Social Credit System
Did you ever heard about Chinese Social Credit System? It’s a program that rewards
people for good behaviour and impose restrictions on those who aren’t model citizens.
According to China State Council the project should be adopted in 2020. This system will process data from various sources, including surveillance monitoring, to
create our profile. And just like a private financial credit scores, a personal social score
can move up and down according to users behaviour. This idea was first announced in
2014 under the slogan „keeping trust is glorious and breaking trust is disgraceful”.
Currently the system is run by city councils and private tech companies like Alibaba. It is still unclear what specific technology will be used in the fully implemented system. As of now, only proof of concept have been tested. However Business Insider reported that some regions are already participating in various social point programs. As a result, poor behaviour can result with a ban for flying, booking trains or ordering video games. For example almost 10 million citizens with low scores have been blocked from buying tickets for domestic flights. Internet providers can throttle your connections speed. There are even cases where kids were keep out of the best schools. In 2016 there was a government notice that encourages companies to use a blacklist for troublesome employees. It is worth mentioning that such list already exist. People are notified by courts before they are added and have 10 days to appeal against the decision.
Currently the system is run by city councils and private tech companies like Alibaba. It is still unclear what specific technology will be used in the fully implemented system. As of now, only proof of concept have been tested. However Business Insider reported that some regions are already participating in various social point programs. As a result, poor behaviour can result with a ban for flying, booking trains or ordering video games. For example almost 10 million citizens with low scores have been blocked from buying tickets for domestic flights. Internet providers can throttle your connections speed. There are even cases where kids were keep out of the best schools. In 2016 there was a government notice that encourages companies to use a blacklist for troublesome employees. It is worth mentioning that such list already exist. People are notified by courts before they are added and have 10 days to appeal against the decision.
On the other hand there are rewards for scoring high number of social points. Some of
the benefits are discounts on energy bills, possibility to rent items without a deposit or
even better interest rates at banks.
So how to score points? According to Bloomberg citizens can gain points by paying bills on time, donating blood or doing volunteer work. Interestingly even shopping habits are rated. Meanwhile violating law will lower our score. However one of the most alarming thing is rating people based on interpersonal relationships. Our choice of friends will be assessed and our points will be tied to people we know through social media. As a result, a bad citizen will drag the score down of those around them. For example if I would say something controversial about the government on facebook, it will affect all my connections including families and friends. This might actually create social ostracism out of fear for punishment.
So how to score points? According to Bloomberg citizens can gain points by paying bills on time, donating blood or doing volunteer work. Interestingly even shopping habits are rated. Meanwhile violating law will lower our score. However one of the most alarming thing is rating people based on interpersonal relationships. Our choice of friends will be assessed and our points will be tied to people we know through social media. As a result, a bad citizen will drag the score down of those around them. For example if I would say something controversial about the government on facebook, it will affect all my connections including families and friends. This might actually create social ostracism out of fear for punishment.
At this moment it is impossible to say how this will turn out. Constant monitoring, data
harvesting and behaviour rating might change how the society works. Black Mirror, a TV
series, show how this concept might look like in the future. Life might become an endless
popularity contest, with us fighting for the highest rating that only a few can attain.
Sources:
Sources:
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https://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinese-government-social-credit-score-privacy-
invasion
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System
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https://www.techspot.com/news/77533-beijing-moving-forward-controversial-social-
rating-system.html
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Do you think that this system should be adopted in Europe?
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Is it healthy for the society to be constantly monitored?
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How do you think it would affect our daily life?
I am against of regulating and monitoring our life. Even in Europe there is a lot of spying. Authority wants to control citizens to have power but I think we should oppose. Can you imagine a situation that you write something in our conservatory course and day after you rating falls or goes up? However I can easily imagine that somebody will try to conduct it also in Europe. Constantly monitoring proves distrust and peoples’ isolation and, as it was mentioned in a text, social ostracism. In such system people afraid of every move.
ReplyDeleteI think that this concept of grading citizens could be tempting for some countries in Europe. As you said, we are already being spied on by governments and corporations and social credit score feels like a next step. It also add additional control over citizens since the pointing system would be created by ruling party.
