Social Credit

                                    Social Credit


The "social credit system," first announced in China in 2014, aims to reinforce the idea that "keeping trust is glorious and breaking trust is disgraceful," according to a government document. The government is setting up a vast ranking system that will monitor the behavior of its enormous population. The program will be mandatory. Some programs are run by city councils, others are scored by private tech platforms which hold personal data, but this is planned to be fully operational nation-wide by the end of the year.

It is like private credit scores. A person's social score can move up and down depending on their behavior. The exact factors and weighting are secret — but early examples of infractions include bad driving, smoking in non-smoking zones, buying too many video games and posting fake news online.

Low scores can keep you from buying tickets for domestic flights and from getting business-class train tickets. According to Foreign Policy, credit systems monitor whether people pay bills on time, much like financial credit trackers — but also ascribe a moral dimension like spending too long playing video games, wasting money on frivolous purchases and posting on social media. People who refused to carry out military service last year were barred from enrolling in higher education, applying for high school, or continuing their studies. These strictures can be inherited; a child can be punished for a parent's misdeeds. Although work on the social credit scoring algorithm is not yet complete, around 18 million people have already been banned from flying—and 5.5 million from purchasing high-speed train tickets—because of outstanding debts.

Scores can keep you out of certain jobs, hotels, and vacation trips. One interesting use appeared in the eastern Chinese city of Jinan who started enforcing a social credit system for dog owners in 2017. Pet owners get points deducted if the dog is walked without a leash or causes public disturbances. Those who lost all their points had their dogs confiscated and had to take a test on regulations required for pet ownership.

Some are very creative. The government algorithm will go as far as to install an “embarrassing” ring tone on the phones of "laolai," debtors, shaming them every time they get a call in public. Chinese authorities released an app that allows users to locate anyone with unpaid debts within 500 yards.

One can see the appeal here. No one would argue very hard over people being encouraged to be better citizens, take better care of their pets, avoid indebtedness. But there is a question as to who should do this and how aggressive they should be. Can civic virtue be legislated top-down?

One can only wait until the current crop of virtue-signalers get their hands on this.