
China's social credit system blocked 11M flights and 4M train trips - jeffreyrogers
http://www.businessinsider.com/china-social-credit-system-blocked-people-taking-flights-train-trips-2018-5?IR=T
======
davesque
> Some provinces play a recorded message when someone tries to call a
> blacklisted debtor, informing the caller that the person they want to speak
> with has outstanding debts. And in May, a short cartoon with the photographs
> of debtors' faces began playing at movie theatres, on buses, and on public
> noticeboards with a voiceover that said: "Come, come, look at these
> [debtors]. It's a person who borrows money and doesn't pay it back."

Assuming that's being reported accurately...wow.

Although I'm always led to wonder to what extent the facts in articles like
this are exaggerated in order to portray one of the US's main global
competitors in a negative light.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
It is quite the opposite: China is much crazier than the western press makes
it out to be. If western media reported things about China too accurately, no
one would believe them.

You really only have to read Chinese media to get this, reading even state-
owned media (like China daily or global times) will leave you with a much more
negative impression of China than reading CNN or NyTimes.

~~~
jeffreyrogers
How do normal Chinese people feel about the things that go on?

~~~
Chaebixi
> How do normal Chinese people feel about the things that go on?

That can be really hard to find out. Chinese culture looks down on people who
criticize their own group in front of outsiders. So it's bad to truthfully
criticize your family in front of a neighbor, even if you do it at home, and
similarly bad to truthfully criticize your country in front of a foreigner.
For an example, see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuping_Yang_commencement_spee...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuping_Yang_commencement_speech_controversy).
That student was ripped apart and called a traitor in regular media and social
media, even though a lot of the things she said were true and often complained
about. Add mass censorship to the mix, which denies access to honest options
shared among the Chinese themselves, and it gets to be extremely difficult to
get an accurate sense of true Chinese public opinion.

There are also other confounding factors: such as the CCP not emphasizing the
distinction between the the government and the nation. Lots of people might
not realize "you can love your country and hate your government" at the same
time.

~~~
kika
> "you can love your country and hate your government"

Reminds me of Russia very much. Self-proclaimed "patriots" standard response
to any critics of government is "you just hate everything Russian".

~~~
stcredzero
Generalized:

Self-proclaimed [X] standard response to any critics of [X] is "you just hate
everything [X]".

I think it's a standard self-defense mechanism for any meme in the Dawkins
sense.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme)

~~~
larkeith
Slightly off-topic, but you might want to avoid using "[X]" as a general
placeholder - I was momentarily thrown off, as I expected each instance of X
to be the same.

~~~
stcredzero
Self-proclaimed Republican standard response to any critics of Republicanism
is "you just hate everything Republican".

It kind of works. Perhaps I need to include parts of speech?

Self-proclaimed Feminist standard response to any critics of Feminism is "you
just hate everything female".

~~~
larkeith
I think the main thing is that the second placeholder must be a subset of a
more general, separate third placeholder.

------
Sol-
It's going to be interesting/scary to see how the whole system plays out in
the coming years and decades. It's obviously quite dystopian, but what if it
works (in the sense that the population will overall be happy with it, not
just from the view of a authoritarian government of course), there is no
blatant corruption and the Chinese people are generally happy with it?

Maybe such technocratic methods of social control will become the norm in many
countries? Scary idea for us in the west, but the Chinese model (authoritarian
government + free-ish markets) already seems to be a credible competitor to
western liberalism, a successful social credit system would be even scarier.

~~~
mindfulhack
I like a comment like this. It's free of fear, and knee-jerk response.

I actually see your point. Some people may feel a sense of peace by being
tightly constricted by behavior that they're taught is OK to do, and what is
not. In such a system, there's actually security in there. Some people love
not having to decide how to live.

But this is what trumps your thought: people in China wouldn't even be able to
HAVE the conversation you and I are having right now (about this very meta
topic, about how to organize ourselves) - and therein lies the problem.

We objectively need certain individual civil freedoms, to even grow and
develop as a society.

So for humanity's future, China sucks. Its ideas are archaic, and its
totalitarianism ISN'T the way to go.

~~~
sitkack
They can have it, they just can't have it in a public forum where it can
spread. Participate in no communicable memes!

~~~
fwn
But that is, at least in the Western concept of social iteration, the only way
to scale & accelerate discourse.

No public discourse is just no discourse for most of its purposes. (Except for
maybe personal entertainment.)

~~~
loa-in-backup
There's peer to peer dissemination as well. A network spanning a whole country
nonetheless

------
peter303
The other insidious part of social credit is that the score is partially based
on the score of your network. That encouranges deeper segregation of the Haves
against the Have-Nots. A high score group wont link to low score members,meven
if relatives or former friends.