DeleteThis concept is terrifying. Constant judging, fear and big brothers eye contantly watching. Orwell warned us about it in his book Nineteen Eighty-Four.
ReplyDeleteI cannot understand how can this be happening. I guess that's becouse we didn't get rid of socialism/comunism once and for all.
Implementing such systems will couse only misery and eventually our self destruction. I don't thing there is anything good in such a way of controlling people.
I don't think it sould be adopted anywhere although I already see that in western europe people have less freedom then few years ago.
Here you can actually see how part of the system works - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lXKZWGkvPI. It's surprisingly good at detecting people. So you can imagine how close this is to Orwell concept of Big Brother.
DeleteThe system shouldn't exist in Europe. This is terrifying idea. I saw that Black Mirror episode when it first came out and it hit me hard. I stopped using all social media after that for a few days. In here someone definitely will try to use it in a bad way.
ReplyDeleteIt will affect almost every second of our lives. We would be looking at each other, doing fake things to not be left behind. Of course it could be a silver lining in this as the "better-graded" people could benefit from this in many ways. But I am scared that it would make as all very distant to people that are even slightly with lower score than we have.
It is not health to be constantly monitored. I wouldn't feel safer because of that, only more watched and judged by the others.
But you are speaking about being judged by the others what can lead to absurdities as in that episode you mentioned above. People would develop fake behavings only to gain good score. But in the chinese program I think it is about being judged by government depending on whether you are good person or make crimes. Such a system could be a good one. It just would be a "better police" guarding you from bad things happen.
DeleteFor clarification, corporations can judge as well. I am curious how this will work in China. I think that once the system will be fully functional then a lot of our questions will be answered.
Delete1. Do you think that this system should be adopted in Europe?
ReplyDeleteI really don't know. Maybe with time when we see how it is going in Chine we will be able to tell with certainty if it is safe to use it in our homeland. But times are changing and we cannot always stay behind though. So maybe we should prepare for such innovations.
2. Is it healthy for the society to be constantly monitored?
And is it healty for the society not to be monitored?
It is relative issue. We must to think hardly where our civilization is going and how we want to build and rase our societies. Theoretically if we do not have any on our conscience, we shouldn't be afraid of surveilance but despite it it can go too far anyway. Really it is hard to tell for sure.
3. How do you think it would affect our daily life?
Maybe people would start to behave better? :P They probably would find more sublime entertainment and ways of spending their time then.
Good points. I am not totally against monitoring people but I don't like the concept of converting our actions and behaviours to a scoring system. I think it's prone to abuses. It's also can restrict our freedom of speech since you can just give negative points for saying controversial ideas.
Delete1. I am absolutely against adopting the system in Europe.
ReplyDelete2.Constant monitoring of individuals is dangerous idea and I cannot imagine situation where it wouldn't be abused eventually.
3.If the constant surveillance would be reality, surely I would try to conform to the idea in order to gain benefits mentioned in the text and avoid penalties however, giving my freedom as a price for benefits is not acceptable to me.
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ReplyDeleteReading your presentation, I immediately thought about the Black Mirror series. "Nosedive Featurette" it is not the best episode, but it ties in perfectly with what you describe. I'm sure that system should not exist at all. Each of us wants to be free and not constantly controlled. I can't imagine that we live in a society in which we are constantly followed and evaluated. If this situation existed, I think that it would affect us as in the Black Mirror series.A constant struggle to raise our prestige, our values and goals will change.In general, the idea of monitoring and evaluating - raising or losing points seems to me sick.
ReplyDeleteI saw that episode as well. I don't think it will go to such extreme lengths since ordinary citizens can't rate others. However it is still concerning that such system can exist since the consequences can be severe.
DeleteJust after the first few sentences, I was reminded of the television series "Black Mirror". It's been a long time since I watched it, but I remember it well. It made a really big impression on me. It even scared me a bit. I didn’t think that a similar model is currently functioning somewhere. I hope very much that it will never reach Europe. This level of surveillance can’t affect people well. You can lose yourself. People who had high ratings in the TV series were a bit like robots, the only nice and helpful person had a very low rating.
