The idea of social credit in China has had no shortage of alarming headlines behind it. A cursory Google search brings up articles detailing a central socialist boogeyman who watches his citizens’ every move in order to keep an accurate minute-by-minute detail of their lives. Some sources go even further to suggest this sort of surveillance is well on its way to being implemented in the United States. But this dystopian nightmare fuel–frightening to think of in its idealized form–is not all it appears to be. Boots-on-the-ground accounts of this crediting system tell a much different story.
Where often portrayed as a nationwide, state-led program, social credit (at least, for now) is much more fragmented in its practice. Some government-led programs are being piloted by bureaucratic officials in small, sleepy provincial towns. As detailed in the article written of Yangqiao, truthfulness and social credibility are not one and the same. Where some would have you believe that social credit is a dark, looming force that conducts all of a person’s thoughts and morals, the presence of gambling and mistruth in the town belie that notion. The idea of social credit does linger in the minds of Yangqiao’s people, as shown by the teahouse owner’s fabricated credit ratings out front of his shop, however, an iron fist of punishment seems to be all but lacking.
Larger forms of social credit, such as Sesame Credit, are all-encompassing data trackers by private companies with the capacity to track your online history, social behavior, and legal infractions. These types of accounts seem to follow the Black Mirror-esque ideas that are commonly touted. However, while CCP officials would certainly love free access to this data, it is still technically in the hands of a private company, though there is governmental access.
There is the argument that Chinese social credit is no more invasive than the financial crediting, internet tracking cookies, or rideshare rating systems we have here in the West. Plenty of attention has been directed towards online privacy and data abuse in recent years. There is something to be said for the deleterious effects that bad credit scores will have on one’s financial prospects. However, companies have not–openly, at least– begun to take a moral spin on one’s credit score.
There are plenty of misconceptions about the idea of social credit and the roots of those misconceptions should absolutely be critically considered. Racism and anti-communism run deep through the veins of the West’s relationship with China, and cannot be ignored when speaking to the anxieties surrounding it. That being said, and acknowledging the limits to the current system, I still find the idea of social credit to be incredibly dangerous. Mass surveillance, punishment without due process, and limit of free speech all seem to be within arm’s reach of the central Chinese government’s idealized social credit system.
Tim Oakes
Here’s the link for the article about Yangqiao: https://scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3012574/village-testing-chinas-social-credit-system
Regarding whether or not CCP officials have access to private company data, the answer is generally yes they do. Also, see this article about how the government has acquired the algorithms from these companies as well: https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-blazes-hazy-new-trail-to-tame-internets-algorithms-11661866321
I agree that social credit fueled by big data technology is certainly invasive and potentially dangerous. The extremes of this issue can be found in China’s digital surveillance of Muslims in Xinjiang. But even in that case perhaps the bigger issue is whether China is unique in its approach to surveillance or whether it’s just a potentially more extreme version of a broader trend in surveillance capitalism.