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China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

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Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#171

Post by powerapple »

fjdjsmsm wrote: post #122
mistermann wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the expense seems to be... There does indeed seem to be signs of oppression of ethnic minorities in China, but to me this is a relatively unrelated anomaly on a statistical basis compared to the general question of where do the fruits of labour in China go: to those doing the work, or to the ruling class. Most of what I have observed suggests that there is a "rising tide lifts all boats" phenomenon underway, al…

Genocide should not be an ‘unfortunate fact of life.’ And lets be clear ‘sufficiently eliminating cultural distinctions’ means genocide.

When western journalists use 'colonism', 'genocide', 'ethic cleaning', or 'racism' to describe things, I often feel that they are doing this on purpose to reduce the weight of things whatever people have done in the past. So now CCP is nazi, and suddenly kids look around and say, nazi is not that terrible. Are you guys (activists) redefining the world genocide whenever you want? Western media lost credibility immediately afterwards.

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#172

Post by auganov »

People are giving the CCP too much credit in believing how far ahead they are in rolling this out. The social credit system is an idea and an initiative. Some systems try to implement some of its ideas on various levels. But there is no one social credit system.

Most articles do a pretty bad job at separating CCP's ambitions from the actual implementation.

Basically any data driven tracking effort in China will be presumed to be part of the "social credit system" effort. But one has to understand that doesn't mean they are actually part of a coherently connected and integrated system.

Many articles often talk about there being a "score" in the system but they're just talking about a score in one of the many systems out there. Usually they mean Alibaba's.

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#173

Post by glasslion »

mcguire wrote: post #107
AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least on paper it's optimized for all good things. From the article above: Negative factors: dishonest and fraudulent financial behavior, playing loud music, violating traffic rules, making reservations at restaurants and not showing up, failing to correctly sort your waste, fraudulently using other people's public transportation ID cards Positive factors, on the other hand, include: donating blood, donating to ch…

" Negative factors: dishonest and fraudulent financial behavior, playing loud music, violating traffic rules, making reservations at restaurants and not showing up, failing to correctly sort your waste, fraudulently using other people's public transportation ID cards " Some of these things are not like the others.

Because the author did not really study the so called social credit system, instead they just quote everything from wikipedia without double checking the facts.

wiki link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System.

That wiki try to associate every thing related to credit in China to the social credit system, which is terribly wrong.

For example, playing loud music may get you blacklisted by the beijing subway company, not the national credit system.

Violating traffic rules only affects two citie's own credit system, again not the national.

"Making reservations at restaurants and not showing up" is from a news hub site.

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#174

Post by HashingtheCode »

nl wrote: post #152
HashingtheCode wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the same thing as it applies to suspected terrorist only. In contrast anyone can be blacklisted by the SCS for numerous reasons unrelated to terrorism and banned from using ALL forms of public transport.

The key question is "is this subject to judicial oversight such that an ordinary citizen can challenge it" The US is better in that id can be challenged. However, there are significant difficulties with this in practice[1]. This is still better than the situation in China where there is no legal means to challenge it. [1] eg, https://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2019/01/02/no...

Apparently with the SCS, if you were to be blacklisted there is possibility to challenge the decision. Liu Hu appealed his decision but is still on the blacklist and has problems due to his low SCS.

Another case is listed below:

In Xie’s case, he didn’t have time.

“No one notified me that I was on the blacklist. Then court officials detained me, so I had to pay the fine,” he said. Xie is now off the blacklist.

Lawyer Li Xiaolin was also not given advanced notice that he was blacklisted.

In 2014, Li was sued for defamation and lost. A judge ordered Li to make an apology, which he submitted in writing in April 2015. Ten months later, when he was away on a work trip, he was blocked from buying a return flight home to Beijing. That’s when he found out he was blacklisted.

It took him another three weeks before an official told him why.

“The court said my apology was not sincere. I asked officials how they determined what is sincere.” Li said.

Eventually Li wrote a second apology and the court removed him from the blacklist in 2016. Then last year, he tried to get a credit card.

“The bank denied my application. I figured out that the bank might still have my name blacklisted and I was right,” Li said.

The bank updated its records the next day, but by that point, he had spent almost a year to fully clear his name.

“The social credit system gives a very powerful weapon to officials, in a country with very unbalanced relations between citizens and the government,” she said.

For now, Liu is still on the blacklist, which the Chinese state media refers to as the list of “laolai” or deadbeats.

