Blog Post #8

The Social Credit System, how un-American is it?

China’s social credit system is a combination of government and corporate (however, it is to be noted that in the Chinese world, corporations act as basically an extension of government) surveillance that gives citizens a "score" that can restrict their ability to take actions, such as buying plane tickets, taking out loans or even pubic shaming for such nefarious actions as "frivolous spending".

This system has been in place in China for a little over five years or so now. I liken it to a modern day "Scarlet Letter" so to speak, when a woman was once forced to wear a red letter A for "adultery" on her dress.

Will such a system ever come to America? I highly doubt it. The implications are frightening and Orwellian. For starters, I believe it’s downright unconstitutional as a violation of the First Amendment. If someone, for example, wants to question side effects of vaccines on Facebook, and they are given a low score by someone at Facebook that doesn’t share the same viewpoints then a persons political opinions could negatively effect their ability to do other things such as use online payment services such as PayPal.

It is a slippery slope. Who exactly gets to decide what is "inappropriate" or extremism? Where is the line drawn? In my mind it makes perfect sense under an authoritarian regime like China, but not in a constitutional federal republic such as the US because it’s essentially a "blacklist system" that gives preferential or discriminatory treatment against citizens.

There are numerous negative implications for Americans, if this system were to exist here. If your social media account is hacked and something is posted without your knowledge or consent it could negatively affect your score and take months or years to fight the fraud. This is highly likely to occur since 37% of Americans have had at least one social media account hacked. (Abel, 2024)

Similarly, with the rapid advances in new artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, it will become increasingly more difficult for people and organizations to tell if a photo is real or not. Someone could very easily alter an innocent photo of you to put you in a compromising or obscene position. With AI, no one will know anymore what can really be trusted. Imagine now that the fake AI photo significantly lowers someone’s social credit score.

Last year, The House Business and Labor Committee unanimously endorsed a bill that would seek to block our government from using social credit scores. One supporter of the bill, Rep. Cheryl Acton, R-West Jordan said, "It’s sometimes called 'tech-induced totalitarianism,' or digitally-induced social control where they use these other factors to move people in one direction or another. It’s another way to socially engineer acceptable behavior. To my mind, it’s un-American because it’s a way to reshape society outside of the political process."

I agree with her and would wholeheartedly support such bills to prevent what is happening in China from occurring here. We must not allow the government to decide what is acceptable here in America, we are a free country and nothing remotely similar to China's system has a place in our society.

Sources Cited:

Abel, S. (2024, February 7). Top Social Media Hacking Statistics & Trends for 2024. StationX. https://www.stationx.net/social-media-hacking-statistics/#:~:text=With%20so%20many%20individuals%20having,up%20for%20social%20media%20platforms.

Could China's "social credit score" happen here? Utah lawmakers move to make sure it can't. (2023, February 15). The Salt Lake Tribune. https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2023/02/15/could-chinas-social-credit-score/

Tate, K (2021, August 3). Coming Soon: America’s Own Social Credit System. The Hill. https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/565860-coming-soon-americas-own-social-credit-system/