China moves toward universal self-censorship
In the works for years, Chinas social credit system aims to create a docile, compliant citizenry who are fiscally and morally responsible by employing a game-like format to create self-imposed, group social control. In other words, China gamified peer pressure to control its citizenry; and, though the scheme hasnt been fully implemented yet, its already working insidiously well.
Zheping Huang, a reporter for Quartz, chronicled his own experience with the social control tool in October, saying that in the past few weeks I began to notice a mysterious new trend. Numbers were popping up on my social media feeds as my friends and strangers on Weibo [the Chinese equivalent to Twitter] and WeChat began to share their Sesame Credit scores. The score is created by Ant Financial, an Alibaba-affiliated company that also runs Alipay, Chinas popular third-party payment app with over 350 million users. Ant Financial claims that it evaluates ones purchasing and spending habits in order to derive a figure that shows how creditworthy someone is.
However, according to a translation of the Planning Outline for the Construction of a Social Credit System, posted online by Oxford Universitys China expert, Rogier Creemers, its nightmarishly clear the program is far more than just a credit-tracking method. As he described it, The government wants to build a platform that leverages things like big data, mobile internet, and cloud computing to measure and evaluate different levels of peoples lives in order to create a gamified nudging for people to behave better.
While Sesame Credits roll-out in January has been downplayed by many, the American Civil Liberties Union, among others, urges caution, saying:
The system is run by two companies, Alibaba and Tencent, which run all the social networks in China and therefore have access to a vast amount of data about peoples social ties and activities and what they say. In addition to measuring your ability to pay, as in the United States, the scores serve as a measure of political compliance. Among the things that will hurt a citizens score are posting political opinions without prior permission, or posting information that the regime does not like, such as about the Tiananmen Square massacre that the government carried out to hold on to power, or the Shanghai stock market collapse. It will hurt your score not only if you do these things, but if any of your friends do them. And, in what appears likely the goal of the entire program, added, Imagine the social pressure against disobedience or dissent that this will create.
more here. This is open source, free use granted.
villager
(26,001 posts)Mind yourself, citizen, lest your neighbors are required to do it for you!
pscot
(21,024 posts)Call it self-actualizing compliance with the needs of the State; individual self interest plus the desire to score off someone else.
villager
(26,001 posts)Self interest, indeed....
cprise
(8,445 posts)pscot
(21,024 posts)This is precisely why I retrieve my news from reddit. So I can read some fantastically-titled, hype-inducing article, then go to the comments for a well-thought and sourced interpretation on the topic.
[]ShrimpCrackers 1 point 2 days ago
And then you look at OP's posting history (omg), then you realize that Alibaba and Tencent are both in on this and make up 90% of China's internet commerce (but its only online right??). Then you find out that People's Bank of China which is the main central bank of China is greenlighting this too so it covers most non-cash transactions in China also...
Regulators usually do have a say in what large, cartel-like partnerships do. Hence, "greenlighting" or perhaps rubber-stamping. The private sector is taking the initiative with a consumer opt-in system to address the problem of no credit ratings, and the government is following in their wake with a separate system that focuses more on professional trustworthiness (there is nothing like the Better Business Bureau yet in China).
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186
Note how the video commentator choses language that makes the formation of the private system sound like a government plot, when it could easily be a case of rubber-stamping over an issue they've been caught flat-footed on. This strikes me as dishonest.
Also note how the opt-in system rep. calls the monitoring of social media a rumor. It seems the relationship with social media flows in the other direction: Chinese consumers -- most of whom are new to credit ratings -- are flaunting their rating numbers online. The feedback is immediate, so it is "game-ified".
With that said, this private system does sound pernicious. Imagine Amazon and Facebook merging, and then offering discounts or credit based on how 'nice' your purchases are (in addition to payment history) as well as those of your social media 'friends' (I'd bet that friend aspect is the source of claims about evaluating social media activity in general).
As for the government system, the press offers precious few details. The BBC cites "whether taxes and traffic tickets have been paid, whether academic degrees have been rightly earned and even, it seems, whether females have been instructed to take birth control." I'd be very interested to read just how the opinions of people enter into it, if at all.