ReplyDeleteAt the first time when I've heard about this program I thought that this is some kind of joke, a parody of Black Mirror's episode. Then I've started digging deeper into this topic and I've got terrified a little. I hope such practice will be never followed by any European country. I can't even see that any resident would accept their lives to be montiored at such scale. Imagine the amount of protests that would arise after such notification from goverments. This is not healthy for our sanity. Chinese people will run crazy if they will decide to implement this system for good. We would need to act, just like on the theatre's scene, each day to keep our score high. Nobody would be totally honest with himself, there would be hardly any 'real' people. That would be the beginning of the end of humanity.
ReplyDeleteYou can see here that they are already close to adopting this system - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lXKZWGkvPI
Delete1. Never, human freedom is the most important thing that we have. It is just a system of surveliance to spy on people.
ReplyDeleteIs it healthy for the society to be constantly monitored?
2. No because it's just stressful. Humans are not machines, we make mistakes and what if in some situation it will be used against one? There can be disastrous consequences about such system. Even without such system I feel like I'm constantly monitored. Nowadays we have to really know what we are doing and think twice before doing something stupid.
3. It will further develop the introvercy in society. The fact that we are so friendly to the machines makes us somehow machines. We have to communicate to keep us in healthy realtionships. So when that system will have it's debut, people will be afraid about losing points, their rates, so they will step back.
Few weeks ago friend of mine comeback from his holiday in New Zealand and one of his travel-midstop was Beijing. He was showing us a pictures of -literally- thousands of cameras on the street. Every several metro station there're checkpoints with gates like in the airport. Also, few weeks ago there was a presentation of AI that is able to recognize people by body movement. It's really scary, because they already have all infrastructures needed so we can't even say that's some nightmares from the future- everything happens now!
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion it's really terrifying but I'm not sure if we can still do anything about it. We're already monitored in every single activity in out life, even or especially in Europe.
I guess it still needs to take some time before we would feel it in Poland/EU, because of lack of infrastructures but unfortunately I think it's just a matter of time. Also I think that full control will affect society with many mental diseases.
I also saw some documents on how advanced this AI and monitoring already is. So far it looks like China can really adopt this technology in 2020. Those cameras can recognize people in cars or trains.
DeleteHaving read this article, I immediately thought about "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell, where society was under total control of omnipresent government led by Big Brother. Seeing what is going in China, I realized that Orwell's vision slowly becomes reality. Such monitoring system may completety destroy relationships between humans, e.g people may start to report misbehaviour of their neibhours, just to score more points and get some benefits.
ReplyDeleteI think that denunciations will be part of this system. At least in China. There are already some stories of children reporting their parents for misbehaviour.
DeleteIn my opinion this system is going too far, I can give a bit of my privacy to government, but not everything. Implementation of that system could lead to a bigger problems in making relationships between people, when already men have a lot of problems in meeting girls nowadays. I'm completely against disabling possibility of buying plane tickets because of anything even if it's for lowering climate change.
ReplyDeleteConcentration camp of XXI century. It is sad. I don’t think citizens agreed on that. Would you? But wait, you don’t react.. AWAKENING! Now you decide to do something! It looks like this: you switch browser’s card and mark “Interested” on Facebook’s event. It is so called gradual neutralization. Russia knows how to use it, China is implementing its Social Credit System and it may affect us in future. I don’t want it, you neither, so we must not allow it. It’s so unhealthy, it brings so much pressure and stress. It’s cruel. I feel that I would not obey, I would rather fight against or eventually die after they took everything from me.
ReplyDeleteI think that european countries won't adopt this system because of the potential social outburst that could lead to riots. They might try to implement the monitoring itself but not the pointing system
DeleteI don't like the idea of a goverment's system to judge it's citizens is too much of what distopian novels like Orwells 1984 were about. However even in Europe you have simillar systems but they are a bit different. Like when you try to get a consumers credit from bank or life insurement. There is only one rule to make community healthy - freedom.
