Social Credit System Arrives in China

The totalitarianism of tomorrow is here today in communist China, where the Social Credit System has been partially implemented. After it is fully operational in 2020, every individual and business will be assigned a score. Information to determine the score will come in part from the 200 million CCTV cameras and facial recognition technology that help to make China an Orwellian dystopia.

From Science Alert:

According to China’s Communist Party, the system will “allow the trustworthy to roam freely under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step”.

The trustworthy are those who pay their bills on time, don’t jaywalk, properly sort their garbage for recycling, and of course, refrain from thought crime.

In what’s being described as a “digital dictatorship”, their score takes a hit for each infraction, meaning they incur things like financial penalties and even travel restrictions.

That’s what happened to investigative journalist Liu Hu, who says the social credit system destroyed his career after he was blacklisted for making accusations of government corruption.

If you doubt this could happen here, consider the willingness of Google both to help China censor the Internet and to influence who wins elections.

Speaking of Google,

In a letter to senators, a top Google official said the company allows app developers to scan Gmail accounts, even though Google itself stopped the practice for the purpose of ad targeting last year. The company also disclosed that app developers generally are free to share the data with others, as long as Google determines that their privacy policies adequately disclose potential uses. …

Using software tools provided by Gmail and other email services, outside app developers can access information about what products people buy, where they travel and which friends and colleagues they interact with the most. In some cases, employees at these app companies have read people’s actual emails in order to improve their software algorithms.

Given the willingness of Big Tech giants to collude on behalf of its ideology, we might have an unofficial Social Credit System already. Maybe James Woods was suspended from Twitter not for an anodyne tweet but because his score fell below a certain threshold due to his incorrect attitude.

Like China’s communist government, Facebook also rates people’s trustworthiness, as part of the fake fight against fake news. Also from Facebook:

After calling off the launch of a smart display device earlier this year, Facebook is reportedly planning to announce it [this] week. …

The main feature will be video chat, and Facebook will use facial recognition to tag users and follow them around the room.

It brings to mind those 200 million CCTV cameras in China.

On tips from 1-Bodhisattva, Dragon’s Lair, and Stormfax.

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