Phone Has Social Credit. We Just Lie About It
8 days ago
- #social credit
- #algorithmic transparency
- #behavioral tracking
- Credit scores, LinkedIn endorsements, Uber ratings, and other metrics are forms of social credit that track and score behavior.
- Social credit originally meant distributing industry profits to consumers but now refers to any metric that tracks and scores individual behavior.
- China's social credit system is often misunderstood; it's mainly focused on financial defaults and business oversight, not nationwide individual scoring.
- Western societies already have fragmented behavioral scoring systems (e.g., Uber ratings, credit scores, LinkedIn engagement) but don’t label them as social credit.
- Corporate and government behavioral tracking is converging, with platforms increasingly sharing data and influencing access to services.
- The key difference between China and the West is transparency—China admits to scoring behavior, while Western systems hide their algorithms.
- Social credit systems solve coordination problems (fraud reduction, incentives) and are likely to expand globally.
- The future question is whether behavioral scoring will be transparent and accountable or remain hidden behind 'neutral technology.'