As for how it will actually work, I think it's far too early to tell. Whereas the plan is to roll out a nation-wide system by 2020, which I assume means a single technology, there are only scattered and fragmented approaches that are implemented right now. The most comprehensive one is the Sesame Credit, but it is privately owned and focuses on financial activities. Other government operated systems are focused on specific aspects.

We simply cannot judge how a comprehensive, unified, social credit system would work based on what we are currently seeing.

I'll take a different tack from other members here who question the existence or feasibility of such a system, a stance I view as a form of soft opposition. For my part, I wholeheartedly support the aspirations of social credit and I wish the Chinese government great success in implementing it. But the core of the issue isn't social credit or any other particular initiative, it's fundamentally about whether you view China's governing system as legitimate. If one does, as I do and you clearly don't, then one would want it to be more effective at its tasks, important ones being nurturing social cohesion, rewarding the trustworthy and correcting the wayward, and finding and rooting out foreign and domestic subversion.

I find it somewhat amusing that you give proposals for "improving" the social credit system. Quite aside from their merits, why do you wish to give advice to people you think have no legitimacy to govern? I have little love for America and its government, and given that I feel absolutely no desire to advise them on how to improve their system. To me, the faster it goes into the trash-can, the better.

Those of you who criticize the social credit system definitely never lived in China. There are plenty of lowly educated obnoxious morons in China who don't like to follow rules. A rating system will force them to behave better and make everyone better off

ZeEa5KPul said:

I'll take a different tack from other members here who question the existence or feasibility of such a system, a stance I view as a form of soft opposition. For my part, I wholeheartedly support the aspirations of social credit and I wish the Chinese government great success in implementing it. But the core of the issue isn't social credit or any other particular initiative, it's fundamentally about whether you view China's governing system as legitimate. If one does, as I do and you clearly don't, then one would want it to be more effective at its tasks, important ones being nurturing social cohesion, rewarding the trustworthy and correcting the wayward, and finding and rooting out foreign and domestic subversion.

I find it somewhat amusing that you give proposals for "improving" the social credit system. Quite aside from their merits, why do you wish to give advice to people you think have no legitimacy to govern? I have little love for America and its government, and given that I feel absolutely no desire to advise them on how to improve their system. To me, the faster it goes into the trash-can, the better.

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The issue I have is how Western media warps this social credit initiative into, as the OP says, an "Orwellian nightmare". It's a distortion of an innovative initiative, and one I am keen on rebutting.

The way I see it, the "social credit" system that Western media portrays exists solely in the imagination of Western media.

People forget the way the West sees things they think is automatically the standard for the world. "Orwellian" is just a trigger word for bad for them. Anything any one does that does not follow their way is bad. The British have a public surveillance system that watches over its citizens which is okay. China tried to buy the British system for the same purpose but was rejected because of the human rights concerns. Let's not forget the British have been long accused of violating the rights of people in Northern Ireland no different than accused of China when they claimed to believe in human rights. When the British were in control of Hong Kong, they imprisoned children for years at a time if they dared to be involved in protesting the lies being taught about Hong Kong's history with the British. When they're in control, forcing a police state onto others is all right with them.The fact is when people say they care about human rights, they're really only talking about for themselves as the an example about how they care. Not a great feat to care about only your human rights. Anyone else including people they politically disagree with they could care less if their rights are being violated. They act as if some higher power prevents them from lying about believing in human rights. Believe them and follow them blindly because if it were a lie, their tongue would've exploded into flames and since it hasn't, they couldn't be lying therefore you must blindly obey without question and if you don't, it must because you're evil.

Then on the flip side when they cry about human rights in other countries, they're really only looking out for it for themselves. Okinawa just got a new governor because his predecessor died. The predecessor was against US bases at Okinawa. The new governor is against US bases in Okinawa. All I read from the American perspective is how the Okinawans are showing disrespect for Americans protecting them. No they're protesting against US soldiers and contractors committing crimes against the Okinawans. And just as usual, it's being spun away from that concern to make it about the US being the victim. They do nothing to address it because it keeps happening. So what's the difference with an Orwellian society and what makes that worse?

Just look at the thread in this forum over a new Cold War with China. Some of the usual suspects want to stifle discussion because they see it as similar to what's going on in the trade war discussion. In other words only pro-Trump discussions are allowed. They want to police thoughts so no one thinks any other way. Who's the one that's Orwellian?

A lot of the reporting on the China’s social credit system is grossly exaggerated, and or conflates some other set of legal or regulatory policies as part of a scoring system that doesn’t exist (yet). For example, the stories about people being blacklisted have really nothing to do with some social credit scoring system either existing or imagined. These sorts of blacklists are forms of legal punishments that go through a judicial process and have been in China for a very long time. Nor are these kinds of blacklists unique to China. One only need to look at No Fly Lists in the US as an example of how common bans as a form of legal sanction are.

