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Thread: "Once Untrustworthy, Always Restricted"

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    "Once Untrustworthy, Always Restricted"

    What is YOUR social credit score? WELLLL..... not high enough to live? too bad.

    OK, THIS not only sends shivers but incites the desire to act. But what to DO?


    Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6Buhli5MYk

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    Thanks Maggie - this is reminiscent of the episode "Nosedive" in the Black Mirror series ... chilling stuff.

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    Quote Originally posted by tarka the duck View Post
    Thanks Maggie - this is reminiscent of the episode "Nosedive" in the Black Mirror series ... chilling stuff.
    Yes, I saw that episode. Another series based on Philip K. Dick short stories has an episode that also chillingly mimics the end game. The tenth and last episode of Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams on Amazon "Kill All Others.":

    Philbert Noyce sees a political candidate on television — the only candidate running for President — introduce a slogan, "Kill All Others". At first it seems he's the only one who saw this — the real vs. illusion quandary — but soon confirms that others have seen this, and inevitably comes to think of himself as an "other" and then becomes an "other" himself. This is where the paranoia comes in, with the inevitable Dickian question of whether what Noyce is feeling and seeing is real, or his over-active mind — a reversion, as often happens in Philip K. Dick's stories, to the "is it real" dilemma, which never really goes away.

    The story for television, well written and directed by Dee Rees, departs from Dick's original 1953 story, "The Hanging Stranger," replacing nefarious aliens who have taken over the bodies of humans (as in Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Heinlein's Puppet Masters, also the theme of episode 1.7 of "Electric Dreams") with just us humans as both villain politician and "others" in "Kill All Others".

    The near-future setting gives us "Yes Us Can" and "Mex Us Can" as government slogans — a good example of how fascism can co-opt democracy by twisting its words — and Royce saying "Kill All Others" is "hate speech". https://futurism.media/philip-k-dick...ill-all-others
    Here is a brief analysis and the implications of some of the issues.


    Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEocK4w6qn0
    Last edited by Maggie, 19th March 2018 at 18:40.

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    President Xi Jinping is now president for life (and Trump thinks he is a wonderful guy and we should try that sometime).

    Proof that life imitates art — or at least Black Mirror on Netflix — China will soon be imposing strict penalties for those with low “scores” on its so-called “social credit” system. Starting May 1, Chinese citizens with low scores will be unable to travel via plane or train for up to a year, according to a release by the country’s National Development and Reform Commission.

    China’s social credit system is a controversial one. President Xi Jinping’s plan is to score citizens based both on financial and social behavior, creating a number similar to a credit score in the United States.

    “Once untrustworthy, always restricted,” is the guiding principle, according to a document signed by government officials, including the Supreme People’s Court.

    Criminal acts and financial misdeeds affect the score, as do seemingly arbitrary actions like who citizens speak with, what they do, and items they purchase. Those found to have committed acts like spreading false information, causing trouble on public transportation, using expired travel tickets, failing to pay social insurance, or smoking on trains will be the first group punished under the new system, according to Reuters.

    Although announced today, the system may have actually been in place since at least 2016, according to Human Rights Watch.

    The organization tells the story of a Chinese lawyer, Li Xiaolin, who attempted to buy a planet ticket to make a 1,200 mile trip home after a business trip. After scanning his national identity card, the online system rejected the purchase, stating he’d been blacklisted by China’s top court. Xiaolin checked the status, assuming it to be a mistake, and found he was indeed flagged as “untrustworthy” for failing to carry out a court order a year prior.

    He was prohibited from buying the ticket home.

    Xiaolin’s crime was in defending a man accused of rape, and defaming the client, accidentally, during the trial. After turning over court documents to his client’s family, the family elected to post them online. Xioalin was sued for defamation and ordered to issue an apology to his client, which he did. He later learned, during the ticket-buying fiasco, that his apology was deemed “insincere” by the court, in part because of the date: April 1 (April Fool’s day).

    He’s not alone. Journalists, political activists, and other private citizens have reported similar bans. Some seemingly stem from the most minor of infractions, or actions that would be legal elsewhere.

    Journalist Li Hu, for example, found himself on the blacklist after accusing a government official of corruption.

    The final version of the scoring system is set to be unveiled in 2020, and will relay real-time data reports on citizens to government officials, law enforcement, and possibly even other private citizens.

    Tapping this kind of data doesn’t even require a computer or mobile phone anymore, at least not in China.

