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Millions of Chinese individuals and businesses have been labelled as untrustworthy on an official blacklist banning them from any number of activities, including accessing financial markets or traveling by air or train, as the use of the government’s social credit system accelerates.
[...] Over 3.59 million Chinese enterprises were added to the official creditworthiness blacklist last year, banning them from a series of activities, including bidding on projects, accessing security markets, taking part in land auctions and issuing corporate bonds, according to the 2018 annual report released by the National Public Credit Information Center.
[...] According to the report, the authorities collected over 14.21 million pieces of information on the “untrustworthy conduct” of individuals and businesses, including charges of swindling customers, failing to repay loans, illegal fund collection, false and misleading advertising, as well as uncivilized behavior such as taking reserved seats on trains or causing trouble in hospitals.
About 17.46 million “discredited” people were restricted from buying plane tickets and 5.47 million were restricted from purchasing high-speed train tickets, the report said.
I, for one, welcome our new, well-behaved party overlords.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pkrasimirov on Friday February 22 2019, @02:07PM (1 child)
Reading the comments I see people really have no idea how the terror in totalitarian system works. During communism there was no "social score" or such thing, people were sent directly to death camps if someone too "proactive" heard them say a thing they didn't like. Also it was very, very important if you were of the right ancestry, only at that time it was not HAN but The Party HQ. If you were one of the "leaders" then you could even kill people and don't even have to bother to care for it. Actually it was kind of expected to do it so being sociopathic was a minimum requirement.
This system is dreadful because it hits everywhere (thanks to the 21 century communications), not only in schools and workplaces. I mean before the "untrustworthy" could not enroll to Uni or work any white-collar work, now they cannot even buy a train ticket. And the "AI-enhanced" list makes for really, really inhumane criteria and selection. "Bad credit" they say, "fake advertisment" they say but with the absence of independent justice any number of bad-sounding claims can stick around. Have you ever heard of the crime "being enemy of the people" and "being counter-revolutionary"? I mean it is even worded to sound as if you have no chance, you "be", you "are" something, therefore you cannot help it. It didn't say you "did" something but you "are". That is also a mighty blow on the sanity and even if some people survivied the camps they never felt their life back.
It's terror and horror, and all totalitarian systems root their foundations on it. It starts with widely accepted small pieces of "compromises" in the name of security/children/anything and it's only downhill from there. What's wrong in barring cons from fast trains, right? Yeah, let's replace our entire judgement systems with "social systems". That will save soo much money for sure, right? Not to pay to all these judges, lawyers etc. Just sweet AI.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @10:47PM
No that's also how it works in the modern free world and probably did in the past.
The difference is that we have a bunch of checks and balances so there is a small chance that your paragovernmental good ole boys network could possibly end up picking a fight it doesn't win if you're sloppy with your warlording then the whole fiefdom will come crashing down.
China's communist government is based on it's old monarchy so unlike in the us each government beaurocrat considers themselves to be some sort of tiny king (Where the same job in the us would be considered a shitty gov job that people only work for the pension and health insurance program). Also there is a defined hierarchy so america for example, could fill the executive branch with deformed monkeys and the rest of the government would keep things from falling apart.
In China if the communist party slips up and puts an idiot in charge there will be almost nothing they can do to rectify the situation. As a matter of fact at that point holding on to power and ruling with an iron fist becomes a matter of survival for any leader in such a situation.
>Not to pay to all these judges, lawyers etc. Just sweet AI.
Oh come now I don't want to be like China but let's not pretend that the legal system delivers justice here. The legal system delivers punishment on behalf of those who can afford the legal resources to make it move. I engage the law when I think people are dicking me around but last time I did I felt filthy as my attorney delivered a bullshit ADA complaint to my property manager... not because of a legitimate disability but because the penalty of losing would have wiped out the entire LLC and he knew their lawyers could deal with tenant laws if I complained that they were out of compliance fixing my shower on time and then I'd have to deal with their retribution. So they shut the fuck up and fixed my shower even though their preferred plumber was "booked" and now they can't wait for me to leave before they fuck up and I terrorize them again. If I had proper justice they wouldn't have been scared enough to follow the law and not cause problems for me over it later.
So that's justice in america... a able bodied man abuses law meant to protect the disabled because his landlord isn't afraid of breaking rental laws. Was I in the right? Yes I need a fucking working shower and the law says so. Is that what the ADA is meant to provide? Was justice delivered? No it was just my lawyer being a bully he would have probably threatened the guy's children if he thought he could get away with it.