Sesame Credit: The Gamification of Falling in Line

[Kanzler]

I think we should calm the **** down before we know what this really is.

The context behind this is that apparently China has a poorly developed credit score system and legal system. This means that Chinese lenders don't have a good picture to decide whether or not they should lend somebody money.

And um.. well that's all we can possibly know about it at the moment. Ant Financial, one of companies piloting these social credit systems (SCS) has come out in refutation of some of the claims that Western media is making:

Unsurprisingly, Sesame Credit has received some negative press in the Western media. Articles repeatedly claim that Sesame Credit would take the behaviour of people's friends into account when determining their score, and that it would monitor social media activity.

In a statement sent to New Scientist, Ant Financial refutes some of these claims. "Materials published on social media platforms do not affect our users' personal Sesame Credit score," the company said. Chen says he is not aware of any part of the system that judges individuals based on the behaviour of their friends.

Also, I don't know exactly how such a system could be "mandatory". I mean, even here in the West, there are "mandatory" information collection systems. You can't do business with any company without them tracking information from you, so yes we've got "mandatory" surveillance as well. I'm not sure what the utility of forcing everybody to "use the system" would be when 1) how would you even do that and 2) it's already kind of happening?

Of course, there is no democracy nor a free press in China, so I'm very afraid for the possibility that this might get implemented very poorly. At the same time, Western media and the West in general go apeshit whenever China does anything, so my opinion on all this is that everybody should proceed with caution.

 

[Melody]

While I find this to be disturbing by my admittedly very Western Culture Influenced standards, that doesn't mean that China has committed a Human Rights Violation yet.

Should we be cautious? Hell yes. If you're planning on travelling to China, you will have to be aware of this system in place and decide on whether or not it will affect your stay. It may very well do so if you have to reside in China for any significant length of time.

Should Beijing and the Chinese Government be cautious? Definitely!!! There are so many horrible, terrible ways people can and will abuse this system and I hope for the sake of humanity that they understand exactly what it is they're trying to do and realize the can of worms they're opening by doing so. Fortunately it seems like they are definitely trying to be careful by piloting the program and using several private companies to develop many different ways to do so. Also it's good that the system is something you can Opt Out of if you want to; even if it might be difficult or frowned upon.

I'd urge anyone in China to Opt Out as soon as possible to avoid having their life disrupted as they experiment with this though. Personally I think that if many people choose to distance themselves from the system; it will force them to rethink their strategy. The Chinese people have 5 years to resist the change, and they should resist this change. If they don't and it gets implemented, then they deserve whatever reaction that Western Civilization has to it. Pretty sure it won't be nice either...in my opinion, even in a limited manner, this system is a violation of basic human rights.