A Social Credit System is coming soon
China is implementing a nationwide social credit system primarily based on its citizens’ online activities. This credit system rates an individual citizen according to their online data such as any information they post or consume on social networks, blog posts, or private messages. A bad social credit score for an individual means a higher barrier to get a good job, to apply for a loan, or even to buy a flight ticket. The Chinese government wants to implement this system in all of China by 2020. This means that all Chinese citizens need to be extremely careful about what they do online to maintain an excellent social credit score.
This type of social credit system seems impossible and unreliable in most Western countries including the United States. Individuals’ online profiles in most Western nations are still separate from their daily lives. Many people register with online social network platforms like Facebook or Twitter with fake names. In fact, it is easy for anyone to maintain more than one anonymous Facebook account without any special permission. Besides, most countries don’t have enough resources to build up the IT infrastructure to collect and evaluate the online activities of all of their citizens. However, the Chinese government doesn’t share these difficulties as most Western countries do.
China has the right policies for a revolutionary credit system
In China, cash is becoming obsolete. It is not entirely a surprise if you understand how the Chinese commercial market functions. Almost everyone uses online services for all kinds of errands, like paying rent, booking flight tickets or scheduling dentist appointments. WeChat, the most popular chat app in China, fully integrates these online services with its direct payment system, named WePay. For WeChat users, they only need to use their phone to scan a QR code of a store to proceed with payment, and the WeChat app will directly pay the store without cash. Due to its convenience, almost all restaurants prefer WePay than cash. Most street vendors accept WePay only because they don’t need to worry about fake bills.
In addition to online payment, the Chinese government is infamous for its Internet censorship policy which controls what information is allowed on the Internet. Moreover, there are more than 2 million Internet police who monitor online forums and social networks to eliminate controversial opinions that can cause damage to the country. In other words, the Chinese government has been tracking the online activities of its people for years.
Today, the Chinese government partners with Tencent, the company that makes the WeChat app, and with other Internet giants like Baidu and Alibaba, to collect and analyze the online activities of all Chinese citizens. If everything goes well along with the government’s plan, we will be seeing China’s new social credit system ready by 2020. It might sound a bit like the credit score system in the U.S. Instead of relying on individuals’ financial histories, Chinese citizens’ “social score” can move up and down depending on their behaviors online. Privacy has never been taken into consideration in China.
In fact, the U.S. is not that far from China’s extremism
It might be hard for us to imagine that this type of credit system will be accepted in any country other than China. However, when the line between our social life and online activities blurs, our online profiles become our real identities. In fact, we have been using social network profiles as a rating basis for years.
Many recruiters evaluate job candidates’ Facebook or Twitter profiles as an initial background check. U.S. customs officers have the right to check a passenger’s social media accounts before they enter the country. In early 2018, the U.S. government proposed that all visa applicants need to disclose all of their social media accounts for screening. A single inappropriate post on any social media site would cost a visa applicant the chance to live and work in the U.S.
When the Internet was introduced to the world in the early 1990s, it was a fantasy place where people anonymized themselves with fake identities in forums and games. There wasn’t much regulation on the Internet because most of the activities on the Internet were independent of reality. Fast forward to today, and the Internet has thoroughly blended into daily life. Everything we post and search on the Internet is no different than what we say and do offline. They are merely another representation of ourselves in the digital realm.
There is shock and anxiety about the upcoming social credit system in China. Some praise the ambitious plan of building a nationwide credit system for 1.4 billion people. Some doubt the rightfulness of invading the privacy of Chinese citizens in general. No matter which side of these voices we agree with, the trend of digitalizing a credit system seems unstoppable. A fundamental question remains: how should we behave in the digital era when all of our online activity stays forever on the Internet?
