China's social credit score

China's social credit system (SCrS) doesn't exist in the form that the public often imagines. It is incorrect to compare it to dystopian fiction such as 1984 or an episode of Black Mirror. China does employ authoritarian practices on its citizens but SCrS isn't on of them.

## Facts

a few misconceptions:

* first is that there is currently no national SCrS in place. There are various private and regional or local govt initiatives that resemble SCrS or combine "traditional" credit systems with other modifiers, but nothing at the national level quite yet though it is supposedly in the works. There are some national level blacklists, but again, they're not quite the same as a SCrS.
* second, is that not every individual has a social credit score. Widespread data collection is of course conducted by the govt, and by certain private data/tech giants -- though that's more under the general surveillance and data driven business model hats, respectively. But at present, there is no known system where everyone has a "score".
* third, misconception is the belief that social behavior, consumption habits, and political loyalty impact one’s social credit and constitute a basis for imposing punishments.

## Reports

* In July 2019, *Wired* reported that there existed misconceptions regarding the Social Credit System of China. It argued that "Western concerns about what *could* happen with China’s Social Credit System have in some ways outstripped discussions about what's already really occurring...The exaggerated portrayals may also help to downplay surveillance efforts in other parts of the world." The rise of misconception, according to Jeremy Daum of Yale University, is contributed by translation errors, the difference in word usage, and so on.
* In May 2019, *Logic* published an article by Shazeda Ahmed, who argued that "[f]oreign media has distorted the social credit system into a technological dystopia far removed from what is actually happening in China." She pointed out that common misconceptions included the beliefs that surveillance data is connected with a centralized database; that human activities online and offline are assigned with actual values that can be deducted, and that every citizen in China has a numerical score that is calculated by computer algorithm.
* In March and February, 2019, *MIT Technology Review* stated that, "[i]n the West, the system is highly controversial, and often portrayed as an AI-powered surveillance regime that violates human rights*.*" However, the magazine reported that "many scholars argue that social credit scores won’t have the wide-scale controlling effect presumed...the system acts more as a tool of propaganda than a tool of enforcement", and that "[o]thers point out that it is simply an extension of Chinese culture’s long tradition of promoting good moral behavior and that Chinese citizens have a completely different perspective on privacy and freedom."
* In November 2018, *Foreign Policy* listed some factors which contributed to the misconception of China's credit system. The potential factors included the scale and variety of the social credit system program and the difficulties of comprehensive reporting that comes with it.
* In May 2018, Rogier Creemers of Leiden University stated that despite the Chinese government's intentions of utilizing big data and artificial intelligence, the regulatory method of SCS remained relatively crude. His research concluded that it is "... perhaps more accurate to conceive of the SCS as an ecosystem of initiatives broadly sharing a similar underlying logic, than a fully unified and integrated machine for social control."
* In March 2021, *The Diplomat* remarks that the assumption of Social Credit System being an Orwellian surveillance system held by Western observers exaggerates the reality and purpose of the system in real life. Despite the claim, the social credit system is "an extension of bond issuance risk assessment credit ratings introduced in China in the 1980s" and primarily serves the function of a financial risk assessment tool.

## References

1. ↑ https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d774e7751444f32457a6333566d54/index.html
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Horsley, Jamie (16 November 2018). "China's Orwellian Social Credit Score Isn't Real". Foreign Policy.
3. ↑ Matsakis, Louise (29 July 2019). "How the West Got China's Social Credit System Wrong". WIRED.
4. ↑ Ahmed, Shazeda (1 May 2019). "The Messy Truth About Social Credit". logic magazine.
5. ↑ "China's social credit system stopped millions of people from buying travel tickets". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 11 January 2020.
6. ↑ "Is China's social credit system as Orwellian as it sounds?". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 11 January 2020.
7. ↑ Creemers, Rogier (9 May 2018). "China's Social Credit System: An Evolving Practice of Control". Rochester, NY. doi:10.2139/ssrn.3175792. S2CID 53668075. SSRN 3175792.
8. ↑ "China's Social Credit System: Speculation vs. Reality". The Diplomat. Archived from the original on 4 May 2021.