~~~
lainga
_Two stars; wasn 't a harmonious interaction._

------
rdlecler1
Today it’s Chinese citizens. Tomorrow they’ll tracking foreigners outside
China’s boarders and they’ll be putting pressure on Apple, Delta, and other
international companies to fall in line as well.

~~~
Jerry2
China already does that. Twitter and Facebook regularly suspend dissidents'
accounts when China asks them to do so. See [1] about Chinese billionaire who
lives in the US and the ordeal he was put through.

There's also a case of a Marriott Hotels employee who "liked a tweet" about
Tibet and got fired for it after pressure from China [2].

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/world/asia/guo-wengui-
chi...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/world/asia/guo-wengui-chinese-
billionaire-twitter.html)

[2] [https://work.qz.com/1220881/marriott-hotels-fired-an-
hourly-...](https://work.qz.com/1220881/marriott-hotels-fired-an-hourly-
employee-for-liking-a-tweet-by-a-tibetan-separatist-group/)

------
mlinksva
Does the social credit system ever charge higher prices to low scorers rather
than banning or shaming them? Skimming
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System#Involveme...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System#Involvement_of_private_companies)
it looks like this might be done to some extent for businesses so I wonder
about individuals.

To what extent is the social credit system a mechanism to collect bribes,
i.e., is it possible to have one's record fixed by paying off the right
people?

~~~
zamazingo
> Does the social credit system ever charge higher prices to low scorers
> rather than banning or shaming them?

That sounds like the system here (US). Low scorers receive much higher
interest rates -> significantly higher final prices charged

------
tnuc
Perhaps they should be jailed instead?

[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/debtors...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/debtors-
prison/462378/)

~~~
skrause
Imprisoning people who don't pay official fines is normal in most western
countries.

~~~
danbruc
So, playing devil's advocate, why then is it so outrageous to prevent people
from flying or staying in five star hotels in order to put pressure on them to
make them pay? Wouldn't you prefer being free and not being able to fly over
being in prison? Similarly we also have credit rating agencies collecting
information on your financial status and they may as well deny you access to
certain services based on that information. And yet another interesting field
is people being ignorant or simply assholes, throwing your trash on the
ground, being really loud at night, all the annoying small things making the
world a worse place while not really being bad enough to justify using the
usual big judicial system hammer all the time. Doesn't sound that unreasonable
that retaliating with a couple of small stings to your freedom could make you
reconsider your behavior.

~~~
_bxg1
I had this thought too. It sounds, just from those couple sentences in the
article, like the things people are being denied are only expensive luxuries.
Which, if you're in debt, you probably shouldn't be spending money on anyway
and it might even help to have an outside party keep you in check while you
get your finances back on track.

I think the big question to ask is whether these policies are geared to
pressure/aid people in getting into a better financial situation, or whether
they're geared to permanently punish people who got into a bad situation in
the first place. The part mentioned above sounds like it could be the former,
but:

"...the system needs to be improved so 'discredited people become bankrupt.'"

Sounds pretty condemningly like the latter.

~~~
danbruc
I totally agree, such a system certainly has a big potential to be misused,
either by design or by abuse. But if you think about it as a softer judicial
system, you might be able to get something useful out of it. Just be really
careful to not go too far and use the same care as in the normal judicial
system when building it.

~~~
_bxg1
If there's one thing we can all agree on about China's flavor of
authoritarianism, it's that it's efficient. When they decide to fix something
- be it their economy, or their environmental problems, or corruption, or
anything else - they just get it done.

Of course, the flip-side of maximal executive power is that it can be abused.
In the past that's how authoritarian governments have basically always turned
out. But China seems to be getting closer than any other to creating a version
that's actually functional. It's scary, but also fascinating to watch from
afar.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
China promised us in 2010 that they would fix their pollution problem in 4
years. That didn’t happen.

Every 8 or so years there is another crackdown on corruption, as part of
political housekeeping. Each time they say the problem is fixed, but then it
comes back.

China is the worst example of “getting things done” if that is your standard.
The central government has been less powerful than you would think
historically. Now, is it “different this time”? Maybe, but it definitely
wasn’t before.

------
nitwit005
Seems like they haven't learned from other countries that have had trouble
with unpaid debts and taxes. People can't pay their debts if the penalties for
owing the debts prevent them from holding a job.

~~~
lainga
The government might not care if they pay their debts. They'd rather kill some
chickens to scare the monkeys [0].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_the_Chickens,_to_Scare...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_the_Chickens,_to_Scare_the_Monkeys)

------
8bitsrule
Hunh. B.F. Skinner lives!

Another 5 or 10 years, maybe we'll be softened up enough for that.

"We told you 6 months ago to lose the beard. 50 points off your SCore. What do
you say to that?"

I'm thinking of Topeka in _A Boy and His Dog_.

------
now
That means it’s working as intended, right?

Ah, the times we live in!

------
mathieubordere
This makes me scared.

