I just read about China's new "credit score" system, and this is insane

[GummyBearz]

Everybody is measured by a score between 350 and 950, which is linked to their national identity card. While currently supposedly voluntary, the government has announced that it will be mandatory by 2020.

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 people’s 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 citizen’s score are posting political opinions without prior permission, or posting information that the regime does not like, such as about the Tienanmen 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. Imagine the social pressure against disobedience or dissent that this will create.

Anybody can check anyone else’s score online. Among other things, this lets people find out which of their friends may be hurting their scores.

Also used to calculate scores is information about hobbies, lifestyle, and shopping. Buying certain goods will improve your score, while others (such as video games) will lower it.

Those with higher scores are rewarded with concrete benefits. Those who reach 700, for example, get easy access to a Singapore travel permit, while those who hit 750 get an even more valued visa.

Sadly, many Chinese appear to be embracing the score as a measure of social worth, with almost 100,000 people bragging about their scores on the Chinese equivalent of Twitter.



https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/chinas-nightmarish-citizen-scores-are-warning-americans

[AZ Progressive]

1. Talk about a whole new level of encouraging conformity...

[FreakinDJ]

2. Just wait until Corp America tells us to conform so they can sell more goods to China

[cherokeeprogressive]

7. This is probably something we'll find is in the TPP after the fact. LOL n/t

[brush]

9. Sounds like someone's favorite book is "1984".

[Rex]

3. Wait til they try the trial balloon here in America.

It's coming.

[Generic Other]

6. Like that Peeple Yelp site

we will drive them off the nearest cliff if they try this shit.

[bemildred]

4. Facebook on steroids. nt

[Oneironaut]

5. This is a perfect way to maintain an authoritarian society.

You not only want to have absolute power - you also want to make it socially unacceptable to have a dissenting opinion. Having a dissenting opinion would be like saying "I like murdering people," or "I'm a thief" - you risk alienating everyone around you. You want to make people afraid to even think bad things about the government.

This can also, of course, be very profitable. Just make it so that a "good citizen" who buys certain items (which also just so happen to be created by people who are bribing you) has a better score, and therefore a better social standing.

[LuvNewcastle]

8. All the fucked up things China does

are coming here if we don't get off the road we're on. China is totalitarianism's test kitchen.

[mhatrw]

10. pilot program for the globalized world n/t

[Shandris]

11. So just like here, except it's the online mob and not the government.

We'll have it in...I give it 5 years.

Tops.

[mhatrw]

12. frogs in a slowly heating cauldron

I do not understand why we still can't see this coming and worse at this point.

We have already acquiesced on NSA spying, the Patriot Act, drug testing, and credit checks to get jobs.

[AngryAmish]

14. We have it already.

Chrissy Hynde, the lion shooting dentist, etc.

[davidpdx]

13. That is messed up

[mhatrw]

15. kick for more views n/t