    Chinese law enforcement personnel are already conducting large-scale tests of advanced optics with real-time facial recognition. The glasses are capable of not only identifying Chinese citizens, but pulling from national databases, allowing the wearer to instantly recognize wanted criminals or political dissidents.

    It’s not a stretch to assume the same glasses could include the social credit score of citizens.

    Add the newest developments to China’s already Orwellian approach to surveillance — over 170 million surveillance cameras (with 400 million more on the way), one of the world’s largest collections of citizen’s biometric data, and stringent censorship laws in place that block popular websites like Google and Facebook — and the present looks bleak.

    But the future looks downright dystopian.https://thenextweb.com/insider/2018/...eid=d8b5a89152

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    After this latest bout of refinancing my house, I’m in favor of:

    1) free financing (0%) for everyone and/or
    2) giving everyone back the money owed on their mortgages (jubilee)

    ...and then not sending the bankers to prison for life, only a long time.

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    I remember when China announced that they would be initiating this Sesame credit "game". Someone initiated a thread on another forum about it and most indicated that it would be a good thing that could it could be used encourage positive behaviors.I was kind of blown away that no one seemed to see what it's real implications were. I find it to potentially be the most terrifying social control and programming mechanism ever created. Sesame credit is the name of the organization that has created this horrific thing. I just saw a commercial on US television for Sesame credit geared to the 20 something crowd. They were offering free credit scores and the commercial presented a very friendly vibe. I guess the purpose is for them to get you used to the name and not be suspicious of it.

    The addiction to social media will make the Western cultures very vulnerable. Never has there been a more comprehensive, all invasive method for control and manipulation. The message is do what "we" deem socially acceptable or you will be an outcast in every aspect of social life. We thought they would have us by the balls if they could control our money, that's just a drop in the bucket compared to this.

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    Rather than “having us by the balls” I prefer the non-sexist term “having us by the short and curlies”.

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    You can't wax away balls.

    The credit companies are not even trustworthy and credit records are in constant need of correction. It not only sounds horrific, it sounds horrifically stupid and inefficient.

    We gotta just start bartering as much as possible.

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    Quote Originally posted by Dumpster Diver View Post
    Rather than “having us by the balls” I prefer the non-sexist term “having us by the short and curlies”.
    I prefer the Sci-Fi term: the Snarklies.
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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    Quote Originally posted by pointessa View Post
    I remember when China announced that they would be initiating this Sesame credit "game". Someone initiated a thread on another forum about it and most indicated that it would be a good thing that could it could be used encourage positive behaviors.I was kind of blown away that no one seemed to see what it's real implications were. I find it to potentially be the most terrifying social control and programming mechanism ever created. Sesame credit is the name of the organization that has created this horrific thing. I just saw a commercial on US television for Sesame credit geared to the 20 something crowd. They were offering free credit scores and the commercial presented a very friendly vibe. I guess the purpose is for them to get you used to the name and not be suspicious of it.

    The addiction to social media will make the Western cultures very vulnerable. Never has there been a more comprehensive, all invasive method for control and manipulation. The message is do what "we" deem socially acceptable or you will be an outcast in every aspect of social life. We thought they would have us by the balls if they could control our money, that's just a drop in the bucket compared to this.
    It has always been true that the best way to control people's behavior is through social pressure. I don't think I need to give examples because we all know of some. I recall hearing the saying that "People who have not done anything wrong have no need to worry".

    It has always disturbed me that the biggest threat to our independence is from our close in family and acquaintances. The herd wants to keep itself cohesive. It has always bothered me that people care what others are doing and spy and gossip. It has always frightened me that even innocent differences can be twisted and spread and be construed as evil deeds through slander.

    Now there are more effiecient means to use us against ourselves via various technologies.

    The Chinese model that deprives people of basic abilities to travel and to even eat and have shelter based only on data of "social" behavior is as Pointessa says, "potentially .. the most terrifying social control and programming mechanism ever created."

    AND when the stakes are so high, how will people respond to seeing someone else targeted? I don't know why I am not seeing more outrage to this example in other places?
    Last edited by Maggie, 21st March 2018 at 19:07.

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    Quote Originally posted by Dumpster Diver View Post
    After this latest bout of refinancing my house, I’m in favor of:

    1) free financing (0%) for everyone and/or
    2) giving everyone back the money owed on their mortgages (jubilee)

    ...and then not sending the bankers to prison for life, only a long time.
    I am really in favor of the jubilee model of social/economic management. Unfortunately the social credit score idea as promoted in China sees NO FORGIVENESS which is maybe how some people everywhere see others' various differences of opinions and transgressions against a "social norm"? People who are deviant should be shunned has its various expressions.