ReplyDelete1. I think it is a interesting idea but technology overwhelms us and we try to include it in every field and part of our lives. I would like to not introduce it.
ReplyDelete2. No, because people will stop being themselves and lose their own impulses. Constant observation will limit them. It's too much interference in a man.
3. People will be like robots. They will watch what they do. They will cease to behave naturally.
During reading this article I realized that level of human stupidity is constantly raising (I mean Chines authorities). It is obvious that systems like that are impossible to implement in developed countries. Ok, It’s possible on short term in countries like China or other totalitarian countries but only there. In normal countries we understand that thing which pushes us forward is our diversity. How we could imagine something if we all will think and behavior the same way. What s’more, almost every genius at this planet has a problem with communication with other people. Bill Gates is an introverted man. So, we should punish him because he doesn’t like talking to much or being happy all the time? I’m 100% sure that systems like this in China is a fad. Nothing more.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting example and not pulled out of thin air. Even if you're not an anime fan, I would recommend watching Psycho-Pass. The premise of the series is exactly the same, the only difference that the Sybil system that governs all originated in Japan. The series is brilliant.
ReplyDeleteWhat I would like to talk about is the idea. We assume that the idea is to have an obedient society, but in truth, the underlying goal is different. As with the regular Credit System, which we are all a part of (although I can imagine younger people don't even know that they are), the aim of this is to predict future behaviour. Predict it based on your past behaviour. This is part "Minority Report", part "Psycho-Pass", part "Big Brother".
It raises a different question though: Can it be done? I'm pretty sure it can - for the most part - and as with all things in life, if it can be done, it surely will. With that out of the way, what will be the ramifications of this happening?
Truth be told, we don't know. Many comments here say that there surely be a social outcry, possibly a revolution, but Chinese are not of the revolting kind. Ever since Confucius, China has been a family, with the Emperor as the father. Demanding obedience, demanding respect, demanding servitude. I have read about people behaviour changing for "the better" due to the new system and some Chinese people are saying they enjoy that. That life is "better".
Now. Pause for a moment. What does it mean that the behaviour changes for the "better"? If there is something like better and worse behaviour, shouldn't we all strive to behave better rather than worse? You might say it is not natural, it does not come from a particular persons' nature. Culture as a whole impacts our ability to live in our natural state. It has been thwarting our instincts for ages now. Without culture, there would be no definition of better and worse behaviour.
I don't have the answers. Maybe it is a slightly exaggerated evolution of culture? It does sound like a logical successor to where it is going. Why do we need privacy? What do we want of life?
The devil, as always, lies in the detail. Do I, personally, believe that surveillance of 100% of population to catch 5% deviations is justified? I don't. Who watches over watchmen? People making the rules will be subject to them? And of course, exactly as with the regular credit system, there is a catch 22. You need a loan to get out of your financial troubles, but you can't be troubled to get a loan. There is a narrative in the latest season of "Daredevil" where an FBI agent needs a promotion, because of his financial issues. As a ranking officer of a government body he is denied one, because his credit score is too low. There is risk that this might be leveraged against him by the bad guys. This of course pushes the agent to do some unsavoury things, because there is no legitimate way for him to dig himself out of the hole (side note: I've always loved how in English you actually dig to get out of the hole. I mean, is it going out on the other side of the globe? Or what's up with that?) This might lead to Kafkian situations. Those where you're guilty, without being charged. Those where you would like to clean your name, but you can't as no one trusts you, you have already been judged.
Psycho-Pass actually deals with a lot of those questions and does it in a very clever way (at times).
Whatever happens, I was born in 1983. I've lived through offline PC revolution, through emergence of cell phones, the internet boom, literally technology changing people lives, people behaviours. I have learned not to assume anything. Fittingly "may you live in interesting times" is reportedly an ancient Chinese curse. Thank you Chinese people. Thanks to you I have first row seats in the biggest spectacle there is. Fingers crossed it does not end like it began.. with a big bang.