You are being watched.
The Chinese government has a secret system,
a machine that spies on you every hour of every day.
They designed it to monitor subversion,
Which could pretty much mean anything.
Winnie-the-Pooh GIFs posted by ordinary housewives,
shopping sprees most people thought were “irrelevant.”
Hunted by the authorities,
You will never escape.
Good guy or criminal,
If your number’s low,
they’ll find you.
Welcome back to China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
And I know who you are, too.
Just kidding.
Only a tyrant would monitor everything you do online.
Or possibly your mother.
Hi mom!
Speaking of online monitoring,
I’m sure by now many of you have heard about
China’s social credit system.
China’s State Council released an outline
for a social credit system back in 2014.
Officials say it will “allow the trustworthy to roam
everywhere under heaven while making it hard
for the discredited to take a single step.”
That sounds like some high-concept science fiction show
disguised as a crime procedural on CBS.
But it’s actually something happening in China right now.
The idea is that 1.4 billion people
will be monitored and given a score—
determined by everything from credit history,
to behavioral habits,
to even the social media behavior of their friends and family.
Which is horrifying.
Imagine if your social credit score depended on
what your Uncle Ron does on the internet.
For the last time Uncle Ron,
there are no princes in Nigeria!
So how would such a social credit score work?
Well, in one city in Shandong province,
residents were assigned a thousand points each.
And if you “Get a traffic ticket;
you lose five points.
Earn a city-level award,
such as for committing a heroic act...
your score gets boosted by 30 points.”
Remember, standing up for human rights
is not a heroic act.
That’s subversion of state power.
Which is minus infinity points.
Here’s another example of how
a social credit system could work.
There’s something called Sesame Credit.
It’s run by Ant Financial, a subsidiary of Jack Ma’s Alibaba.
Ant Financial’s technology director told Wired
that even activities like playing too many videos games
or buying diapers can affect your score.
“Someone who plays video games for ten hours a day,
for example, would be considered an idle person...
Someone who frequently buys diapers would be considered
as probably a parent, who on balance is more likely to have
a sense of responsibility.”
That is so wrong.
Doesn’t he know any serious gamer
is probably also buying diapers
so they don’t have to interrupt their gaming
with bathroom breaks?
What’s the point of having a high Sesame Credit score?
It can mean perks like “booking a rental car
or a hotel room without making a deposit,
taking out loans at lower interest rates,
being shipped online purchases to try out
before paying for them,
and obtaining visas to Luxembourg and Singapore
through an expedited process.”
Sounds pretty sweet.
But what happens if you have a low social credit score?
“If your score gets too low,
you can be banned from buying plane tickets,
renting a house, or getting a loan.”
This all sounds pretty scary.
And I thought Facebook was scary!
“Facebook gathers a huge amount of information
about its 1.4 billion daily users—
things like age, gender, relationship status,
what kind of groceries you buy,
even the square footage of your home.”
Wow, Facebook is scary.
And also, top-notch reporting from that guy.
But China also has 1.4 billion users—
or as they’re sometimes known, citizens.
And the Chinese regime wants to collect data on them
for a different reason.
“The government here is saying it is trying to purify society
by rewarding those who are trustworthy
and punishing those who are not.”
“China planning to go full big brother in 2020.”
It’s like the Chinese Communist Party wants to
out-Orwell George Orwell.
But here’s the thing:
The Communist Party doesn’t need a social credit score
to monitor citizens’ every move.
For example,
they can just check your social media activity on WeChat.
Or the vast array of security cameras everywhere.
“Chinese technology firms, like Sense Time
are helping the government effort,
by developing advanced cameras that use
artificial intelligence to track just about everything.”
In some parts of China,
authorities collect even really,
really personal information.
And as for punishing people for Thoughtcrime,
the Communist Party already has black jails.
Where they torture human rights lawyers just to be ironic.
And if you practice the wrong religion,
watch out,
because military hospitals will kill you for your organs
and sell them to rich people.
Which sounds like a high-concept science fiction movie.
But is actually something that’s happening in China right now.
So the reality is, the Chinese Communist Party
has plenty of very functional tools for repression.
All without a social credit system.
And that’s good—from their perspective, at least—
because most of the reporting you see
about the social credit system
is great exaggerated or just flat out misleading.
According to Jeremy Daum,
an editor for the blog China Law Translate,
there are several common misconceptions,
such as “The system will be mandatory by 2020,”
“All Citizens will be given a ‘Citizen Score,’”
or “Your score will dictate your place in society.”
None of those is strictly accurate.
