Sesame Credit, a new Social Ranking system in China

[NanTheDark]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186



Long story short... in China they're implementing a social network-like system that gives you a score depending on how much of a "good citizen" you are. This keeps track of stuff like transactions you do, down to what you share with friends in the internet. If you share stuff that go with the government's views, your score increases. Otherwise, it lowers. Having friends with low scores also lowers your score, meaning you might need to leave them so that your score doesn't drop.

People with higher scores get privileges, and people with lower scores get penalized.

It's an optional thing right now, but it will become mandatory in 2020.

Personally... this really sounds like something straight out of science fiction. I'm still somewhat in disbelief over the fact this is happening over there. This is one way of controlling the population's mentality...

[Kimonio]

Hm.....this actually doesn't sound all that bad to me. If you ♥♥♥♥ up, you get punished. I like this idea.

it is flawed, somewhat. Can't really give a full analysis of my perspective atm.

[Charcoal]

This post by Charcoal was thumbed up by:

PositronWildhawk (December 17th, 2015, 7:01 am)

[Harmless]

So basically they're making the law a more public thing (when it was already supposed to be a public thing)?

...

Um... I'll need to look into this more before I post more thoughts, but from what I've read so far... What?!

Will likely edit this later.

Edit: Huh. While I was looking for quoting material from the video, I took a look at EC's video description and they did not list sources (apparently some people in the comments were also asking for sources and they did not get a response, likely from EC just missing the comments). The EC presenter was also a little dubious on whether or not these facts were entirely accurate (see the 6 minute and 26 second mark in the video, or 6:26). Of course, it's still likely that EC could be onto something regarding the new system that the Chinese Government has deployed. Since articles tend to disagree with eachother and the details of the system are not being revealed/still unknown, we're still a bit in the dark about this whole thing.

However, I will say; I do agree with EC, in that they better not be right. Because if they are... then this world just got a whole lot darker.

[KABOOM]

Hm.....this actually doesn't sound all that bad to me. If you ♥♥♥♥ up, you get punished.

Who defines "♥♥♥♥ up"? And what if you disagree with them? What if they are genuinely terrible? Speaking out against the government could be considered "♥♥♥♥ up". So, if you disagree with the government on something, your score drops. Even if it's just on a political basis. Or even if that something is literal murder (which, considering this is China's government, is entirely possible). And even if you're totally blameless, associating with low scorers lowers your own score.

And what's the punishment? Fines? Jail? Ostracization? Death? If you think those are too harsh...guess what. Score drop.

[Harmless]

Yeah, even if what EC said doesn't turn out to be entirely true, they're trying to monopolize opinions and relabel/redefine a lot of things under their own mindset. That's not how opinions work.

[Charcoal]

they're trying to monopolize opinions and relabel/redefine a lot of things under their own mindset. That's not how opinions work.

Yeah, that's how media works I believe.

[NanTheDark]

Edit: Huh. While I was looking for quoting material from the video, I took a look at EC's video description and they did not list sources (apparently some people in the comments were also asking for sources and they did not get a response, likely from EC just missing the comments). The EC presenter was also a little dubious on whether or not these facts were entirely accurate (see the 6 minute and 26 second mark in the video, or 6:26). Of course, it's still likely that EC could be onto something regarding the new system that the Chinese Government has deployed. Since articles tend to disagree with eachother and the details of the system are not being revealed/still unknown, we're still a bit in the dark about this whole thing.

However, I will say; I do agree with EC, in that they better not be right. Because if they are... then this world just got a whole lot darker.

I should have done a better job at looking up sources. And yeah, I guess we still don't have the whole picture to judge this by, but still, this could potentially be a bad thing.

[1018peter]

Well,with the propaganda game in place,this might be better for a totalitarian country like China. With it,people are less likely to break the laws of the country.

If you think it's going to limit people's opinions,you should know that China has a filter wall for the net that blocks certain information (Such as the evils of the communist party) into the country's net. Not to mention the Tiananman square protest (Which ended with bunch of students gunned down and wounded). If you think they have opinions,the nationalists would've rose back to power a long time ago.

[Bogdan]

I like this idea frankly and it should be applied in more countries as long as the leader isn't a piece of ♥♥♥♥ (I'm looking at you Erdoğan). The mass of people of a certain country are nothing but dumb sheeps, if they hear someone protesting for whatever reason, they'll join, regardless if that reason concerns or affects them or not. With a good consitution, law inforcement and a leader that isn't looking forward to run away with your money after his mandate is done, this can actually improve the society in a country.

Again, most countries miss the things listed above, so right now it doesn't seem like a good idea, but it still can help improving the quality of a society and thus modeling a good citizen. (Bark at me, but the more free they are, the more barbaric they become).