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    Social shunning, family shunning, religious shunning...all of it sucks. This country was formed in part to escape a whole bunch of social shackles. We'd best be very careful.

    China has a long history of honor and shame as part of social control. They're wrapping it in tech and making it worse, imo.

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    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post
    Social shunning, family shunning, religious shunning...all of it sucks. This country was formed in part to escape a whole bunch of social shackles. We'd best be very careful.

    China has a long history of honor and shame as part of social control. They're wrapping it in tech and making it worse, imo.
    I think you are spot on. In this article, it explained more of how the social credit is linked to consumer credit. DD and others talk about barter. IMO we do need to be in a position where we don't need what is offered. But like the TSA blocks on travel, we are REALLY hurt when we desire to freely move about or purchase necessities. The big stick of shunning even in olde time communities was also basic life support. Yes, this is apparently just amping up the ability to enforce our cooperation with the status quo as defined for us.

    I remember reading before that employers like using social media to make sure we are "socially healthy" before hiring. I don't have anything on my facebook page or have other social media like twitter. This issue still is in my radar as something creeping up to shut down dissent.

    Sesame Credit generates a social credit score for users based on "holistic" factors, such as credit history and social networks.
    Courtesy: Ant Financial
    Sesame Credit generates a social credit score for users based on "holistic" factors, such as credit history and social networks.
    Blair Zhou, 26, uses Alipay on a daily basis, spending at least 2,500 yuan a month with the third-party payments platform on everything from transportation to dinner.

    "Young people rarely put much cash in their purse now. A mobile phone with Alipay is enough," she said.

    What makes using Alipay even more convenient is Zhou's relatively high Sesame Credit score — 775 out of a possible 950 — that allows her to access a host of privileges unavailable to those with lower scores.

    Sesame Credit, a credit-scoring service from Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial, attributes scores to Alipay users who have opted into the program. Users with higher scores are able to access benefits that run the gamut from waivers on car rental deposits to expedited airport security checks.

    Sesame Credit is just one of several provincial-level or private pilot programs in China's push to develop a nationwide social credit system — even as experts warn of data privacy and transparency concerns. The current implementations are currently unconnected, but may ultimately be combined under government leadership.

    Part financial credibility indicator and part compliance mechanism, the social credit system aims to generate a score for individuals and institutions in China based on data like tax filings and driving demerits. And while consumers may reap rewards, the score also functions as a signal mechanism for authorities about whom or what deserves to be penalized.

    Carrots and sticks 2.0
    Beyond Sesame Credit's reward offerings, public social credit systems offer good-behavior benefits that can be minor conveniences like enhanced borrowing privileges at a local library, or free loaner umbrellas. But rewards can also have greater financial significance like expediting loan application approvals.

    Users with a high Sesame Credit score can access privileges, such as a deposit waiver on bicycle rental services.
    Courtesy: Ant Financial
    Users with a high Sesame Credit score can access privileges, such as a deposit waiver on bicycle rental services.
    Conversely, poor scores result in penalties enforced against individuals or organizations that have committed wrongdoings — like traffic violations or late bill payments.

    And those rules are not just hypothetical. Parts of the social credit mechanism have already been put into practice, according to Rogier Creemers, a researcher specializing in Chinese law and governance at the Van Vollenhoven Institute at Leiden University.

    "When rules are broken and not rectified in time, you are entered in a list of 'people subject to enforcement for trust breaking' and you are denied access from things. Rules broken can lead to companies being unable to issue corporate bonds or individuals not being allowed to become company directors," Creemers said.

    According to a document released by China's State Council, "trust-breakers" can face penalties on subsidies, career progression, asset ownership and the ability to receive honorary titles from the Chinese government.

    In a similar vein, those who fail to repay debts are punished by travel restrictions. Just last month, the Supreme People's Court announced that 6.15 million people in the country had been banned from air travel over the last four years for defaulting on court orders, according to local media.

    The Financial Times reported that some 6.73 million people were on a blacklist that had been in use by the court since 2013. To enforce penalties, the court announced it was working with a total of 44 government institutions to ensure that those blacklisted would be "limit(ed) … on multiple levels."

