Thanks for posting these links, Gary.
Scholar's who track China's laws are unhappy with mainstream media's
characterisation of SCS as akin to a Black Mirror episode. For
example, Jeremy Daum:
China through a glass, darkly
WHAT FOREIGN MEDIA MISSES IN CHINA'S SOCIAL CREDIT
https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/seeing-chinese-social-credit-through-a-glass-darkly/?lang=en
or, Rogier Creemers:
@ChinaMedia1: China's Social Credit System is a big thing, and most -
if not all - mainstream reporting on it contains major factual
mistakes. I spent a bit of time and 15000 words to review how it
developed.
-> see his paper published a few days ago:
China's Social Credit System: An Evolving Practice of Control
Leiden University - Van Vollenhoven Institute
Date Written: May 9, 2018
Abstract
The Social Credit System (SCS) is perhaps the most prominent
manifestation of the Chinese government's intention to reinforce
legal, regulatory and policy processes through the application of
information technology. Yet its organizational specifics have not yet
received academic scrutiny. This paper will identify the objectives,
perspectives and mechanisms through which the Chinese government has
sought to realise its vision of "social credit". Reviewing the
system's historical evolution, institutional structure, central and
local implementation, and relationship with the private sector, this
paper concludes that it is perhaps more accurate to conceive of the
SCS as an ecosystem of initiatives broadly sharing a similar
underlying logic, than a fully unified and integrated machine for
social control. It also finds that, intentions with regards to big
data and artificial intelligence notwithstanding, the SCS remains a
relatively crude tool. This may change in the future, and this paper
suggests the dimensions to be studied in order to assess this
evolution.
Suggested Citation:
Creemers, Rogier, China's Social Credit System: An Evolving Practice
of Control (May 9, 2018). Available at SSRN:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3175792
At the same time, western commentators like Rachel Botsman ("Who can
you trust?') are conflicted about the system(s):
"The big picture:
This particular chapter, it was one of the hardest pieces of the book
to get right, because it's really easy to take a Western lens. It's
really easy to point our finger at China without stopping and actually
saying, "well how far is this culture of surveillance from the West?"
It sounds like completely nightmarish territory that the West would
never descend into, in terms of using these trust algorithms that are
unfairly reductive about people. But then when you really look into
the amount of data that companies are collecting, and how they're
using that data to get a complete picture of how we behave, where we
are at any given time, what our political views are — we're not that
far off. It's just the government doesn't own that data. And this is
another point you hear from Chinese people — that it isn't so far off
in the West, it's just that you have no control, because it's a black
box system. There's a part of me that accepts that this notion of
privacy is dead. And this idea that we're in control of the data that
we post online and where that goes — I just think that's an ignorant
position to take." [
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/11/10/whats-your-citizen-trust-score-china-moves-rate-its-1-3-billion-citizens/851365001/
] You can read an excerpt from Botsman’s book here:
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinese-government-social-credit-score-privacy-invasion
All the best,
Greg
https://twitter.com/search?q=meta_lab%20social%20credit&src=typd
https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/gregory-walton/
On 12 May 2018 at 23:46, Gary T Marx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Coming from China, like tangerines and gun powder (with a little help from
> the companies we love to hate), to a neighborhood near you?
>
>
>
> https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinas-social-credit-system-keeps-a-critical-eye-on-everyday-behavior-even-jaywalking-2018-04-24/
>
>
>
> http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/03/life-inside-chinas-social-credit-laboratory/
>
>
>
> www.garymarx.net
>
>
>
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