Fiction made real by Chinese checkers
In the first episode of the third season of Netflix’s dystopian series Black Mirror, Bryce Dallas Howard stars as a woman who has fallen victim to the evils of a social credit score.
Which is, essentially, an individual rating based on social media clout. Everyone owns and is subjected to an app that allows them to rate their interactions with each other, while also sharing status updates and photos. So if you’re kind to others, you’ll be rated higher than those who aren’t so nice. As a result, your rating gives you a class ranking; the lower you fall, the more you are shunned socially, financially, in the workplace, etc.
In other words, it’s a nightmare. But a nightmare that may be coming true – at least in China, where a social credit system called Zhima Credit is actively evolving through Alipay, a popular form of mobile payment in the country.
According to a recent story by Wired’s Mara Hvistendahl, “In 2014, the State Council, China’s governing cabinet, publicly called for the establishment of a nationwide tracking system to rate the reputations of individuals, businesses, and even government officials. The aim is for every Chinese citizen to be trailed by a file compiling data from public and private sources by 2020, and for those files to be searchable by fingerprints and other biometric characteristics. The State Council calls it a ‘credit system that covers the whole society.’”
A low score falls around 350, while a high score sits around 950. Those with higher scores earn certain privileges, while those who fall below can find themselves paying extra fines and facing penalties. And if you’re connected to people with higher scores, that helps boost yours, and likewise. Hvistendahl described using the system herself and being stamped with the “poor” rating of 550, describing herself as “the digital underclass.” She found herself paying deposits for things like renting a bike or staying in a hotel.
She also spoke to a man who had such a low score, he was labelled a “second-class citizen” and banned from most forms of travel, luxury hotels and found himself ineligible for large bank loans.
According to Chinese policy documents dating back to 2015 when the scoring system first went into effect, via Business Insider, if you’re a low scorer, you also won’t be considered for public office, can lose access to social security and welfare, will be more thoroughly frisked at Chinese customs, won’t get a bed in overnight trains and your kids will be barred from more expensive private schools, among a litany of other stipulations.
The system is even affecting potential relationships. Business Insider also reports that 15 per cent of users on the popular Chinese dating app Baihe display their social credit scores openly in order to weed out lower scorers and woo higher ones.
The beginning of the end has officially arrived.