    China's new law tightens control on internet use China's new law tightens control on internet use
    10:12 AM ET Mon, 7 Nov 2016 | 00:39
    While inconveniencing some, the social credit system will likely bring about benefits to the Chinese financial system.

    A substantial proportion of China's population remains unbanked and parts of the economy are largely cash-based: Some 21 percent of the population did not have an account at a financial institution in 2014, according to the World Bank. A social credit regime could strengthen the credibility of the Chinese financial system by enforcing legal compliance and ultimately, building trust in the marketplace.

    Importantly, the system does not just ensure that individuals follow the rules, it also ensures that government officials and institutions are held accountable to the law, Creemers said.

    Despite that, backlash to the social credit system has been fierce with many Western media outlets highlighting the dystopian-sounding nature of the state taking a role in monitoring and policing citizen behavior. In response, state-run tabloid Global Times ran an op-ed that the system "won't be Orwellian" and such an interpretation by the West was "warped."

    Establishing a 'sincerity culture'
    For all its authoritarian overtones, the original rationale for creating the social credit system was considerably more benign.

    "As far back as 2004, there was mention of some system to respond to the lack of compliance in the market economy. The market economy brings about particular pathologies, such as people not paying their bills, companies committing fraud or the sale of substandard products," Creemers told CNBC in an interview.

    It was only later in a 2014 State Council document that the idea of scoring or measuring people as a tool for stimulating legal compliance arose.

    "China has huge problems with legal compliance so the regime conclusion was that since existing methods of generating compliance were not sufficient, they would step up their game with extra punishment," Creemers explained. "The system merely uses information the government already has on its citizens in a more coercive way."

    "The system merely uses information the government already has on its citizens in a more coercive way."
    -Rogier Creemers, Researcher at the Leiden University
    While the actual workings behind the development of the system remain opaque, the idea of building trust is a common thread that runs through planning reports on social credit across multiple government agencies. The State Council, effectively China's cabinet, described social credit as an "important component of the socialist market economy system … (for) establishing the idea of a sincerity culture" in a planning outline published in 2014. It said this was necessary so that "the honest mentality and credit levels of the entire society" could be raised.

    Likewise, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), an agency tasked with overseeing economic and social policy, echoed similar sentiments in its 13th Five Year Plan. In it, the NDRC stated that the development of "credibility systems" was needed to increase "integrity in all areas of society."

    State media has also echoed reassurance that the social credit system was being developed to nurture a business environment where fraud, counterfeiting and intellectual property theft would be more efficiently tackled. Still, local news agency Xinhua ultimately acknowledged that given how "credit reward and punishment initiatives" were being implemented differently across cities, the social credit system lacked sufficient regulation.

    The most commonly cited public sector pilot program is the one carried out in Suining, a county located in the Jiangsu province. In the trial, local authorities used information they already possessed, such as tax and criminal records, to assign scores to people. Citizens were then categorized according to one of four letter grades (A-D) based on their scores.

    They were correspondingly rewarded or penalized.

    After the project met with domestic backlash, local authorities adapted the system by removing the letter grade classification. The social credit scores, however, continue to be recorded, according to the Washington Post.

    Businesses are just as involved in driving the system forward, even though it's often framed as a government-led initiative, Shazeda Ahmed, a doctoral candidate at Berkeley, told CNBC.

    In her research, Ahmed, who specializes in Chinese internet policy, focused on Alipay's use of Sesame Credit. Both Alipay and Sesame Credit are run by Ant Financial, which is one of eight companies approved by authorities for social credit experimentation in the private sector.

    Sesame Credit gives users a score based on five dimensions of information: personal information, payment ability, credit history, social networks and behaviors. Some are more objective than others.

    The private sector has an interest in encouraging rule compliance, she said, because social credit programs could encourage more consumerism.

    That result works on two levels. Firstly, social credit serves as a means of allaying purchasing fears since "trust-breakers" would be removed from the marketplace thanks to penalty mechanisms. That's pertinent given China's patchy history of legal compliance, which has seen luxury goods and even baby formula counterfeited.

    The rewards mechanism in the social credit system could also generate higher levels of consumption, Ahmed said. While researching online reactions to Sesame Credit, she said she found plenty of buzz suggesting that users can increase their scores by spending more via Alipay. Online news platform Quartz reported in 2015 that Sesame Credit did not take into account what users purchased, but the amount of purchases affected scores.