One scholar at Leiden University wrote a paper called
“China’s Social Credit System: An Evolving Practice of Control”
...to clarify what he also calls “major factual mistakes.”
See, the Social Credit System is not one,
giant, unified and well-organized system.
It’s actually “an ecosystem of initiatives
at the central and local level,
operated by state and private actors.”
And we all know how messy and gross
Chinese ecosystems can be.
Not one, but eight private companies have been
given permission by China’s State Council
to develop their own Social Credit Systems,
like Ant Financial’s Sesame Credit.
And one researcher says the social credit system
may be more “about spurring consumerism
in a country where people have historically s
aved more than they’ve spent.”
After all, Sesame Credit is all about companies
selling you stuff—
and what you buy affects your credit score.
Whereas on Sesame Street, the only sponsors
are the letter C and the number 7.
Although I do really want to buy some cookies now...
Anyway, Sesame Credit is owned by parent company Alibaba,
which is China’s biggest online commerce company.
So maybe you make a nice luxury purchase on Alibaba,
and your score goes up.
And then you get an easy visa to Luxembourg,
where you’ll of course,
“open up the Alipay app to find out about local sights and shops,
as well as make payments using Alipay,
and potentially rack up a higher credit score in the process.”
But that’s just one private company.
These private social credit systems are evolving separately
from local government social credit score initiatives.
And the local government initiatives
are also separate from each other.
I mentioned the city in Shandong
that gives you a thousand points,
and then adds or subtracts
based on your good or bad deeds.
I guess they’ve been reading a lot of Harry Potter books.
10 points for Gryffindor!
But in other places,
the social credit system looks totally different.
In Shanghai, the local government created
their own app called Honest Shanghai.
“You sign up using your national ID number.
The app uses facial recognition software
to locate troves of your personal data
collected by the government,
and 24 hours later,
you're given one of three ‘public credit’ scores—
very good, good, or bad.”
And if you get “very bad,” your phone explodes.
Now keep in mind, that app just draws from government databases,
so it’s all info the government already has on you.
And in another part of China,
Financial Times reporter Tom Hancock found a village
where the system is...let’s call it,
your grandparent’s version of a smartphone app.
That is, it’s handwritten notes on paper.
Villagers nominates each other for things like
“‘filial piety’ ‘clean and tidy’ and ‘promotes wealth creation.’”
Kind of like your high school yearbook:
“Most likely to succeed,”
“class clown,”
and “most filial piety.”
“Villagers who do well in the vote get red stars next to their name
and easier access to bank loans.”
I mean, at least in the low-tech system,
people get to vote.
In other parts of China, the social credit systems
have a different goal in mind—
like dealing with a moral crisis in politics.
Basically there’s a growing perception t
hat the central government is weak
and local governments are corrupt.
I don’t know where people get that notion from!
Anyway, the idea is that—to help fix this—
you can give local governments a rating.
Of course, Chinese citizens are already allowed
to petition the government...
but that doesn’t always go so well.
I’m sure things will go better once they can track
everyone who tries to petition.
What’s that, Shelley?
Oh right, they already do.
And despite all the problems I just mentioned
with these social credit systems...
there are more problems.
Like, what happens when there’s a mistake,
and you get assigned a low score by accident?
This Wall Street Journal articles talks about a woman
who was fined for using her son’s subway card,
because the algorithm couldn’t tell the difference
between theft and borrowing her son’s card.
And then there’s basic security issues around the fact
that they’re storing so much personal data on millions of people.
In this exposé by Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis,
...two reporters found that for a few hundred yuan,
they could easily gather personal information
on anyone in the country,
including where they are right this very second.
They could also get their “hotel booking number,
ethnic group, date of birth, ID card number,
current residential address and hotel room number.”
And for a little more money,
they could even find out who you shared that hotel room with.
And for even more money,
they could find out about that time you binge-watched
all seven seasons Gilmore Girls in one weekend.
Hypothetically.
So how is is it possible that reporters—
or really anyone—
can get access to that supposedly secure data
for so many people?
“Either government and police insiders
are routinely selling access
to a treasure trove of personal information,
or that national databases are vulnerable to outside hacking.”
But that’s beside the point.
The real point is,
in China...everyone can be Big Brother!
So you see, China isn’t becoming an Orwellian nightmare.
It has been one for years!
So sit back, relax,
and buy more stuff using your smartphone.
And I’d also like to remind you that China Uncensored
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And to everyone,
thanks for watching this episode of China Uncensored.
Once again I’m your host Chris Chappell,
see you next time.
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