Privacy in the digital realm is of major concern. Which is no wonder as the number of data breaches of big companies continues to grow.
There is another concern, however, and that is the question of how companies and governments will use this information to influence society.
On need only look at China’s “Social Credit System” to bring up ideas of Orwell’s 1984 and Big Brother watching you.
This social system has been in development for a while. The system has roots in Mao’s rule, but in its current state, was created in 2001 (Hoffman). Sold as a way to build up a system for distributing credit, and illustrating trust, this program has a number of much more sinister applications. One can listen to what happens when a Chinese citizen gets a low social credit score, as this episode of NPR’s “Planet Money” covers.
In addition, there is a not so far fetched episode of Netflix’s “Black Mirror” that shows what could happen when someone’s social score drops so low that services are denied. Do people think that this episode mimics China’s Social Credit System? This video explains just that.
In this article from the Washington Post, there is an exploration of what the Chinese people think about this credit scoring system. Could this happen in the United States? This article in Fast Company suggests that it has already happened.
Is it as bad as most people from the West seem to think? According to this article in the MIT Technology Review, the answer may not be as straight forward as we think. In addition, the fact is that Chinese tradition is that of finding ways to incentive moral behavior.
Is this program a simple nudge to get people to behave in a way that is better for the greater good? Does this program make free-thinking citizens into robots who simply follow rules and do not question authority? What happens to those who are marginalized by this system? These questions might be answered with more study of this program.
Regardless of what one might think, as many of these videos and articles suggested, it is impossible not to have your data out there for companies or governments to use. In the end, every time we click “Accept terms” for forfeit a little privacy to get what we want or need from those companies.
- Clement, J. (2019, July 9). Global identity theft data breaches 2018. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/215794/identity-theft-data-breaches-worldwide/
- Elgan, M. (2019, August 26). Uh-oh: Silicon Valley is building a Chinese-style social credit system. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/90394048/uh-oh-silicon-valley-is-building-a-chinese-style-social-credit-system
- Kostka, G. (2019, March 21). What do people in China think about ‘social credit’ monitoring? Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/21/what-do-people-china-think-about-social-credit-monitoring/
- Hao, K. (2019, April 23). Is China’s social credit system as Orwellian as it sounds? Retrieved from https://www.technologyreview.com/f/613027/chinas-social-credit-system-isnt-as-orwellian-as-it-sounds/
- Hoffman, Samantha (12 December 2017). “Programming China: The Communist Party’s autonomic approach to managing state security” (PDF). MERICS CHINA MONITOR. Retrieved 15 December 2018.
- Netflix. (2016, October 21). Nosedive. Black Mirror. New York, New York.
- NPR. (2018, October 26). Blacklisted In China. Planet Money. New York, New York.
- YouTube. (2018, April 4). Is China Becoming A Black Mirror Episode (Social Credit). Asian Boss.