    A spokeswoman from Ant Financial told CNBC that at present, the amount spent by Alipay users did not affect their corresponding Sesame Credit scores as much as their ability to "fulfill promises in a commercial context." As the scores are holistic in nature, the ability and willingness of users to repay debts had greater significance, she added.

    Sesame Credit also maintained that user and data privacy remain of utmost importance to the company. "Sesame Credit only tracks consumption-related activities of users who have signed off to join (the service)," the company told CNBC in an email.

    While it declined to disclose the number of Alipay users who had activated Sesame Credit, Ant Financial claimed it maintained strict measures to ensure a "financial level" of data security to prevent potential leaks, saying that 30 percent of Ant Financial staff are devoted to security-related work.

    For now, it remains unclear how exactly scores are calculated because algorithms used by Sesame Credit are blackboxed. Unlike Alibaba, Ant Financial is not a public company and as a result, has not come under the same level of scrutiny, Ahmed said. As such, information disclosed on Sesame Credit and the way it might be developed in the future has been relatively vague.

    Given its potentially dystopic proposition, reactions to the social credit system have varied.

    "From what has been outlined in the official sources, there is nothing more intrusive than what is commonly done in the West," said Forrest Zhang, a sociology professor at the Singapore Management University.

    Other experts disagreed, arguing that the social credit system had broader objectives than simply assessing creditworthiness. FICO is only concerned with financial solvency, Creemers said, whereas "the social credit system tries to affect regulatory compliance."

    "From what has been outlined in the official sources, there is nothing more intrusive than what is commonly done in the West."
    -Forrest Zhang, Sociology professor at the Singapore Management University
    A bigger issue could be that the social credit system could fail to address the very problem it was created to tackle. The system was built on the idea that the more known about individuals, the easier governing becomes, but Creemers suggested it could actually be more difficult to assess what a single score stands for when it encompasses such a wide scope of data.

    Ahmed, the doctoral candidate at Berkeley, said social credit relied on input that was too loosely-defined, which could result in "culturally specific restrictions" baked into the system.

    Your social media pages could affect your credit score Your social media pages could affect your credit score
    This in turn could have a major impact on civil liberties, she said, as people pile into a wide-reaching system that influences everything from ability to travel to career prospects.

    In spite of the ongoing debate concerning data privacy, netizens in China appear to have taken the system's kinks in stride. A scan of Chinese social media site Weibo reflected that the most popular discussions about Sesame Credit involved people brainstorming how scores could be used to improve a shared bicycle scheme.

    Zhou, the frequent Alipay user, put it this way: "I think it's a great service … To generate a direct credit score can produce lots of value in different areas, like borrowing money on certain days interest free (and) applying for credit cards."https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/16/chin...yond-fico.html

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    Yes, in general I am very cynical about much of crowd mentality. I see in these "alternative" forums the same willingness to be obedient DESPITE the wails and gnashing of teeth. How do I mean this? For one thing, the dramas such as the hoo ha that accompanies every new whistle blower with fabulous stories and the rehashing of who were the cowboys and who were the Indians of all the epochs is THEFT of attention and energy yet people never seem to tire of giving away their time on this diversion. Our poss-abilities are pissed away. This century has better access to the seeming "good time" for many. But the coopting by the same old "circus" now, IS as it ever Was.

    I feel like ranting.

    People don't want to gather around over "other people's" issues with strong solutions. No one has "time" to do some extra homework when "I AM DOING OK". For decades and decades I have seen the same issues never move forward. despite what people may think, it does not REALLY matter what people believe about hot topic issues WHICH ARE OTHER PEOPLE'S PROBLEMS, THEY will BE YOURS TOO. WHEN YOU, your own spouse, child, sister, mother, father, friend or brother is affected, you will THEN be agrieved. It may be a bit late then but was a problem all along waiting for you. The authorities given too much power will be corrupt and dangerous. No one is immune to the abuse of power.

    "16th century anarchist, Étienne de la Boetie. To him, the great mystery of politics was obedience to rulers. Why in the world do people agree to be looted and otherwise oppressed by government overlords? It is not just fear, Boetie explains in “The Discourse on Voluntary Servitude,” for our consent is required. And that consent can be non-violently withdrawn.https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/%C3%89...La_Bo%C3%A9tie"


    Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBsA7S8jxfU
    Last edited by Maggie, 22nd March 2018 at 20:41.

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    Senior Member Aianawa's Avatar
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    I do not agree with this and also they may be protecting themselves from tptW formally B, by doing this ?.

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