That said, I do think it’s worth pointing out that the hysterics around social credit systems may reflect critiques that haven’t been thoroughly thought through and examined. By all intents and purposes, a social credit system is just another form of legal regime. Like other forms of legal regimes its primary purpose and function is to compel and control behavior. It will be as bad or good as the complex set of its particular set of actionable rules conditions. Any abuses we can imagine from such a system is an abuse that could have, and already has, existed by some other implements of law or the state. Similarly any checks or restraints against abuses of such a system follow similar logic to that which we have invented for contemporary legal systems (reviews, appeals, etc). Perhaps the one distinguishing trait the sort of social credit system people are making a big deal about has from today’s laws is that it does away with physical coercion as the primary mechanism to compel behavior in exchange for access to or threats against some set of rewards or privileges.

Another thing worth noting is that the system China is accused of exploring (and seems very far away from realizing) is that it is really nothing like the Black Mirror episode it is constantly compared to. In that Black Mirror episode (nosedive), people’s personal ratings were crowdsourced, given by one another. What China is accused of trying to do is a score based on conformity to a standardized set of good conducts or bad violations, which would work very differently and have very different implications from a system where ratings are based on how each individual subjectively judges one another.

latenlazy said:

That said, I do think it’s worth pointing out that the hysterics around social credit systems may reflect critiques that haven’t been thoroughly thought through and examined. By all intents and purposes, a social credit system is just another form of legal regime. Like other forms of legal regimes its primary purpose and function is to compel and control behavior. It will be as bad or good as the complex set of its particular set of actionable rules conditions. Any abuses we can imagine from such a system is an abuse that could have, and already has, existed by some other implements of law or the state. Similarly any checks or restraints against abuses of such a system follow similar logic to that which we have invented for contemporary legal systems (reviews, appeals, etc). Perhaps the one distinguishing trait the sort of social credit system people are making a big deal about has from today’s laws is that it does away with physical coercion as the primary mechanism to compel behavior in exchange for access to or threats against some set of rewards or privileges.

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I have a slightly different view on this.

One pattern of Chinese development is that it has been bypassing, or leap-frogging, western stages of development. It achieved prosperity without turning into a Western-style "democracy". Instead of building a fleet of carriers first, it built carrier-killers. Instead of playing catch-up in the internal-combustion car industry, it is now a leader in electric vehicles.

Now, instead of following the Western framework of "rule by law", it is going to use technology to build societal harmony.

A legal framework is punishment based. Laws spell out what you *can't* do, and the punishments for violating those rules.

The social credit system, on the other hand, is reinforcement based. Yes, it contains elements of punishment, but only in the larger context of a system where you collect points, or rewards.

Basic psychology tells us that while punishment can deter specific behavior, it cannot promote behavior. Only reinforcement can do that.

Chinese people rightly admire Western societies for their social harmony. People line up in an orderly fashion, assist each other without fear of being taken advantage of, and respect the law without the need for constant reminders of punishment. However, that social harmony was built up over a century of social evolution. China doesn't want to wait for evolution, it needs a revolution.

Westerners fear invasions of privacy because they fear the Law. Since Law works only through punishment, being under surveillance means greater chances of punishment.

In China, yes surveillance means you can get ticketed for jay walking. However, it also means you can be proven innocent if an old lady accuses you of knocking her down. Only a short time ago, the phenomenon of peng-ci was sparking morality debates all over China. Now, with the ubiquitous presence of cameras, this practice has been all but wiped out.

Who knows what societal advancements the Social Credit system will bring.

solarz said:

I have a slightly different view on this.

One pattern of Chinese development is that it has been bypassing, or leap-frogging, western stages of development. It achieved prosperity without turning into a Western-style "democracy". Instead of building a fleet of carriers first, it built carrier-killers. Instead of playing catch-up in the internal-combustion car industry, it is now a leader in electric vehicles.

Now, instead of following the Western framework of "rule by law", it is going to use technology to build societal harmony.

A legal framework is punishment based. Laws spell out what you *can't* do, and the punishments for violating those rules.

The social credit system, on the other hand, is reinforcement based. Yes, it contains elements of punishment, but only in the larger context of a system where you collect points, or rewards.

Basic psychology tells us that while punishment can deter specific behavior, it cannot promote behavior. Only reinforcement can do that.

Chinese people rightly admire Western societies for their social harmony. People line up in an orderly fashion, assist each other without fear of being taken advantage of, and respect the law without the need for constant reminders of punishment. However, that social harmony was built up over a century of social evolution. China doesn't want to wait for evolution, it needs a revolution.

Westerners fear invasions of privacy because they fear the Law. Since Law works only through punishment, being under surveillance means greater chances of punishment.

In China, yes surveillance means you can get ticketed for jay walking. However, it also means you can be proven innocent if an old lady accuses you of knocking her down. Only a short time ago, the phenomenon of peng-ci was sparking morality debates all over China. Now, with the ubiquitous presence of cameras, this practice has been all but wiped out.

Who knows what societal advancements the Social Credit system will bring.

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You get into some pretty dicey problems when the state takes an active, explicit, and highly visible position of dictating and determining socio-economic outcomes though.