from Human Events:
The Invisible Shackles of America’s Social Credit System.
China’s social credit system is coming to America, but Big Tech is enforcing it.
The phrase “social credit system” or “social credit score” is relatively unknown to Americans. But in the People’s Republic of China, the communist government has been developing such a system for the last decade, and are looking to roll it out nationwide by 2020.
The Chinese government intends to use social media data, surveillance, and purchasing trends to develop a “score” for its citizens to gauge their “buy-in” to the state. Presumably, the better the score, the more “benefits” citizens are entitled to receive from the government. Conversely, a bad score would severely handicap your life, punishing you for your socially maladaptive behavior, either real or perceived.
At its worst, this gives the Chinese government the ability to wield tech companies as a weapon to ultimately stifle the commerce, travel, and social interaction of those that are “blacklisted”—in other words, full dictatorial power. Of course, China has never been a pillar of freedom and liberty. It comes as no surprise that it is developing a sophisticated system to crush dissent. The Hong Kong protests have brought much of China’s reality to the forefront of international discussion.
What does come as a surprise, however, is the emergence of the similar—if not identical— modes of technologically-mediated social control and coercion in a democracy like the United States—but with a sinister twist. Here, this form of political control doesn’t emanate from a central government, as is the case with China, which can offer a rallying point for protest and public outcry. Here in the U.S., we’re facing a decentralized system that is much more difficult to pinpoint and fight.
Americans needn’t fear Big Brother but their fellow “well-intentioned” citizens who serve as the thought police in the cyberpunk dystopia of 2019.