He is still trying to get off it.

https://www.marketplace.org/2018/02/13/social-credit-score-c...

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#175

Post by kortex »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #8
gumby wrote: post #5

I’m pretty sure Equifax et al aggregate this info as well (well perhaps not yet your trash-sorting) such as arrest records and probably social media activity as an option, or future option, to swizzle into credit rating.

Your credit rating doesn't affect your ability to go to a concert or buy an airline ticket.

Yet.

> Among the complaints about the No Fly List is the use of credit reports in calculating the risk score. In response to the controversy, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials said in 2005 that they would not use credit scores to determine passengers' risk score and that they would comply with all rights guaranteed by the First and Fourth amendments to the United States Constitution.

It used to be a feature; they turned it off (reportedly). How hard would it be for them to silently re-enable it? How hard would it be to factor in facet Y which correlates with facet X (credit score)?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Fly_List#Controversy_and_...

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#176

Post by kortex »

disown wrote: post #150
dang wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't break the site guidelines like this. I realize that it can be extremely frustrating to encounter comments that are so wrong from your perspective, especially when you're representing a minority viewpoint in the community. But we simply can't have commenters doing this sort of flamewar on the site—the community won't survive it. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.ht…

> Please don't break the site guidelines like this. You were right to flag the comment in this instance. I realized I went a bit too far and actually went to delete/edit my comment soon after I submitted it but saw that it was already correctly flagged. I then was about to write an apology but was rate limited. So I just moved on. > I realize that it can be extremely frustrating to encounter comments that are so wron…

Except SCS is all about "fearing the other".

Ex. A: China's singular party has implemented a surveilance dragnet and social tattling ideology with vast repercussions on freedoms and censorship. Features include forced assimilation until it is "voluntary" (re-education), measures that encourage ratting out dissidents, a leader with near mythical status, and a technical panopticon.

Ex. B: HN commentor warning about just such a system.

I get your point, but GP is hardly "spreading fear about the other" when saying "hey we need to pay attention to this if we care about liberty"

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#177

Post by kortex »

sleepysysadmin wrote: post #30

The chinese system should be renamed to 'Social Control System' because that's what it does. It's intention is to control the masses. The problem with governments is size and reach. Governments attempt and do usually keep growing. The government ends up with laws like: https://library.municode.com/ar/little_rock/codes/code_of_or... Why does a government care if you honk a horn near a sandwich shop after 9pm? How many…

100% agree. Automation is a force multiplier. It means each human can build more widgets, travel farther and faster, harvest more crops, and also snitch on a neighbor, enforce traffic violations, and cast a chilling effect over any behavior outside social norm.

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#178

Post by White_Wolf »

I might be wrong but this thing China is doing is just like credit scoring that also takes into account behaviour? I mean... It's stuff that, at least in UK, is already done one way or another. Examples: I book a retaurant table and don't show up - I have to pay a fee or like most decent clubs have that unified database with trouble makers and some people are refused entry.

Edit: Just to clarify I'm not a fan of a system like this. I can see it going wrong and being abused in pretty much any country in the world.

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#179

Post by nl »

HashingtheCode wrote: post #174
nl wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key question is "is this subject to judicial oversight such that an ordinary citizen can challenge it" The US is better in that id can be challenged. However, there are significant difficulties with this in practice[1]. This is still better than the situation in China where there is no legal means to challenge it. [1] eg, https://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2019/01/02/no...

Apparently with the SCS, if you were to be blacklisted there is possibility to challenge the decision. Liu Hu appealed his decision but is still on the blacklist and has problems due to his low SCS. Another case is listed below: In Xie’s case, he didn’t have time. “No one notified me that I was on the blacklist. Then court officials detained me, so I had to pay the fine,” he said. Xie is now off the blacklist. Lawyer…

Interesting. For all the valid criticism of the Chinese court system, that is still faster than the case I linked in the US.

Not sure what that shows...

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#180

Post by ddnb »

Fricken wrote: post #143
rvz wrote: post #3

A dystopian and Orwellian trend.

Well, we already have a social credit system that's far more Orwellian and 1000s of years old. Your bank account dictates where you can travel, what kind of education you can get, and where you can live. In fact, if it's low enough, you don't even get to eat. Keep your credit score high. To get uppity about China's social credit system you really have to ignore the elephant in the room.

This is not the case in China?
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