What is Social Credit System?, How it Works, Impact, and Reasons

Hello everyone, welcome back to porkaone. On this occasion, we will discuss in full what the social credit system implemented by the Chinese government is, and how it works, what impact it has on society, and what are the reasons for the Chinese government implementing it. Let's follow the discussion below.

Social Credit System

In an effort to control the attitudes and behavior of its people, the Chinese government implements a system called the Social Credit System. The purpose of this system is to measure the eligibility of its citizens, each citizen will be given an assessment according to their respective behavior.

if their behavior is not contradictory then their score or credit will increase, and conversely if their behavior is contradictory then their score or credit will decrease. Good and bad credit scores will affect a person's life, the government will provide assistance and make life easier for those who have good credit scores, and vice versa for those who have low credit scores all matters are complicated so that the government is reluctant to provide assistance.

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The things that the Chinese government recorded from the beginning of the policy were online behavior, employment history, criminal records, expense reports and annual taxes. And so that there is no hidden dark side, about 200 million CCTVs are installed by the Chinese government in every corner of its territory.

The Chinese government has been preparing for planning and testing millions of people since 2014 and will officially run it in 2020. In 2015 eight selected private companies were recruited by the Chinese central bank to be involved, including Tencent and Alibaba. And only after 2020 will the Chinese government include all sectors and industries. Construction using a real-time monitoring system will also be carried out to monitor online activities, emissions and vehicle tracking.

Big or small actions of each person's behavior will be judged. This system requires its citizens to compete to show good behavior. This is because all aspects of their lives are highly dependent on the scores generated, such as eligibility for credit, eligibility for subsidies, access to public facilities and eligibility for investment.

How the Social Credit System Works.

With the social credit system, the Chinese government will monitor all activities carried out by its citizens in all aspects of life, both when traveling, when shopping and many other things through media such as 200 million CCTVs which are spread also through identity numbers that are directly linked to records. behavior of every citizen.

In addition to records from CCTV, records can also be obtained from direct citizen reports, expense records, social media, and much more. In order for the social credits system to be realized, the Chinese government has collaborated with several companies that are directly connected to citizens' activities. For example a bank, creditchine.gov.cn which is a site for monitoring taxation and tourist administration.

After getting data on the behavior of the community, it will then be processed and assessed whether the behavior is right or wrong by the authorities. The results of this assessment will be connected directly to the social credit system. And from these results the government can see, monitor.

Rewards and Punishments Citizens Will Receive

Rewards and punishments take many forms. Penalty sanctions are usually in the form of restrictions on movement in various matters such as purchasing airplane tickets, trains and luxury or expensive goods, renting office buildings and publishing the name of the citizen on the official government website, so that cellphone ringtones will be replaced with warnings about low social scores.

Meanwhile, prizes that are obtained because of high scores are usually in the form of all things that help aspects of the lives of these residents. For example, getting a discount on energy costs, deposits, and making it easier to find a mate through online media and dating sites.

The social credit system has a broad impact not only individually but also on the next generation of these residents. In other words, parents who have high social credit scores can easily send their children to well-known and high-quality schools or universities, whereas parents with low social credit scores will find it difficult to get an education in the best places. Indirectly, the social environment including friends with low credit social scores will also affect our lives.

China's Reasons for Adopting the Social Credit System.

The Chinese government believes that a social credit system is needed to build trust. The Chinese government's plans contained in a 2014 document explain that the social credit system "maintains trust is not valued enough, the price for destroying trust tends to be lower".

According to a researcher from the Mercator Institute For China Studies, Mareike Ohlberg, Chinese society has problems about trust. The problems can be in the form of food quality, pollution, to unpaid workers' salaries. However, according to Jing Zeng, a researcher from the University of Zurich, the government will impose sanctions on companies that do these negative things.

Samantha Hoffman, from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute said “If solving problems was the real goal, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would not need a social credit system. Because the system is designed to do only one thing, which is to enforce and expand the powers of the CCP.” Samantha also added that the social credit system is only a technology-based measure that can unite political power with social and economic development.

So this article is about the meaning of the social credit system, how it works, its effects and reasons. Hopefully useful, don't forget to comment and share this article, and see you in other cool and interesting articles.