China’s New “Social Credit Score” Brings Dystopian Science Fiction to Life

[Deleted]

https://futurism.com/chinas-new-soci...ction-to-life/

China’s New “Social Credit Score” Brings Dystopian Science Fiction to Life

• The dystopian state is closer than you think—China's new "social credit score" is every Orwellian paranoiac's worst nightmare come true.
• But the technology, like it or not, is well on its way to implementation. The only question is—how will it change our lives?

The Chinese government is taking a controversial step in security, with plans to implement a system that gives and collects financial, social, political, and legal credit ratings of citizens into a social credit score. The idea itself seems straight out of science fiction, but in a society like China’s, it’s already beginning to take shape.

For a nation that has a more-or-less openly totalitarian approach to governance, a move to install a Big Brother social credit system shouldn’t be surprising. Proponents of the idea are already testing various aspects of the system — gathering digital records of citizens, specifically financial behavior. These will then be used to create a social credit score system, which will determine if a citizen can avail themselves of certain services based on his or her social credit rating.

“China has a long way to go before it actually assigns everyone a score. If it wants to do that, it needs to work on the accuracy of the data. At the moment it’s ‘garbage in, garbage out,’” explained Wang Zhicheng of Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management.

If China successfully consolidates data from around 1.4 billion people into one system, then it’s more than likely that this social credit system will be put in place. Once it does, it’s going to be like an episode from Black Mirror — the social credit score of citizens will be the basis for access to services ranging from travel and education to loans and insurance coverage.

Of course, supporters of this system have their reasons, including developing a unitary system for granting citizen’s access to financial services, given that 1.3 billion Chinese don’t own a credit card. Besides, the government assures that the system would “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step,” as The Wall Street Journal reports. Which would never work in the United States — Washington, D.C., for instance, would become a ghost town.

But perhaps, in a country where even Facebook is largely censored and internet access is still limited to what the government allows, a social credit scoring system would be less beneficial than it would seem. Certainly, it would grant the government more access and control over the lives of its citizens. And, if that episode from Black Mirror is to be believed, it’s a system that can do more damage than good.

[Deleted]

Worrying indeed.
There are very few beacons of light, democracy, and freedom left standing, and they are falling fast.

[Segus1992]

Worrying indeed.
There are very few beacons of light, democracy, and freedom left standing, and they are falling fast.

China was a beacon of light, democracy, and freedom?

[Deleted]

China was a beacon of light, democracy, and freedom?

It never was, and I never said that it ever was.

[Segus1992]

It never was, and I never said that it ever was.

I see, so you're just here to spread your fearmongering along. Good for you.

[MonsieuRoberts]

That's a scary.

[Garnier Fructis]

I think this is the 3rd or 4th time this thread has happened.

Worrying indeed.
There are very few beacons of light, democracy, and freedom left standing, and they are falling fast.

This is pretty melodramatic nonsense.

[unfilteredJW]

This is pretty melodramatic nonsense.

Pretty much sums up the posters posts.

[Deleted]

Worrying indeed.
There are very few beacons of light, democracy, and freedom left standing, and they are falling fast.

And those countries would be what? Norway, Canada and Iceland? Those are the only three I rarely see mentioned in a negative way.

There are no true democracies or "beacons of the light" in this world, and have never been. It's all in the interest of profit, and a general sense of security and peace is good for profit. Greed governs mankind as its linked to survival, we're no ascetic beings, we're just animals.

But that's just the harsh boring gray reality of things, Life has plenty of good points as long as you dont stop to think about why bad stuff happens etc.

In general, the sensationalism in your post was very strong for a world that has yet to go beyond the concept of survival of the fittest, fittest in this day and age being a referense to resources/wealth.

[Draco-Onis]

If China successfully consolidates data from around 1.4 billion people into one system, then it’s more than likely that this social credit system will be put in place. Once it does, it’s going to be like an episode from Black Mirror — the social credit score of citizens will be the basis for access to services ranging from travel and education to loans and insurance coverage.

You mean like your credit score, social security and your currently digitized health records, oh the horror.

[Deleted]

And those countries would be what? Norway, Canada and Iceland? Those are the only three I rarely see mentioned in a negative way.

There are no true democracies or "beacons of the light" in this world, and have never been. It's all in the interest of profit, and a general sense of security and peace is good for profit. Greed governs mankind as its linked to survival, we're no ascetic beings, we're just animals.

But that's just the harsh boring gray reality of things, Life has plenty of good points as long as you dont stop to think about why bad stuff happens etc.

In general, the sensationalism in your post was very strong for a world that has yet to go beyond the concept of survival of the fittest, fittest in this day and age being a referense to resources/wealth.

Israel as well
And there are.

[Annoying]

IRL s03e01, scary stuff.

[Mistame]

I think this is the 3rd or 4th time this thread has happened.

Pretty much.

You mean like your credit score, social security and your currently digitized health records, oh the horror.

Helps if you actually read the OP/article.

[Independent voter]

If you're patriotic in the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party, you get a high score.

If you exercise freedom of speech and post things critical about the Chinese Communist Party, your score goes down. Watching an American film can make your score go down.

Girls look at your score to see if you're worth dating, employers look at your score to see if you're worth hiring, schools look at your score too.

It's called the "Sesame score".

[Powerogue]

It probably sounds good in concept to them, but they should realize by now that the first thing people will do when it's implemented is find the best ways to exploit the system for artificial "score" with the least effort.

[Rudkobing]

It sounds like its going to suck to live In China if that's implemented.

[Krawu]

A collective database of the most personal and financial details of 1.4 billion people? Now there's something hackworthy if I ever saw it.

[Molis]

Meow Meow Beanz IRL

[Annoying]

Exactly what I was thinking (I assume you're talking about Black Mirror?)

Yeah, fantastic show. Accurate episode for a handful of things already. If an Uber driver drops below 4.7/5 stars, they can't drive for Uber anymore.

[Barnabas]

Oh boy so this is the solution to china's credit problem? lol