------
gimmeDatCheddar
We need to do whatever it takes to ensure this type of system never gets
implemented in America.

~~~
colordrops
Systems that accomplish the same goals already exist in the US, but typically
not through official channels. For instance, because of the first amendment,
you can't block web sites or censor media in the US. The workaround here is a
system much more complex than the Great Firewall of China, and involves
ownership and connections with media outlets, influence of editors by said
owners and also by threatening to withhold access to key officials, propaganda
campaigns, smearing of anti-establishment figures and narratives, planting
journalists, internet sock puppet accounts, forum manipulation, AI algorithms
for closed-loop influence and sentiment analysis, and social media filter
bubbles. In the US, the idea is to achieve the same effect as censorship while
convincing the public that they arrived at the desired conclusion themselves.

~~~
greenhatman
Some of those things might be true. But you won't have your life ruined from
saying bad things about the president or government.

So I'd say the West in general are in an objectively better position in that
regard.

~~~
zaarn
No but you can have your life ruined for wearing a chinese-style dress. Or
atleast get bullied by couple thousand faceless people on the internet.

------
chinathrow
Welcome to dystopia, have a seat and watch. Until you're at the other end of
the viewpoint.

------
brisance
Where there's demand, there shall be supply. Wouldn't be surprised if there's
already a black market for stolen identities on their version of the "dark
web".

------
cryptonector
It's the new Soviet internal passport system.

~~~
Chaebixi
> It's the new Soviet internal passport system.

China already has that, the Hukou, and has for some time.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Ya, Hukou is just on another level of crazy. But since the mid 2000s, internal
migration has been allowed without any hard constraints, you just can’t access
social services (like schools) as locals can. Well assuming you aren’t a
Uighur.

------
SN76477
Assuming this is factual, how long until they have a suicide epidemic?

------
fapjacks
One thing I have noticed over the last year or so is the strongly pro-PRC (but
anonymous) posting that happens in HN comments. I haven't tested the waters
with a post like this before, so I'm not sure if it will be brigaded. But I'm
guessing you'll be able to watch the posts I'm talking about roll in here over
the day today.

~~~
frockington
I've noticed this occurring with greater frequency then it used to. It seems
any mainstream or close to mainstream article about China will have several
clearly Google Translated (or equivalent) comments about how innovative China
is in _buzzword technology or industry_

~~~
taobility
you are worried too much. Hacker News has not that big impact which get the
attention of 50 cents

~~~
Analemma_
That depends on what you mean by "big impact". In terms of raw view count, no,
but in terms of prestige and influence, maybe. For example, I've noticed that
the comments section for The Economist is one of the places most overrun by 50
Cent-ers; The Economist isn't very popular but has readership among a lot of
elites in both government and industry, which is presumably why it's targeted
so heavily. The same thing might be happening here.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Somewhat off topic: I've noticed that, as a non-subscriber, I can no longer
comment on Economist articles. Is it just me, or has that happened to
everyone?

Given how bad the comment sections were getting, I can't blame The Economist
if they closed comments to all non-subscribers. It's a way to deal with the
astro-turfers, the trolls, the off-topic rants, and other garbage. And if you
want to do it badly enough to pay, well, at least The Economist got paid...

------
notveryrational
Remember the American "no fly list"?

How about the American "threat scoring system"?

China's doing just fine compared to the land of the free.

------
danschumann
We must remember our own narrative: the individual is sovereign; and keep
ourselves from collectivism, including a "social currency".

------
peter303
Not significantly different from underbanked US people who cant obtain
unsecured credit cards or a checking account by have a low FICA score or ban
in CheckSystems.

~~~
baumy
Please do not comment without reading the article.

> Some provinces play a recorded message when someone tries to call a
> blacklisted debtor, informing the caller that the person they want to speak
> with has outstanding debts. And in May, a short cartoon with the photographs
> of debtors' faces began playing at movie theatres, on buses, and on public
> noticeboards with a voiceover that said: "Come, come, look at these
> [debtors]. It's a person who borrows money and doesn't pay it back."

It is extraordinarily different.

~~~
peter303
Please dont comment by reading only one a singles article.

[https://www.wired.com/story/age-of-social-
credit/](https://www.wired.com/story/age-of-social-credit/)

------
rm_-rf_slash
I think some of the fears about such an overt system being implemented in the
US or other Western democracies are overblown. A democracy will always feature
different opinions and the opposition will always object to a social credit
scoring by the ruling party or coalition.

The bigger problem I foresee is that other autocracies will see China’s social
credit system as a basis for their own societies, much in the way that China
proved to the developing world that you don’t need Western-style democracy to
be a successful and wealthy economy.

Edit: upon reflection, I think a far larger threat for the West is if China
starts socially scoring _us_. Then we’re in trouble. China already owns or has
influential stakes in far too many Western media outlets, especially
Hollywood. And I can’t think of a single way that the West could stop China
from doing it.

